So this is the Hillary Clinton who is a freedom fighter for poor people!!!!! I wonder if U.S. Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema who is also a self proclaimed freedom fighter for poor people has the same life style. http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/08/17/hillary-clinton-nothing-less-gulfstream-g450-and-presidential-suite-will-do For Hillary Clinton, Nothing Less Than A Gulfstream G450 And Presidential Suite Will Do By Laura Myers, Las Vegas Review Journal Hillary Rodham Clinton likes to travel in style. She insists on staying in the “presidential suite” of luxury hotels that she chooses anywhere in the world, including Las Vegas. She usually requires those who pay her six-figure fees for speeches to also provide a private jet for transportation — only a $39 million, 16-passenger Gulfstream G450 or larger will do. And she doesn’t travel alone, relying on an entourage of a couple of “travel aides,” and a couple of advance staffers who check out her speech site in the days leading up to her appearance, much like a White House trip, according to her contract and supporting documents concerning her Oct. 13 speech at a University of Nevada, Las Vegas Foundation fundraiser. The documents were obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal through the state public records law. Clinton, a former first lady, U.S. senator from New York and U.S. secretary of state, is expected to run for president in 2016. Her lifestyles of the rich and famous ways and comments that she made about her wealth during a recent book tour have fueled criticism that she’s out of touch with average Americans.
Neighbor Live-Tweeted Brown Shooting; May Be Damning Evidence Against Officer
Warning: the following post may contain disturbing photos and language
by AMANDA SHEA
A Ferguson, MO man live-tweeted the shooting death of Michael Brown last Saturday with a raw account that contradicts what police reported to the media — Brown was shot twice in the back and five times in the front, according to the witness’ tweets.
Ferguson police didn’t confirm a specific number of shots fired, but said theofficer at the center of the controversy, Darren Wilson, fired four to six times at the unarmed teen, according toNYDailyNews.
Twitter user “Bruh,” who goes by the handle @TheePharoah posted on August 9, “I JUST SAW SOMEONE DIE OMFG,” followed by a gruesome photo he snapped with his phone of Brown lying face down in the street with two officers standing over his body, just two minutes after his initial tweet.
“Its blood all over the street, n—– protesting ns—,” he wrote next. “There is police tape all over my building. I am stuck in her omg.”
Bruh provided a real perspective of the shooting that differs from that of the police as well as friends of Brown’s, noting that he heard at least seven gunshots that hit the teen with the possibility of a couple other other missed shots.
“Dude was running and the cops just shot.him. i saw him die bruh,” TheePharoah tweeted. “The first two was clear, then it was a barage of them s—-,” he said of the gunshots.
Almost three hours after Bruh’s tweet of shots fired, Brown’s body still remained in the street, “Homie still on the ground tho,” he posted.
In a public statement Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson made to the press Friday, Jackson said Wilson shot the teen after he saw the boy and a friend walking in the middle of the road. Police confirmed that moments before the fatal incident, Brown allegedly stole cigars during a strong-arm robbery at a nearby convenience store, but Wilson was unaware of this altercation at the time he shot the teen.
Time to change the political money game
Sadly that's how government works. Even if I don't agree with all of what Rod Livdahl says, he has most of it right!!!
Of course if you ask me the system is broken and impossible to fix. I think Thomas Jefferson was right when he said
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.Source
Letter: Time to change the political money game
Posted: Thursday, August 7, 2014 3:45 am
Letter to the Editor
And so it begins: another silly season when we will be assaulted by misleading, deceptive, out-of-context and sometimes just plain deceitful political advertising from those who believe they know what’s best for us voters!
They will try to impress us with their colorful campaign signs plastered with endorsements from various groups or individuals, and they will talk a good game when the camera is on. They will try to convince us that they can make everything better by simply cutting taxes and regulations, and business will come flooding over our borders like Nicaraguan and Haitian refugees, exploding our state and federal economies as incomes rise across the board and poverty becomes a distant memory. Yet the rich keep getting richer while the majority of Americans continue to struggle dearly!
And now the Supreme Court has granted these very well-to-do Americans permission to finish buying our Congress so they can assure themselves of being totally free of government regulation and able to enjoy every possible tax break, incentive, write-off and no-bid government contract.
Stereotype? Or fact?
After 35 years, I’m sick of watching our elected officials fill their bellies at the government feed trough for 10 or 12 years, then retire to a healthy government pension, subsidized health care, maybe write a book and make $5,000 speeches. Or better yet, get a job as a lobbyist for a highly profitable corporation who wants you to use your influence in Congress to get favorable legislation passed by handing out huge amounts of money disguised as “campaign contributions.”
Don’t you think it’s about time we remember we live in a democracy where what’s best for the 90 percent is just as important, if not more important, than what’s important to the top 10 percent?
But how can we compete against the wealth of billionaires and corporate America? Quite simply, we can’t with the way the Supreme Court has recently rigged the political money game in their favor! Do you really believe the mega bank accounts of billionaires like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers give them any more right in a democracy to determine who is elected than “We the People” do?
I’m sure you know democracy would be far better served if we returned to publicly funded elections with strict overall time and spending limits applied to each type of elective office. Higher limits for presidential and congressional elections and lower limits for state elections. This will ensure we see far less negative advertising and more positive plans to address the many needs of our nation of over 300 million people. A further step of establishing a temporary commission in each state to review all advertising by individual politicians or associated groups to verify there is “truth in advertising” would go along way toward restoring faith in our broken political system!
Viva democracy!
Rod Livdahl
Mesa
Mother of woman shot by Phoenix officer questions tactics
Remember if a loved one is behaving weirdly and threatening suicide, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER call the police. The trigger happy pigs may murder your loved one like they did here to Michelle Cusseaux or in Mesa when they murdered 15 year old Mario Madrigal Jr.
Mother of woman shot by Phoenix officer questions tactics
Dozens of people protested outside Phoenix City Hall demanding answers in the police shooting of a Maryvale woman
D.S. Woodfill, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:02 p.m. MST August 16, 2014
Relatives of a woman who was fatally shot by a Phoenix police officer on Thursday are asking why such lethal use of force was necessary.
Michelle Cusseaux, 50, was shot at her apartment at Clarendon and 55th avenues after she threatened a police offer and three other officers with a hammer, authorities said. The officers said they were serving a court order to transport the woman to an in-patient mental-health facility at the request of her mother when the woman met them at the door with a hammer.
The officer who shot her has been with the department 19 years. He has been placed on paid leave [translation from government double speak - he gets a paid vacation for murdering Michelle Cusseaux], as is protocol in police shootings, while detectives investigate the incident.
Frances Garrett, Cusseaux's 71-year-old mother, who lives in California, said her daughter had a serious mental illness. Serious mental illness is defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a mental, behavioral or emotional disorder that limits a person's ability to function normally. Garrett said her daughter had bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and other illnesses.
Garrett asked an employee from Southwest Behavioral Health Services, which gets funding from the state's Behavioral Health Ser- vices Division, to place her daughter in an in- patient care facility after the employee said she was exhibiting threatening behavior.
About 40 minutes later, Garrett said, her daughter's neighbor called her and said the encounter between police and Cusseaux was escalating.
Garrett said the neighbors described the events to her as they unfolded and "they heard them say, 'Drop the hammer, drop your hammer,' and then they heard the gunshot."
"I can't believe this," she said at a protest Saturday at City Hall that was organized by local activists, the Rev. Jarrett Maupin and Lauryn Mangum.
"I'm asking for help for my daughter, who has a mental issue, and ... the help ended her life. That's hard to believe."
Michelle Cusseaux’s mother says she tried to get her daughter mental health help, but it ended with police shooting her.
Garrett said she doesn't feel that the police came prepared to deal with a mentally ill person. [That's rubbish!!! The cops are 100% prepared!!! Of course the police are prepared to kill anyone they view as even a trivial threat to themselves. This case is identical to the case of 15 year old Mario Madrigal Jr. was murdered by the Mesa police for the same reason]
"They knew where they were going," she said. "They knew (who) they were going to work with — a person with a mental illness. You don't come with guns drawn, guns at her door. I'm sure it frightened her." [Wrong lady, the police who pretend to protect and server us knew perfectly well what they were doing. They were going to murder Michelle Cusseaux if she gave them the least bit of trouble. And they did murder Michelle Cusseaux.]
Department officials did not return requests for an interview on Saturday.
Kevina Devereaux, Cusseaux's niece, said her aunt was only ever a threat to herself.
"They had different accounts (of what happened)," she said. "She raised the hammer outside the door. But (they) actually came inside her house and shot her."
"What are the policies and procedures of dealing with a mentally ill person? If you don't have those, then you (shouldn't) deal with them, because any type of situation can happen when dealing with someone who's not all the way there."
She said she wants department officials to explain why the officer drew and fired at her aunt.
"You're supposed to help her," she said. "How did she get killed in this process? That's all we want are answers and somebody to be held accountable."
Fruit Lunch at Papago Park
How local police forces got outfitted for warfare
How local police forces got outfitted for warfare
Think of it as a government welfare program for the corporations in the military industrial complex that manufacturer and sell the tools of the trade for the military.
How local police forces got outfitted for warfare
Jaxon Van Derbeken
Updated 7:36 am, Sunday, August 17, 2014
The paramilitary hardware that police in Missouri deployed against demonstrators angered by an officer's killing of an unarmed black teenager has become commonplace in police departments in the Bay Area and around the country, thanks to billions of dollars in homeland security money and surplus military equipment that the federal government has showered on communities.
Big-city police departments have long had riot gear, shields and even lightly armored vehicles to deal with unrest. What has changed in recent years is the volume of military equipment finding its way to smaller, suburban police agencies like the ones that confronted protesters last week in Ferguson, Mo.
The federal programs that delivered heavy weaponry and armored vehicles to police there are the same ones that allowed the Alameda County Sheriff's Office to obtain a decommissioned Coast Guard cutter. They enabled Concord police to acquire an armored personnel carrier that the U.S. military once used in Kuwait.
'A rescue vehicle'
Police in South San Francisco, Vallejo, San Jose, Napa and Antioch now have specially reinforced armored personnel carriers like those that carried U.S. troops in battle areas in Afghanistan and Iraq, courtesy of a Pentagon program that distributes surplus war equipment to cities around the country.
Officials stress that the equipment is to protect officers, not to run roughshod over civilians.
"We call ours a rescue vehicle. It is something we use where we need to rescue a downed officer or citizens," said South San Francisco police Chief Mike Massoni, explaining why his department obtained a mine-resistant ambush-protected carrier for northern San Mateo County's regional SWAT team.
Critics, however, say the influx of military equipment threatens civil liberties and is turning America into an armed camp. They point to images in Ferguson, where officers deployed assault weapons and armored vehicles - some obtained from the Pentagon's war surplus program - when confronting protesters angered by the police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
'Broader trend'
"What we saw in Ferguson is not a new phenomenon, but it reflects a broader trend," said Kara Dansky, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who wrote a recent report critical of U.S. police use of military tactics and equipment.
Many police agencies, she said, now rely too heavily on military equipment and tactics in poor and minority communities.
"It comes down to the kind of policing we want to have," Dansky said. "I think that people were surprised to see it because (their local law enforcement agencies) haven't been policing their communities in the same way."
Since the 1990s, authorities across the U.S. have been able to obtain billions of dollars worth of materiel - everything from drones to tanks - through the Defense Department's "1033" program. They can also seek the grants from the Department of Homeland Security that have flowed freely to local agencies since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Last year alone, the Defense Department's law enforcement support arm dispensed close to $450 million in surplus equipment - mostly materiel and not weapons - to 8,000 agencies.
Senate scrutiny
But the program has come under fire. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, noted Friday that Congress created the program in the 1990s "out of real concern that local law enforcement agencies were literally outgunned by drug criminals. We intended this equipment to keep police officers and their communities safe from heavily armed drug gangs and terrorist incidents."
He said in a statement that his committee would look at whether the Pentagon was still using the program as intended.
Jody Armour, a University of Southern California law professor specializing in police use of force, said the danger is that aggressive use of military-style equipment could undo the progress many departments have made through community-based policing, in which officers work to establish bonds and solve problems with the people on their beats.
He said many Americans may not have concerned themselves with increased police use of "military trappings," since the growth has coincided with a drop in crime.
"What we have (in Ferguson) is kind of a wake-up call," Armour said. "Nobody likes to see how sausage is made."
Armour said it's tough for smaller departments to resist the offer of free weaponry. "How are you going to say no to high-powered ammunition, vehicles and the like, when the government is offering this gratis?" he said.
Unintimidating
Not all the equipment distributed to police in the Bay Area could be used in confrontations with drug suspects or demonstrators. The Alameda County Sheriff's Office obtained its 85-foot former Coast Guard cutter in 2005 as part of the Pentagon's surplus program and uses it for marine patrols at the Port of Oakland and near the airport. Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a sheriff's spokesman, conceded that the agency doesn't use the cutter often. But "when you need it, it's perfect," he said.
Other towns have also found few occasions to deploy their military equipment. In Concord, police have used their South African-made Mamba armored personnel carrier only once since obtaining it from the Pentagon in 2012 - to approach an armed man who had holed up in a house after being wounded in a confrontation with officers.
"We used Mamba to drive up close to him and take him into custody," said Concord Police Chief Guy Swanger. "The goal is to resolve situations safely, in lieu of our officers' being exposed."
He added, "For the purposes of an urban police force, or a suburban police force like Concord, it is strictly there for officer safety and hostage recue situations." Kids love it
Mostly, he said, the military vehicle has starred at community gatherings such as the Fourth of July celebration. "We have it in parades, we have kids crawling all over it, taking pictures with their parents - we allow kids to sit up in it," the chief said.
"I think the community has embraced the use of it," Swanger said. "They know why we have it."
Ben Tisa, a use-of-force expert who retired from the FBI in 1995 and now teaches law enforcement tactics involving armored vehicles, said police once used converted bakery trucks or bank armored cars to transport SWAT teams. Now, he said, the key to effective use of the new vehicles - many hardened against explosives- is restraint.
In crowd control, "sometimes the vehicle may be a forceful presence" and "an intimidation platform to deliver" tear gas, Tisa said. Holding in reserve
But, he said, the agency needs to understand how such a high-profile move will be perceived in a tense situation.
"It could be seen by the crowd if it is deployed right up at the line" as inflaming the situation, Tisa said. "Sometimes it is better held in reserve so it is not an up-in-your face response."
Richmond police Chief Chris Magnus agreed that keeping armored vehicles "behind the scenes and out of sight" is prudent.
"When you put everything out there, it really almost sends the message that you're looking for trouble," he said. "I get the argument that you're trying to send the message that you're not going to tolerate that behavior. But unfortunately, it also sends the message that you're looking to take some form of more aggressive action."
San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Henry K. Lee contributed to this report. Jaxon Van Derbeken is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com
Remember when somebody for the first time video taped the LAPD beating the living sh*t out of Rodney King. The cops told us it was an isolated incident and would never happen again. Before it was recorded on tape the cops told us that cop haters made all that stuff up and cops never abused people. Of course now on a daily basis people video tape the police beating the living sh*t out of innocent people. The cops no longer tell us it's an isolated indecent that will never happen again, but instead come up with a bunch of lame excuses to justify the racist, sadistic, criminal behavior of the cops that pretend to protect us. And sadly the criminal injustice system lets the police get away with this sadistic, evil criminal behavior. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/15/ferguson-police-broke-the-law-when-they-stopped-civilians-from-videotaping-them-and-theyre-just-the-latest/?hpid=z11 Ferguson police broke the law when they stopped civilians from videotaping them Filming police is the American thing to do. By Paul Butler August 15 Paul Butler is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. A former trial attorney with the United States Department of Justice, he is the author of Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice. For decades, civil rights activists have struggled to hold rogue police officers more accountable. Claims of excessive force, racial profiling, and illegal arrests were hard to prove. In the rare cases when prosecutors brought charges against errant police officers, jurors often did not convict. “The police were just doing their job” has been a common refrain. But we’ve discovered we’re now holding one of the most powerful tools for social activism in our purses and back pockets. Last year, for the first time, the majority of Americans (56 percent) owned smart phones, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. That was a landmark development with great consequences for criminal justice and citizen oversight of law enforcement. There’s been a power shift in favor of everyday citizens and it’s being recorded on iPhones and Androids – then Facebooked, tweeted and Instagrammed. Now all the world has seen how a few bad cops do their job. This summer, ordinary citizens have put those phones to good work. They have allowed us to see a New York City police officer put Eric Garner in an illegal choke-hold. We saw Marlene Pinnock, a 51-year-old grandmother, get held down and punched in the face 10 times by a California Highway Patrol officer. And then there’s Ferguson, Mo. We have seen how the police responded to people who, in the main, peacefully protested the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man. We saw the police, using assault rifles, rubber bullets, tanks, tear gas, and smoke bombs, wage a “shock and awe” campaign seemingly out of the Operation Desert Storm playbook. The world witnessed these outrages, in part, because citizens had the courage to videotape what the police were doing. It takes guts because bad cops don’t like being caught on tape and, in some recent cases, they’ve gone after the photographer. Police in Petersburg, Va. stormed the porch of a young man taping an arrest in his front yard, causing a violent confrontation. Nearby months later, a teenager said police assaulted him for filming a police arrest, too. Then this week in Ferguson, police arrested — on drummed up allegations that they were never charged for — Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery and Huffington Post reporter Ryan Reilly when they were videotaping the cops. The law is simple, and it is entirely on the side of the citizen photographers. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right of anyone to record police in a public place. The police can place reasonable restrictions on photographers by, for example, not allowing them to enter a crime scene. But they cannot stop people from standing on the street and filming them while they make arrests, detain suspects, or otherwise enforce the law. If the police see you filming, they cannot force you to turn over your camera. They cannot make you delete what you have filmed. Of course, they can ask you to do any of these things — and the police are very good at making requests sound like orders. But all you have to do is say something like “Officer, I refuse to consent to you to look at my photos.” Then you have the constitutional right to be left alone. It takes guts to record the police, even if it is perfectly legal. As I often tell my law students, the Bill of Rights is not for wimps. But think of it as an act of patriotism. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed, in 2011, the right to video-record the police. The Court stated “Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting ‘the free discussion of governmental affairs.’” Police should support these efforts. Cameras improve working conditions for the majority of police officers who are hard-working and law-abiding. In jurisdictions where police cars are equipped with dashboard cameras, police misconduct complaints have gone down – along with the taxpayer expenditures to settle them. That’s partly why Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier has recommend a pilot program in which D.C. officers will wear body cameras. She sees it as a win-win, protecting cops as much as civilians. The police will have evidence for their cases, and citizens will have evidence when they allege mistreatment. It also can address complaints about discourteous treatment by police – rude conduct or abusive language. Officers say some citizens don’t treat them very well either. Knowing a camera is running should make everyone nicer. The next time you see the police doing something that concerns you, don’t just get mad. Take out your phone and make a recording. Think of it as the American thing to do. More on PostEverything: What caused the Ferguson riot exists in so many other cities, too Michael Brown: Yet another reminder that police see even unarmed black people as thugs I watched Israeli police beat my American cousin.
I was shocked when I found out that wheelchairs can cost $5,000. My initial guess was that the high cost was because the government got into the business of helping people get wheelchairs. This article seems to say my guess may have been right. "Let me put it to you this way: An $840 power wheelchair, Medicare pays close to $5,000 for." If you want to screw up anything, get govenrment involved in it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2014/08/16/a-medicare-scam-that-just-kept-rolling/?hpid=z1 A Medicare scam that just kept rolling The government has paid billions to buy power wheelchairs. It has no idea how many of the claims are bogus. Written by David A. Fahrenthold Published on August 16, 2014 LOS ANGELES — In the little office where they ran the scam, a cellphone would ring on Sonia Bonilla’s desk. That was the sound of good news: Somebody had found them a patient. When Bonilla answered the phone, one of the scam’s professional “patient recruiters” would read off the personal data of a senior citizen. Name. DOB. Medicare ID number. Bonilla would hang up and call Medicare, the enormous federal health-insurance program for those over 65. She asked a single question: Had the government ever bought this patient a power wheelchair? No? Then the scam was off and running. “If they did not have one, they would be taken to the doctor, so the doctor could prescribe a chair for them,” Bonilla recalled. On a log sheet, Bonilla would make a note that the recruiter was owed an $800 finder’s fee. “They were paid for each chair.” This summer, in a Los Angeles courtroom, Bonilla described the workings of a peculiar fraud scheme that — starting in the mid-1990s — became one of the great success stories in American crime. The sucker in this scheme was the U.S. government. That wasn’t the peculiar part. The tool of the crime was the motorized wheelchair. The wheelchair scam was designed to exploit blind spots in Medicare, which often pays insurance claims without checking them first. Criminals disguised themselves as medical-supply companies. They ginned up bogus bills, saying they’d provided expensive wheelchairs to Medicare patients — who, in reality, didn’t need wheelchairs at all. Then the scammers asked Medicare to pay them back, so they could pocket the huge markup that the government paid on each chair. A lot of the time, Medicare was fooled. The government paid. Since 1999, Medicare has spent $8.2 billion to procure power wheelchairs and “scooters” for 2.7 million people. Today, the government cannot even guess at how much of that money was paid out to scammers. Now, the golden age of the wheelchair scam is probably over. But, while it lasted, the scam illuminated a critical failure point in the federal bureaucracy: Medicare’s weak defenses against fraud. The government knew how the wheelchair scheme worked in 1998. But it wasn’t until 15 years later that officials finally did enough to significantly curb the practice. “If you play it right, you can make a lot of money quickly, stealing from Medicare,” said James Quiggle, of the nonprofit Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, recounting the lesson of the past decade and a half. “You can walk into the United States, with limited English skills, no knowledge of medicine, and — if you hook up with the right people, that know how to play the system like a Stradivarius — you can become an overnight millionaire.” Con artists have defrauded the American taxpayer for millions. Sadly, it’s not that hard. Here’s what they did. (David Fahrenthold, Osman Malik, and Gabe Silverman) ‘I said I didn’t need it’ In the courtroom in Los Angeles, 42-year-old Olufunke Fadojutimi was on trial. Prosecutors alleged she’d run a wheelchair-scam operation out of an office-park suite in suburban Carson, Calif. As these scams go, this one was medium-sized. It billed Medicare for about 1,000 power wheelchairs. “I said I didn’t need it,” witness Heriberto Cortez, 73, testified on the stand. Cortez was recalling the day when a stranger — allegedly one of Fadojutimi’s patient recruiters — came to his house and offered him a wheelchair. He said no. She didn’t listen. “She insisted,” Cortez said. “She said that they were giving the chairs away.” Later in the trial, 71-year-old Rodolfo Fernandez testified that a woman showed up at his house in Los Angeles. The woman asked if he was on Medicare. He was. The next day, she came back with a van. Other seniors were already inside. “They took us to a clinic. They did an exam on us,” Fernandez recalled, translated speaking through a Spanish interpreter. Authorities said the doctor at this clinic was in on the scam, too. He was paid to find the same problems, every time. The patient was too weak to use a cane. Or a walker. Or even a non-motorized wheelchair. Only a motorized wheelchair would do. Instead of making lame men walk, the doctor’s job was to make walking men lame — at least on paper. A surge in power wheelchairs and scooters paid for by Medicare Since 1999, Medicare has spent $8.2 billion to procure power wheelchairs and scooters for 2.7 million people. Today, the federal government does not know how much of that money was actually paid to scammers. Source: U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services In his testimony, Fernandez noted that the clinic was in a second-floor walk-up. “I had to climb the stairs,” Fernandez said, in order for the doctor to proclaim him unfit to climb stairs. After seeing the doctor, prosecutors said, both Cortez and Fernandez got power wheelchairs from Fadojutimi’s company. The company then sent Medicare the bills. Medicare paid. Today, Cortez’s wheelchair sits in his garage, still wrapped in plastic from the factory. Fernandez’s wheelchair is occupied by an enormous stuffed animal wearing a Los Angeles Lakers hat. “I put my little teddy bear on top of it,” Fernandez said, as jurors smiled at a photo of the bear in the chair. An overwhelmed system Fraud in Medicare has been a top concern in Washington for decades, in part because the program’s mistakes are so expensive. In fiscal 2013, for instance, Medicare paid out almost $50 billion in “improper payments.” These were bills that, upon further reflection, contained mistakes and should not have been paid. No one knows how much of that money was actually lost to fraud, and how much of it was caused by innocent errors. The power-wheelchair scam provided a painful and expensive example of why Medicare fraud works so often. The fault lay partly with Congress, which designed this system to be fast and generous. And it lay partly with Medicare bureaucrats — who were slow to recognize the threat and use the powers they had to stop it. As a result, scammers took advantage of a system that was overwhelmed by its own claims and lacked the manpower and money to check most of those claims before it paid. The scheme first appeared in the mid-1990s in Miami — a city whose mix of elderly people and professional scammers has always made it the DARPA of Medicare fraud, where bad ideas begin. “The patients would be walking,” said one former Justice Department official, recalling investigations from that time. “And they’d have the wheelchair, a $2,500 wheelchair, sitting in the corner with stacks of [stuff] on it. And [investigators] would say, ‘Why do you have this?’ And they would say, ‘They told me I could have this, so I took it.’ ” Fraudsters, they were learning, had invented a new twist on an old trick: the Medicare equipment scam. The original equipment scam had sprung up in the 1970s, at a time when Medicare was young and criminals were still learning how to steal its money. Doctors, for example, could bill Medicare for exams they didn’t do. Hospitals could bill for tests that patients didn’t need. The equipment scam was the poor man’s way in, an entry-level fraud that didn’t require a medical degree or a hospital. Instead, the crooks only had to set up a “medical equipment” company and get access to the Medicare system. Then, they needed to learn a simple scheme, in which the fraudster would run the normal order of medical decision-making in reverse. A legitimate medical-supply company, of course, must wait for a patient to see a doctor, then come looking for somebody to fill a prescription. But a fraudster starts with a prescription he wants to fill. Then he goes looking for a patient and a doctor to foist it on. By the 1990s, fraudsters had already perfected parts of this equipment scam. To find the patients, for instance, they had learned to use professional recruiters, called “marketers” or “cappers.” These recruiters induced seniors to hand over their Medicare ID numbers. Sometimes, they just paid the patients a bribe. Other times, they talked them into giving the number up free. The government is offering free wheelchairs, but only for a limited time. If you don’t act now . . . Most fraudsters had also learned to buy off a doctor or two, paying a set price for each bogus prescription. But some had also perfected a cheaper method. They corrupted dead doctors instead. “The Russian mob up in Brooklyn has been doing this for years. . . . They scour the obits. They find out when Doctor Morris has died. They immediately write to Medicare and they say, ‘Hi, I’m Doctor Morris, and I’m changing my address,' ” said Lewis Morris, a former top official at the Department of Health and Human Services’ office of the inspector general. If it works, the dead doctor’s mail is delivered to the live crook. Including paperwork with the doctor’s Medicare ID number. “So the new Doctor Morris, Sammy Scumbag, starts writing scrip in the name of Doctor Morris,” Morris said. Recent reforms have lessened this problem. The payoff of this whole scheme came when a scammer sent Medicare a bill. The bill would say that the bought-off doctor had prescribed some piece of equipment to the bought-off (or hoodwinked) patient. The fraudster would say that he had supplied that thing. Now, he wanted Medicare to pay its share — usually, 80 percent of the price tag. But what was the best kind of equipment to use? Heriberto Cortez testified in the trial of Olufunke Fadojutimi that he told one of Fadojutimi’s patient recruiters he didn’t need a motorized wheelchair. “She insisted,” Cortez said. (J. Emilio Flores for The Washington Post) This was the piece of the scam that wasn’t perfect yet. Through the ’80s and ’90s, scammers had tried orthopedic braces. Oxygen tanks. Electric nerve-stimulation kits. Prosthetic limbs. Everything had a downside. The items that didn’t arouse suspicions (like diabetes test strips) were often too cheap to make much money from. And the real big-ticket items (like limbs) attracted too much attention if you billed them by the hundreds. Then they discovered the power wheelchair. And it was perfect. “Let me put it to you this way: An $840 power wheelchair, Medicare pays close to $5,000 for. So there’s a huge profit margin there. Huge,” said one California man who participated in a recent fraud scheme involving wheelchairs. Medicare used to set its payments for most power wheelchairs based on manufacturers’ suggested retail prices. It did not lower those prices significantly for years, even when it was obvious that wholesale prices were far, far lower. So for scammers, each wheelchair brought a hefty profit. And the chairs were also good for evading authorities’ attention. A wheelchair was supposed to treat a condition — trouble with mobility — that was a heck of a lot easier to fake than a missing arm. “You don’t have to do [expletive], and make a [expletive]-load of money,” the California fraudster said, summing up the scam’s appeal in a single profane sentence. He asked not to be identified, spoke on the condition of anonymity because his court case is still pending. “I would say there’s almost no hassle at all.” Photographic evidence In the courtroom in Los Angeles, another member of Fadojutimi’s operation — office manager Maritza Velasquez — was testifying. She said her husband drove the delivery truck, delivering real wheelchairs to the scam’s bogus patients. She said he would actually take pictures at each stop — the chair and the person together — to keep in their files as proof of receipt. Legally, this was not a great idea. Mainly because many of the photos showed recipients standing up. Right next to the chair that Medicare had bought them because they couldn’t stand up. “There was a guy who was actually in work clothes, like construction clothes, with cement kneepads,” Velasquez said, recalling one photo. He been out doing hard manual labor. “So that was . . .” — Velasquez paused on the stand, looking for the right word — “different.” $20,000 in one day In the early 2000s, the wheelchair scam spread from Miami to Houston. There, it exploded. In 2001, for example, Medicare had paid for only 3,000 power wheelchairs in the county that includes Houston. In 2002, it paid for 31,000. “I was told that I could make a quick 200 bucks. And basically I went up there and I made like $800” on the first day, said Lorine Hawthorne, of Houston. She had been recruited as a marketer for a Houston scam in those go-go days, finding elderly people and delivering them to a handpicked clinic. “The most I ever made in one day, probably, was like $20,000,” she said. “That’s a lot of money for one day.” Hawthorne pleaded guilty to one count of fraud in 2005. From Houston, the scam spread out: to Louisiana, to Arkansas, to California. Nationwide, Medicare saw a sharp spike in wheelchair claims. Before the fraud had taken off, the chairs were rare: One study estimated that in 1994, only 1 in 9,000 beneficiaries got a new wheelchair. By 2000, it was 1 in 479. By 2001, it was 1 in 362. By 2002, it was 1 in 242. And beyond the simple increase in wheelchair claims, there were other signs that these claims might be bogus. Before the scam took off, for example, power-wheelchair prescriptions were usually written for patients with serious and advanced illnesses such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease. But as the scam grew, that changed. “Many more of the diagnoses were things where you sort of go, ‘What?’ ” said James Goodwin, a University of Texas medical school professor. Looking in Medicare’s own data, he saw a rise in power wheelchairs prescribed for more common conditions such as arthritis and back pain. “It becomes a very, very strong picture, strongly suggesting there’s a lot of abuse going on there.” As early as 1998, Medicare had recognized the existence of the wheelchair scam with a national “fraud alert.” But, to front-line fraud investigators, it was obvious that the crooks were still getting their claims paid. The power wheelchair scam A federal government crackdown on Medicare fraud has weakened medical supply companies' ability to receive large profits from filling power wheelchair prescriptions. The lucrative scam overbilled the federal spending program for more than a decade and it is unknown how much money was actually paid out. Here's how the crime worked: Patient recruiter found a patient A patient recruiter called a "capper" found a potential power-wheelchair patient by visiting individual homes, nursing facilities or community centers for seniors. The capper gave a senior's name and Medicare number to a medical supply company involved in the scam. The medical supplier confirmed with Medicare that a power wheelchair had not been previously paid for and provided to the patient. Sources: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, HHS Office of Inspector General “An agent in Little Rock witnessed a scooter race in one of the neighborhoods. Old people. One of them had attached an ice chest to it,” said Mike Fields, a fraud investigator at the Department of Health and Human Services (A “scooter” is a less expensive kind of powered chair, also heavily used in frauds.) “It just gets your blood up, you know. Knowing how much we’d paid for them.” But for Medicare officials at headquarters, seeing the problem and stopping it were two different things. That’s because Medicare is an enormous system, doing one of the most difficult jobs in the federal government. It receives about 4.9 million claims per day, each of them reflecting the nuances of a particular patient’s condition and particular doctor’s treatment decisions. By law, Medicare must pay most of those claims within 30 days. In that short window, it is supposed to filter out the frauds, finding bills where the diagnosis or the prescription seem bogus. The way the system copes is with a procedure called “pay and chase.” Only a small fraction of claims — 3 percent or less — are reviewed by a live person before they are paid. The rest are reviewed only after the money is spent. If at all. The whole thing is set up as a kind of honor system, built at the heart of a system so rich that it made it easy for people to be dishonorable. “The thing had been set up to pay the claims of Dr. Marcus Welby, M.D., and it was very good at doing that,” said Ted Doolittle, a former top Medicare fraud-control expert. Marcus Welby, a kindly and honest doctor, was the protagonist of a 1970s TV show. The wheelchair scam, Doolittle said, hit the system in “a big, undefended underbelly.” Starting in 2003, Medicare officials started trying to stop the wheelchair scams by changing their rules. That was the beginning of a long — and one-sided — game of cat and mouse. The officials always thought they’d done enough. The scammers were always a step ahead. In 2004, for instance, Medicare started to require that any doctor who prescribed a power wheelchair actually had to see the patient, in person. For the scammers, that was a new obstacle. But not a big one. They just had their corrupt doctors see patients in person. Then, in 2007, the government began a legal crackdown. It began a “strike force” of prosecutors, who targeted equipment fraud in problem cities. They nailed some of the most egregious wheelchair scammers. But the courts could only handle a relatively small number of scammers, so prosecutors tended to choose the most obvious fraud operations. The smarter, steadier operations didn’t stand out, and survived. “Not only greedy, but stupid. Those are the ones we catch,” said Malcolm Sparrow, a professor at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government who has studied Medicare fraud. “We’re mostly getting people who didn’t finish high school, who’ve stolen more than $10 million in three months. Those are the ones we get. And you know the clever people are just invisible.” So despite these efforts, the scam churned on. In 2012, about 219,000 people got a wheelchair from Medicare. That was 1 in 235 beneficiaries: After a decade in which Medicare tried to make these chairs harder to get, people were getting them at about the same rate as in 2002. So why didn’t Medicare do even more to stop the wheelchair scam? The answer seems to be that — in the huge universe of Medicare’s money — this big scam was still not that big. Last year, for instance, power wheelchairs accounted for just 2 percent of Medicare’s equipment spending. Which accounted for just 3 percent of Medicare’s $248 billion outpatient spending (called “part B”). “Even though power wheelchairs was sort of the big gorilla in the room of [equipment fraud], it was still a tiny little gorilla, in comparison to the rest of Medicare,” said John Warren, who worked in Medicare’s anti-fraud office between 2005 and 2007. Also, he said, Medicare was always reluctant to clamp down too much on wheelchairs, for fear that it would backlog the system and keep legitimate wheelchair patients from getting their chairs. “Looking back, I think we did pretty good,” Warren said. ‘This is not about stealing. This is fraud.’ In the Los Angeles trial, prosecutors said that Fadojutimi’s operation ran for six years. It adapted to the requirement that doctors see patients in person. It stayed below the radar well enough to avoid the strike-force crackdown. In fact, it shut down on its own after Medicare started giving its claims special scrutiny. By the time the scam wrapped up in 2010, prosecutors said, it had taken in about $4.3 million from Medicare. Later, however, fraud investigators stumbled upon the operation. And when they started looking, the scam unraveled quickly. For one thing, Velasquez had saved pages from the “marketer log,” which the scam used to track which recruiters had brought in which patients. That was, in effect, a running diary of a criminal conspiracy. Government’s Exhibit 25. “When the government is presenting its case, you might be inclined to say, ‘Wow! She’s guilty,’ ” Fadojutimi’s defense attorney, Femi Banjo, told the jury during his opening statement. His only play was to make the best of a bad situation, urging them to keep an open mind. Prosecutors in a fraud case in Los Angeles submitted as evidence photos of motorized wheelchairs that were delivered to Rodolfo Fernandez and Joyce Journagin as part of an alleged Medicare scam. Neither recipient needs a wheelchair. Fernandez testified that the clinic where he was examined and prescribed the wheelchair was located in a second-floor walk-up. “I had to climb the stairs,” he said. Banjo also told the jury that he objected to something a prosecutor had said: that Fadojutimi’s wheelchair operation had “stolen” money from the government. “This is not about stealing,” Banjo said, trying to draw a moral distinction. “This is fraud.” After a five-day trial, jurors found Fadojutimi guilty on all seven counts of health-care fraud, plus one count of conspiracy and one count of money laundering. She is awaiting her sentence. A scam’s slow death In the past few years, at last, the government says it has outsmarted the wheelchair scammers. For one thing, Medicare began using competitive-bidding processes to lower what it paid for wheelchairs. The total spending on wheelchairs and scooters — which had reached as high as $964 million in 2003 — fell to $190 million last year. It also required wheelchairs to be given out on a rent-to-own basis, instead of paid for all upfront. That gave more time to check if the claim was bogus. And in 2012, Medicare also made a crucial change in the way it handled wheelchair claims. Now, in 19 states, the government reviews all wheelchair bills before it pays them. Finally, last year the feds went after the Scooter Store. That company had become famous for its commercials telling seniors: “Your power chair will be paid in full.” In 2007, the store had already been fined for fraudulent practices, which included billing Medicare for power wheelchairs that patients did not want or need. Last year, as part of a new investigation, federal agents with a search warrant raided the Scooter Store headquarters in New Braunfels, Texas. No new criminal charges have been brought. But Medicare was still concerned enough to cut off funding to the Scooter Store. It was a death sentence. The business, heavily dependent on federal payments, shut down last fall. Last year, about 124,000 people got power wheelchairs from Medicare. That was the lowest total since 2001, equivalent to one for every 400 beneficiaries. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, when officials go back to try to figure out what the scammers stole, they get mired in an unholy bureaucratic mess. When officials review old wheelchair bills, they discover that at least 80 percent of them were “improper”: They contain major errors and shouldn’t have been paid as is. Perhaps the patient’s diagnosis didn’t actually qualify for a power wheelchair. Perhaps the paperwork was incomplete. How many of those bills were sent in by fraudsters, trying to squeeze through the system’s blind spots? Medicare can’t say. “You’d have to talk to the patient. You’d have to talk to the providers” and ask if the wheelchair was really needed, said Shantanu Agarwal, a doctor who is Medicare’s top fraud fighter. “And then, at the end of it, you could make a reasonable, fact-based, experienced-based determination about whether this is probably fraud,” Agarwal said. Medicare doesn’t have the time or money to do that for power wheelchairs now. Today, even while the wheelchair scam is in decline, that same “pay and chase” system is allowing other variants of the Medicare equipment scam to thrive. They aren’t perfect. But they work. In Brooklyn, for instance, the next big thing is shoe inserts. Scammers bill Medicare for a $500 custom-made orthotic, according to investigators. They give the patient a $30 Dr. Scholl’s. In Puerto Rico, the next big thing seems to be arms and legs. In one case there, two dozen companies billed Medicare for $5.3 million in prosthetic legs inside of a year. In many cases, their “patients” had no record of amputations in their medical history. Many of them didn’t even live in Puerto Rico. But Medicare paid for the legs. Alice Crites in Washington contributed to this report.
If you ask me government colleges should get out of the entertainment business and stick to educating the kids. And if you go back in the years college sports started out not to make money for the universities, but to provide entertainment and fun for the STUDENTS that participated in them. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/08/14/ncaa-sports-reform/14087733/ Common thread in college sports reforms? Money Editorial board, The Republic | azcentral.com 9:05 p.m. MST August 15, 2014 Our View: Bigger colleges and universities soon may be offering "stipends" and improved medical coverage to athletes. The groundswell for reforms on behalf of college student-athletes has been building for years. The NCAA board of directors this month responded to that groundswell, giving preliminary approval to dramatic — and dramatically expensive — changes to the rules governing college sports. Some of the reforms are financial. College athletics, particularly Division I football and men's basketball, can be incredibly lucrative enterprises — especially for the 65 universities comprising the nation's five wealthiest athletic conferences. In one way or another, reformers have been demanding the young athletes get a cut of that ever-growing revenue. The growing consensus among the nation's bigger universities is that students should be provided more lucrative scholarships, as well as a "stipend." In early August the NCAA approved offering an annual stipend of $2,000 to each athlete. Some proposals have been therapeutic. AZCENTRAL Sweeping NCAA reforms could cost ASU, UA Health-care coverage provided by universities, especially for those competing in high-contact sports like football, has been inadequate for many injured athletes. Coverage of treatment for head injuries, which can require expensive medical care long after an athlete has departed college, is proving especially bad. The NCAA is proposing improving and extending medical coverage. These reforms carry a significant price tag, which brings us to the one aspect of the reform movement no one seems eager to confront: The cost. The NCAA board has yet to determine how much these student-athlete reforms may cost the universities. But universities already are taking steps to raise the additional revenue. And, as usual, much of it will be coming from students and their parents. Arizona State University students this year will have to pay, for the first time, a $150 athletic fee, which ASU expects will bring in about $10 million a year. AZCENTRAL ASU selects architect/contractor teams for Sun Devil Stadium project While the changes may prove beneficial for top-level football and basketball players, they may not be quite as helpful to athletes in non-revenue-producing sports. Or, for that matter, those attending smaller colleges. College sports analysts fear financial pressure could price some of those sports — and perhaps some smaller colleges — out of the market. The changes don't end there. With money comes power. The NCAA board also approved a new self-governance structure that places unprecedented power in the hands of the representatives of the 65 Division I universities that compete in the top five conferences. Smaller universities are sensing more costs and few new benefits coming their way as a a result. For good or ill, that is the way of college sports today. That is one reason ASU is investing $225 million in a dramatically remodeled Sun Devil Stadium. All it seems to take is money. A great deal of money.
I suspect if the Founders were alive today they would tell you that Sheriff Joe is a 1000 times worse then King George was. And that they gave us the 2nd Amendment because we need to be able to protect ourselves from tyrants like Sheriff Joe. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/letters/2014/08/16/mcso-bad-record-letter/14178435/ Republic article glossed over MCSO's bad record 5:12 p.m. MST August 16, 2014 It's encouraging to see that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office may finally be improving its procedures for acquiring and tracking complaints ("MCSO sees big rise in complaints — just as it had hoped," Republic, Thursday). But for The Republic to describe the increase in the number of recorded complaints as a "result of heightened community outreach" by the MCSO whitewashes the department's long record of refusing to engage with the Latino community in a positive way. The MCSO so zealously objected to participating in court-ordered community meetings that the federal judge overseeing our racial-profiling suit against the MCSO revised his directives, instead appointing an independent monitor to facilitate the meetings and field civilian complaints. Moreover, in its limited appeal of the trial judge's order, the MCSO argued against community engagement, saying that "the constitution does not require a Sheriff elected by the voters to abide by a court's order to build public confidence, engage in community outreach, dialogue with community leaders, or inform the public of the justifications for his law enforcement operations." And last October, when the MCSO flexed its muscle in defiance of the court and invaded a heavily Latino neighborhood with a saturation patrol, Sheriff Joe Arpaio callously joked to TV cameras that this was his form of community outreach. While the MCSO's new efforts to collect and retain complaints are welcome, they are among the first steps in a long-overdue, much-needed process of repairing the agency's poor relationship with Latinos. I hope the MCSO follows through and investigates these complaints and makes a genuine effort to be transparent about their outcomes. — Alessandra Soler, Phoenix The writer is executive director of ACLU of Arizona
I am against the death penalty because mistakes have been made, and innocent people have been executed. And as long as we have the death penalty, mistakes will be made and innocent people will be executed in the future. Many supporters of the death penalty seem to think that it's there for them to get vengeance for the crimes the executed person committed. Of course that is an oxymoron when politicians push this rubbish that we can have a clean sterile death penalty where no one gets hurt and for the murdered person it's just like going to sleep at night. The death penalty is barbaric and the govenrment shouldn't try to make it seem anything else. Currently DNA testing has proved that over 300 people were framed for murder by corrupt cops and sentenced to death. I think that number is rapidly approaching 400, if it hasn't already pasted the 400 mark. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2014/08/13/medical-executions-joseph-rudolph-wood/14015333/ Why executions can't (and shouldn't) be sterilized Kenneth Goodman, AZ I See It 6:21 p.m. MST August 16, 2014 Ethicist: It's a ghastly mistake to think health professionals are the most appropriate agents for killing prisoners. One might think that after some 4,000 years of drafting rules to govern the death penalty, we might be able to get it right. But we can't. And as Arizona's botched, bungled and blundered execution last month of Joseph Rudolph Wood again makes clear, the notion that health professionals are most appropriate agents for killing prisoners is a sad and ghastly mistake. A society convinced it needs to kill killers is in a tight spot. The guillotine is gruesome; hanging is old-fashioned; firing squads are messy; gas chambers evoke Nazi death camps; electric chairs are macabre and have unintended consequences. (Since 1890, the only form of execution with no botched attempts is the firing squad.) The effort to "medicalize" executions emerged after a previous attempt to bring executions into the modern era, the electric chair, too often did not function as intended. In Florida, for instance, one electrocution had flames shoot from the inmate's headpiece; in another, the prisoner bled profusely from his mouth. If a murderer could be dispatched with an infusion managed by a physician, nurse, physician's assistant or emergency medical technician in a sterile environment, the process would at least look dignified. Perhaps it did, until we saw enough of them go wrong. In one case, again in Florida, Arizona's sister in making a hash of lethal injections, it took more than a half-hour of repeated needle sticks to find a suitable vein; and in another, the prisoner writhed and tried to speak during the process. The problem of finding an adequate vein is common — the record for failure is an Ohio case in which, after two hours of executioners being unable to insert an IV, the governor ordered the process halted. In some such cases, surgeons are summoned to do a "venous cutdown," in which an incision is made in the skin to expose a vein, allowing an IV to be inserted directly. Someone trained as a surgeon for that? Arizona inmates executed since 1992: Robert Jones, 43, was executed in October 2013 for six murders he committed during two armed robberies in Tucson in 1996. (Photo: Arizona Department of Corrections) No attempt to prettify these executions will ever work. Using doctors and others to try to civilize the practice is a deceptive and unethical ruse. There are at least three things wrong with the use of health professionals to kill prisoners. The first is that it is incompatible with ethical medical practice. Trained as healers with millennia of teaching that their proper role is to reduce suffering and sometimes to forestall death, the very idea that health professionals would participate in the intentional killing of prisoners is a bitter contradiction. The American Medical Association is unequivocal: "A physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution." Even those physicians, nurses and others who support the idea of capital punishment should refuse to participate in one. The second problem is this: Because of the generally perceived prestige of the medical professions, the use of medicine's trappings is less an attempt to avoid constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment than a kind of public-relations stratagem. Yet what could be more unusual than graduates of medical, nursing and physician-assistant schools inserting needles into people strapped to gurneys (sometimes after cutting them open), with the intention of ending their lives against their will? The third reason lethal injection is wrong is there is no credible way to make it work. Even if suitable veins were easy to find, we still need to know what chemical cocktail will quickly and painlessly kill someone. Pharmacologists say one of the drugs used in Joseph Wood’s execution may have contributed to his death taking two hours. As Mr. Wood's execution makes clear, we actually have no good evidence to say in advance that a particular dose of a particular potion will do the trick for a particular person. January was a busy month for lethal injection, with six U.S. executions carried out; four different chemical protocols were used. If this were science, we would systematically collect data on all executions and conduct a reproducible analysis. We would, that is, make lethal injections a kind of experiment. What we have done is haphazard. We share notes between states. Officials sometimes visit other states to see similar processes. Execution logs are studied, autopsy reports are reviewed, post-mortem blood samples are analyzed. The goal is the same goal of biomedical research — to find what works, or works best. Lethal injection has become a kind of unregulated and sloppy human-subjects research. The problem is that if we wanted to make it legitimate, we would need to follow the rules governing such research. But that leads to absurdity: Those rules, shaped since Nuremberg, require informed consent, review by a kind of ethics committee and the opportunity for "participants" to opt out. Any lethal-injection "research" must therefore violate U.S. and international rules. Debates over the morality of capital punishment traditionally address the question whether killing people who have done really bad things is itself permissible. These interesting and important debates pit the demands of justice against the idea that any killing not in self-defense could be acceptable. On one side are those who argue that some crimes are so severe, brutal or cruel that only a life for a life provides justice. Kenneth Goodman.jpg Kenneth Goodman(Photo: handout) The other side is perhaps best expressed by Ron McAndrew, the former warden of Florida State Prison who, after supervising three executions, wrote, "Here I want to say that one must be careful in searching his soul ... one may just find that God is there and that He does not support the barbaric idea that man should execute man." Excepting those cases in which we have condemned the wrong person, those who are executed are deserving of punishment. Criticisms of the means of capital punishment might be agnostic as to the morality of capital punishment itself. If you really must kill killers, then shoot them, throw them off cliffs or behead them. But do not hide behind the Constitution and sully the health professions. It is not simply that this will not work. It is also wrong. Kenneth W. Goodman is a professor of medicine and philosophy at the University of Miami, where he directs the Miller School of Medicine's Bioethics Program.
Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton sounds like a big time fan of light rail pork. I think s Sal DiCiccio statement that "Taxpayers fund 78 percent of light-rail operations" is on the low, low, low side and is probably for Valley Metro buses, not light rail. For as long as I can remember bus riders only pay about 20 percent of the cost of operating the Valley Metro bus system. With tax payers paying for the other 80% of the costs. I think the taxpayers subsidize at least 90% of the costs of light rail. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2014/08/17/light-rail-system-tripled-size/14138907/ What if the light-rail system tripled in size? 10 p.m. MST August 16, 2014 A citizens committee will suggest improvements for Phoenix streets and transit, with an eye toward asking voters to renew a 0.4-cent transportation sales tax. A citizens committee will suggest improvements for Phoenix streets and transit, with an eye toward asking voters to renew a 0.4-cent transportation sales tax. What if the light-rail system tripled in size? Greg Stanton, Phoenix mayor: If we build on the success of light rail, and triple the miles of track in our city, we will grow a stronger long-term economy and plan wisely for our continued rapid population growth. We will continue our success in revitalizing neighborhoods, spur even more new development and redevelopment, and connect students to the classroom. Today, more than one in five light-rail riders is a student, but in 30 years, rail will connect four university campuses and serve as the primary mode of transportation for the more than 30,000 college students in downtown Phoenix. Phoenix's innovation economy will be soaring. Today's vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem — with co-working spaces and other companies choosing to set up shop along the rail line — will be remembered as just the beginning. Because we recognized that a healthy transit system is key for cities that want to compete in the innovation economy, Phoenix won't be left behind. The $7 billion in private and public investment to date along light rail will seem small compared with what we see over the next three decades, as light rail's permanent pathway gives businesses, retailers and restaurants the confidence they need to make long-term investments. Many of the Valley's 3 million new residents will move to neighborhoods where they can take rail to work rather than the more congested freeways. Cities reluctant to invest in light rail early on will be playing catch-up so their residents can also access the high-speed rail to Tucson when business demands it. Sal DiCiccio, Phoenix councilman: What if Phoenix had an additional billion dollars? Government is no different than your household. Your household doesn't have unlimited dollars, and neither does government. Two of the biggest long-term threats facing Phoenix are aging infrastructure and the availability of water. The billions would be better spent repairing our aging infrastructure and/or toward creating a water delivery system ensuring a long-term solution to our future water demands. Taxpayers fund 78 percent of light-rail operations; fares cover a mere 22 percent. Only 2 to 4 percent of the population rides light rail, forcing massive costs on other taxpayers who heavily subsidize it but may never use it. Phoenix roads and sewer and water lines are becoming dated and must be kept up. Failing Eastern cities allowed their infrastructure to deteriorate, causing a mass migration away from city cores. Without a consistent water supply, our economy and your job go away. Phoenix, along with other Valley cities and Tucson, must find a long-term solution to our water needs. This would mean creating a regional plan and partnering with Mexico to forge an agreement that would give us 100 years of water by putting a desalination plant and water delivery system from the Gulf of California to our Valley. The City Council has a responsibility to all citizens. These two issues affect all Phoenicians and should rank much higher on the list than a system that helps less than 4 percent of our people. If you had a billion dollars, which would you choose?
You can't trust doctors any more then you can trust politicians. Of course that's true anytime somebody wants you money!!!! You need to THINK before TRUSTING. This also applies to legalizing marijuana. Do we really want to let the folks at the Arizona Dispensary Association who want a government monopoly on growing and selling marijuana at $300+ and ounce to write any Arizona initiatives to legalize marijuana??? Any initiative they write will look like Prop 203, which is a government welfare program for medical marijuana dispensaries. http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/2014/08/17/phoenix-radiation-referral-medicare/14192375/ Medical 'self-referral' practice raises conflict of interest questions Ken Alltucker, The Republic | azcentral.com 12:16 a.m. MST August 17, 2014 A north Phoenix radiation clinic owned by urologists who refer prostate-cancer patients there for an expensive type of radiation therapy collected more from Medicare in 2012 than any other similar provider in Arizona. Located in a nondescript business center on 19th Avenue just north of Loop 101, the Arizona Prostate Cancer Center specializes in a type of treatment called IMRT, or intensity-modulated radiation therapy. Doctors with Arizona Urology Specialists own the center and send patients there, a practice known as "self-referral" that raises questions about possible financial and medical conflicts of interest. According to data released earlier this year, Arizona Prostate Cancer Center's radiation oncologist, Dr. Thomas Canty, collected $2.6 million under Medicare's Part B program in 2012, more than any of Arizona's 87 radiation oncologists that year. About $2 million was for IMRT and a related medical-imaging technology called IGRT, or image-guided radiation therapy. Canty's Medicare revenue represented about 5 percent of the $54.5 million that the government health program for Americans age 65 and older paid to radiation oncologists in Arizona. Medicare released the data to contribute to health-care transparency and accountability. The data did not cover payouts from private insurers or other government programs such as Medicaid, so total collections by Canty and the center likely are higher. Doctors who use IMRT say the technology targets cancer with tumor-attacking beams while sparing surrounding healthy tissue. Critics say IMRT helps drive up health-care spending for a treatment that may not be any more effective than less-expensive therapies for lower-risk prostate cancer. They also say doctors may be referring patients to centers they partially or fully own to recover the cost of their investment. A federal conflict-of-interest law named after former U.S. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., prohibits doctors from profiting off medical services through referrals. However, the law allows doctors to offer "ancillary services" in their own office such as a chest X-ray or lab test. This exception allows certain medical specialists, such as urologists, to take an ownership stake in radiation centers where they refer patients. In 2013, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that more than half of the nearly $1.3 billion paid by Medicare for IMRT therapy went to radiation centers that treat prostate cancer. The federal report concluded that doctors who own IMRT centers were far more likely to send their patients to their treatment centers instead of recommending less-expensive therapies. Canty did not return phone calls. Urologists with the north Phoenix center insist their ownership does not influence the type of treatment they recommend and that patients are free to pursue other options. "When I counsel patients, I tell them there are a number of centers and they can go wherever they like," said Dr. Robert H. Shapiro, a urologist and one of the managers of Arizona Urology Specialists. "My counseling is absolutely no different than it was before I was part-owner" of the prostate-cancer center. One former patient of Arizona Urology Specialists told The Arizona Republic his urologist first recommended that he go to the group's prostate-cancer center, even though it required a longer drive to get the daily treatment over nine weeks. Critics believe that the sharp rise of IMRT is partly driven by business interests. Doctors typically invest about $2 million to acquire equipment needed for this type of center as well as hiring a radiation oncologist and staff. One study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine compared 35 urology groups that invested in a radiation center with 35 urology groups that had not. The study found that IMRT use among the self-referring groups more than doubled from 2005 to 2010, while the other doctors' referral to IMRT centers remained largely flat. The Phoenix center was not included in the study. Jean Mitchell, a Georgetown University health economist who completed the study, said the evidence shows that financial factors may influence the type of treatment that doctors recommend. "Money drives practice patterns," Mitchell said. "The patients don't know what the best treatment is. It is not clear that they are being steered in the best direction." Doctors who have lost a chunk of their radiation-oncology business to self-referring centers are highly critical of the arrangement. The American Society for Radiation Oncology, which funded Mitchell's study, has encouraged lawmakers to pass a conflict-of-interest law to prevent doctors from profiting from self-referral. A bill sponsored by U.S. Rep Jackie Speier, D-Calif., would prohibit Medicare from paying for self-referrals involving radiation oncology, pathology services, advanced diagnostic imaging and physical therapy. The bill, introduced a year ago has stalled. President Barack Obama's fiscal 2015 budget also proposes closing self-referral for radiation oncology, pathology, advanced imaging and physical therapy. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates the savings would be $6 billion over a decade if the proposal is enacted. "Bipartisan groups have endorsed closing the self-referral loophole to improve care for patients and reduce Medicare spending," said Dave Adler, director of government relations for the American Society for Radiation Oncology. "Ultimately, Congress won't be able to ignore the overwhelming data demonstrating the problems of self-referral abuse." Dr. Sameer Keole, a radiation oncologist with Mayo Clinic in Arizona, said that patients generally are inclined to follow their doctors' recommendations for a particular type of therapy at a center. "Patients inherently trust their doctors," Keole said. "The problem is when you introduce financial incentives (that) have the potential to influence physician referral patterns and recommendations." Know all options Shapiro said a group of metro Phoenix urologists joined forces under a large physicians group called Arizona Urology Specialists, which describes itself as the state's largest urology group, and formed the Arizona Prostate Cancer Center. Arizona Corporation Commission records show that the center formed in 2009 as a partnership between Arizona Urology Specialists and Columbus, Ohio-based AKSM/Oncology, which establishes similar physician-owned centers nationwide. The urology practices under the umbrella of Arizona Urology Specialists include Urology Associates Phoenix, Urology Associates Scottsdale, Scottsdale Center for Urology and Canyon State Urology in Glendale, Corporation Commission records show. Shapiro said that his group hired Canty because it wanted a radiation oncologist who focuses exclusively on prostate cancer. The center also treats patients who are not sent there by Arizona Urology Specialists. "Our hallmark is high quality," Shapiro said. "We have a radiation oncologist that we handpicked." Shapiro said he does not exclusively recommend IMRT. He said other treatments — or monitoring the tumor's growth — may be appropriate based on a patient's condition or age. "I make recommendations based on the parameters of disease and age," Shapiro said. "The number of referrals for radiation have not changed significantly at all." Other common treatment options for prostate cancer include surgically removing the gland, inserting small radioactive seeds to kill the tumor, monitoring the tumor's growth without surgery, or hormone therapy. Other less-common treatments include stereotactic body radiation, which can be delivered in a handful of sessions. Of the nearly one-quarter million American men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2011, 90 percent of those tumors had not spread beyond the prostate, according to Mitchell's report. Terry Roberts, a radiation oncologist at Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center in Gilbert, stresses that patients need to be informed of all options. A man in his 80s with a low-risk prostate cancer may be better served by actively monitoring the tumor, not treating it. "We want to make sure patients are being informed of all their treatment choices," said Roberts. "A lot of times, treatment can be steered by a physician." 'Medicine is business' The Arizona Institute of Urology, with five urology practices in the Tucson area, also refers patients to the radiation oncologist at its treatment center, the Cancer Therapy Center. The group's radiation oncologist, Shelli Hanks, was the top Medicare biller among 16 radiation oncologists in the Tucson area in 2012, collecting more than $1 million. Dr. Ajay Bhatnagar, a radiation oncologist, said he took over treatment of a Casa Grande man who had been making long daily drives to Hanks' office on the recommendation of a urologist at the Arizona Institute of Urology. The man, who had poor vision, made the lengthy drive to Hanks' Tucson office even though Bhatnagar's office was located hear his home. Once, the man was pulled over by a police officer who advised him he should not be driving so far. The man mentioned the burden of the long daily drives to his dermatologist, who asked the man why he didn't go to Bhatnagar's office. The man told the dermatologist he was unaware that such treatment was available nearby. Citing patient confidentiality, Bhatnagar said he could not identify the man. An Arizona Institute of Urology representative did not return calls. Other metro Phoenix doctors who offer radiation oncology believe "self-referral" opens questions about whether urologists who own radiation centers are influenced by money. "What it shows is that a lot of medicine is business," said Dr. Steven Schild, a radiation oncologist with Mayo Clinic. "You have to be cognizant of that when making health-care decisions.... You want an objective explanation where people have all the options and are not being pushed into one thing." Two men, two experiences When Phoenix resident Jim Shea was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2011, his urologist gave him a choice — surgically remove the prostate or get radiation therapy at Arizona Prostate Cancer Center. The urologist wasn't on the staff of Arizona Urology Specialists. "He recommended radiation but said if I wanted surgery, he would do it," said Shea, who was 74 at the time of his treatment. Shea said the radiation therapy had few side effects. The bill was about $35,000, which was covered by Medicare and a secondary insurer. When Phoenix resident Elliott Perritt felt he was being steered to a treatment facility, he asked for other options. Perritt was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2010 and underwent removal surgery. His urologist from Urology Associates Phoenix, which is part of Arizona Urology Specialists, recommended 45 sessions of a cutting-edge radiation treatment at Arizona Prostate Cancer Center. Perritt, who lives near 44th Street and McDowell Road, said the prospect of making a long daily drive over nine weeks while undergoing radiation treatment seemed too daunting and asked to go someplace more convenient. His urologist arranged treatment at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center near 12th Street and McDowell Road, which is near Perritt's workplace. "I knew I wanted to get all my treatments at Good Sam. I felt confident in their medical group," Perritt said. Republic reporter Matthew Dempsey contributed to this article. Average cost of prostate-cancer therapies Hormone treatment: $2,112 Prostatecomy (surgical removal of prostate): $16,762 Brachytherapy (radioactive seeds implanted in prostate): $17,076 IMRT: $31,574 Source: New England Journal of Medicine
Come on give the cops a break. Some times it takes a while to for the police to make up a story on what REALLY happened. And it's not perjury when the cops lie to us. It's "testilying", which is police slang for when the police commit perjury to send innocent people to prison or justify police crimes!!! Well, at least that's how the cops seem to feel about it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/michael-brown-case-police-release-name-of-officer-call-brown-a-robbery-suspect/2014/08/15/38e6fd5c-249f-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html?hpid=z1 Michael Brown case: Police release name of officer, call slain teen a robbery suspect By Wesley Lowery, DeNeen L. Brown and Jerry Markon August 15 at 9:30 PM FERGUSON, Mo. — Authorities in this restive suburb of St. Louis on Friday began telling their version of the events surrounding the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer, but the halting, contradictory nature of the account revived popular anger here and brought criticism from other law enforcement agencies. Nearly a week after 18-year-old Michael Brown’s death sparked days of protests, police identified the officer who killed him as Darren Wilson, who has six years of service with no disciplinary record. But they provided virtually no information about the officer, instead focusing on linking Brown to a convenience store robbery that occurred just before the shooting. At a tense early morning news conference, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said Brown had been the prime suspect in that robbery — in which several boxes of cigars were stolen — and that his description was broadcast over police frequencies just before his encounter with Wilson. Police dramatized the allegation, releasing security camera photos showing a person they identified as Brown towering over and menacing the store clerk, images that were circulated nationwide. Yet, despite the implication that Brown was stopped because of the robbery, Jackson later appeared to reverse himself, saying at a second news conference that the confrontation “was not related to the robbery.” Instead, he said, Brown was stopped because he and a friend were walking in the street. Hours later, Jackson returned again to the robbery theme, telling the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the officer saw cigars in Brown’s hand and realized he might be the robber. Ferguson Police incident report on Aug. 9 robbery The confusion appeared to further inflame tensions roiling this community of 21,000. Scattered protests continued, and the police actions drew a rebuke from Brown’s family, which accused Jackson of deliberately besmirching the teen’s character. “The family feels that was strategic,” Anthony Gray, an attorney for Brown’s family, said during a news conference Friday. “They feel it was aimed at denigrating their son. It was an attempt at character assassination.” Added Eric Davis, a cousin of Brown’s mother: “It infuriated us.” There were also signs Friday of a rift among state and local authorities involved in the case, only one day after political and community leaders mounted a renewed effort to tamp down the violence and find ways to prevent future outbreaks while multiple investigations of the shooting proceed. In an unusual public disagreement, the law enforcement official newly in charge of security in Ferguson appeared to question the decision to name Brown as a robbery suspect. “I would have liked to have been consulted,” Missouri State Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson said Friday, adding that he would meet with Jackson to discuss “how that was released.’’ Johnson, an African American who grew up in the Ferguson area, had been put in charge Thursday by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) when the governor announced that the State Highway Patrol would take over security operations after days of images of riot police and tear gas in the streets. Law enforcement officials typically strive to present a united front, yet Nixon’s decision prompted an unusual public attack from St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch, who was angered that the move would take control of the scene away from St. Louis County police. “For Nixon to never talk to the commanders in the field and come in here and take this action is disgraceful,” McCulloch told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s shameful what he did.’’ St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley later said he is leading an effort to remove the county prosecutor from the investigation because of bias. McCulloch is the person who will decide whether state charges will be filed against the police officer. It was not clear Friday whether the evident turf battles would hamper the state investigation of Brown’s shooting. The Justice Department and FBI, which are conducting a parallel investigation to determine whether Brown’s civil rights were violated, are deferring for now to state investigators but are also monitoring them. The announcements from police identifying the officer and naming Brown as a robbery suspect came after the calmest night in Ferguson since Brown was killed. His death has sparked outrage and protests, with hundreds marching in the streets in the days that followed. Little information about the shooting has been publicly released, and the media frenzy to learn more about Wilson yielded only scattered bits of information. According to public records, Wilson, 28, was an honor roll student at St. Charles High School near Ferguson in the ninth and 10th grades. His mother died when he was 16. The officer, who is on administrative leave, a few days ago left his neighborhood in Crestwood, a city of 11,000 people about 18 miles southwest of Ferguson. Dark blue unmarked police cars were parked outside his house on Manda Lane, with a marked police car in the parking lot of a church to the rear of the house. Most people in the neighborhood of brick ranch houses and manicured lawns declined to comment. A sign on the door of a neighbor next to Wilson’s house read: “We have two children. Do not knock. No comment.” Joe Adlon, 49, whose parents’ house is about a block away, described Wilson as “a nice person. Very, very good. It’s tragic this happened. It is a shame.’’ Jackson, the police chief, described Wilson as “a gentle, quiet man” and “a distinguished officer.” The sequence of events in Brown’s shooting is still unclear. According to a friend who says he witnessed the encounter, Brown was walking along a Ferguson street when a police officer in a car ordered him to get on the sidewalk. Brown had his hands in the air to show he was unarmed when the officer shot him multiple times, the friend said. The police say Brown attacked the officer in his car and tried to grab his gun. Police gave far more detail Friday about the robbery at the convenience store, handing out a 19-page packet of documents. According to the documents, Ferguson police officers received a call at 11:51 a.m. Saturday about a robbery in progress at the store and were given the description of a suspect: a black male in a white T-shirt walking north toward a QuikTrip convenience store. “I did not see the suspect in the area,” an unidentified officer wrote in the report. The officer wrote that the store clerk described the suspect as wearing a white T-shirt, khaki shorts, yellow socks and a red St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap. The officer was also told that another black male was with the suspect. A partially redacted witness report in the packet — which did not state who provided the information — said that a woman inside the store came out of the bathroom during the altercation. She told police she saw Brown tell the store employee that he and his companion wanted several boxes of cigars from behind the counter. “As [redacted employee name] was placing the boxes on the counter, Brown grabbed a box of Swisher Sweet cigars and handed them to [Dorian] Johnson who was standing behind Brown,” the report states. Johnson has said in interviews that he was with Brown when he was killed. The witness said that the store employee then told Brown he had to pay first, but Brown reached over the counter and grabbed more packs of cigars, then turned to leave the store. According to the witness account, the employee called 911 and tried to prevent Brown from leaving the store by standing in front of the door. “That is when Brown grabbed [redacted employee name] by the shirt and forcefully pushed him back in to a display rack,” the report says. The police report goes on to state that surveillance video from the store shows Brown handing a pack of Swisher Sweets to Johnson. “An apparent struggle or confrontation seems to take place with Brown, however it is obscured by a display case on the counter,” the report states. “Meanwhile, Johnson sets the box he was handed back on the counter.” Wilson had been responding to a different call shortly before noon Saturday. A description of a suspect and the suspect’s location were also given over the radio, police said. Wilson left the call to which he had been responding and encountered Brown on Canfield Drive at 12:01 p.m., Jackson said. These details, provided by police early Friday, helped to create the impression that Wilson knew about the robbery. Minutes after their encounter began, Wilson fatally shot Brown, although the exact circumstances of how this occurred remain unknown. Jerry Markon, Alice Crites and Julie Tate in Washington, and DeNeen L. Brown and Wesley Lowery in Ferguson contributed to this report. Wesley Lowery covers Capitol Hill for The Fix and Post Politics. DeNeen L. Brown is an award-winning staff writer at The Washington Post who has covered night police, education, courts, politics and culture. Jerry Markon is a political accountability reporter for the Post’s National Desk, focusing on short-term investigative stories about the Affordable Care Act, lobbying and other topics. He also serves as lead Web writer for major breaking national news.
Kind of reminds me of Phoenix NORML, Andrew Myers and Kathy. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/13/darpa-director-conflict-of-interest/14010953/ Pentagon's robo-dog plan had ethics problem Gregory Korte, USA TODAY 6:25 p.m. EDT August 13, 2014 WASHINGTON — The director of DARPA, the Pentagon office responsible for developing secretive high-tech gadgets, took an exceptional interest in developing bomb-sniffing robo-dogs five years ago. The goal: to help trace the origins of roadside bombs that were killing hundreds of American soldiers a year in Afghanistan. But there was a problem. The company that came up with the idea just happened to be run by Vince Dugan, the father of the DARPA director, Regina Dugan. Pentagon inspectors now say Regina Dugan "used her position to endorse a product" in violation of ethical rules. The investigative report was completed last year but just released by the Pentagon Wednesday — with about half its contents blacked out — in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Dugan was the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency from July 2009 to March 2012. Before that, she was CEO of RedXDefense, a Rockville, Md., technology firm where she developed a system for stopping roadside bombs that she called The Bookends. Before that, she was a program manager for DARPA, responsible for the "Dog's Nose" program to employ dogs to sniff for land mines. She had a similar solution for the improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in Afghanistan. The military would equip bomb-sniffing dogs with global positioning units and set them loose. Every time the dog smelled explosives, it would lie down, triggering a computer to record its position. Those positions could then be analyzed to help find the locations of bombmakers, much like a map of cholera cases could be used to determine the locations of tainted wells. U.S. forces could target the bombs at their source. Her marketing slogan for this system was, "Shoot the archer, not the arrow." As DARPA director, Dugan gave a presentation on the concept for military brass on Sept. 11, 2009. The presentation included RedX logos and copyright symbol, and the "shoot the archer" slogan. USATODAY 'Catch-22' lives on with Pentagon inspector general She also gave further presentations, with or without those marketing materials. And when Dugan returned from a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan in 2010, she decided the lED problem there required "more noses." In her defense, Dugan told inspectors that she spoke only generally about the concepts, and didn't explicitly advocate any one company's solution. She also said she cleared her activity through ethics officials, but the report said she failed to tell those officials the full story. The presentations, while not explicitly sales pitches, "created potential business opportunities" for her former company, the inspector general's report concluded. Wired magazine and The Los Angeles Times first reported on the conflict of interest in 2011, noting that the firm received $1.8 million in Pentagon contracts during Dugan's tenure there — while the firm still owed her $250,000. None of those contracts were for the system Dugan gave presentations on. The inspector general did not make any recommendations for disciplinary action against Dugan because she's already left the government. In 2012, Dugan left the agency for Google Inc., where she is now vice president of engineering, advanced technology and projects. USATODAY Nothing to see here, says the Pentagon Dugan responded through a statement by Google spokeswoman Iska Saric: "This matter was closed over a year ago. At no time did Dr. Dugan use her position as the Director of DARPA to make any endorsement — explicit or implied." The investigation started with a complaint from the Project on Government Oversight, an accountability and transparency advocacy group. POGO's general counsel, Scott Amey, said Wednesday that he was disappointed with the "no harm, no foul" conclusion of the report. "This makes it seem that if you're out of government service, you can't be made accountable," he said. The report noted that Dugan tried to have parts of the report classified — both for national security reasons and because some of the information was "highly prejudicial" to her. RedXDefense CEO Vince Dugan, Regina Dugan's father, did not return a call seeking comment. Follow @gregorykorte on Twitter.
Personally I think the war in Vietnam, along with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing but government welfare programs for the corporations in the military industrial complex, along with being a jobs program for generals. Kind of like the "war on drugs", which is nothing more then a jobs program for cops and a govenrment welfare program for police departments and the corporations in the military industrial complex that supply them with the tools of the trade. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/letters/2014/08/14/efforts-in-iraq-looking-a-whole-lot-like-vietnam/14087701/ Efforts in Iraq looking a whole lot like Vietnam 5:24 p.m. MST August 14, 2014 Here we go again, backing into another conflict that is not in our country's best interest. It reminds me of Vietnam in the early '60s with 300 advisers here and 130 there, all the while promising that we were not going to get foolishly sucked into someone else's fight. The real problem is when our fearless leaders in Washington send our clueless youths to be slaughtered and maimed in someone else's fight for political advantage. — Robert Harper, Cave Creek
More light rail pork???? Every time you hop on a Valley Metro Bus and pay $2 for a trip it costs the government 5 times that to pay for the costs of providing the trip or about $10. Light rail costs are even more outrageously high. Every time you pay $2 for a ticket to ride one trip on the Valley Metro light rail train it costs the government around something like $17 to provide the services. Or almost 9 times what you pay for the ticket. I love riding the light rail. Of course if I had to pay the actual cost of riding on the train I wouldn't use. I suspect that's true for most government services. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2014/08/15/light-rail-system-tripled-size/14138907/ What if the light-rail system tripled in size? 7:13 p.m. MST August 15, 2014 A citizens committee will suggest improvements for Phoenix streets and transit, with an eye toward asking voters to renew a 0.4-cent transportation sales tax. A citizens committee will suggest improvements for Phoenix streets and transit, with an eye toward asking voters to renew a 0.4-cent transportation sales tax. What if the light-rail system tripled in size? Greg Stanton, Phoenix mayor: If we build on the success of light rail, and triple the miles of track in our city, we will grow a stronger long-term economy and plan wisely for our continued rapid population growth. We will continue our success in revitalizing neighborhoods, spur even more new development and redevelopment, and connect students to the classroom. Today, more than one in five light-rail riders is a student, but in 30 years, rail will connect four university campuses and serve as the primary mode of transportation for the more than 30,000 college students in downtown Phoenix. Phoenix's innovation economy will be soaring. Today's vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem — with co-working spaces and other companies choosing to set up shop along the rail line — will be remembered as just the beginning. Because we recognized that a healthy transit system is key for cities that want to compete in the innovation economy, Phoenix won't be left behind. The $7 billion in private and public investment to date along light rail will seem small compared with what we see over the next three decades, as light rail's permanent pathway gives businesses, retailers and restaurants the confidence they need to make long-term investments. Many of the Valley's 3 million new residents will move to neighborhoods where they can take rail to work rather than the more congested freeways. Cities reluctant to invest in light rail early on will be playing catch-up so their residents can also access the high-speed rail to Tucson when business demands it. = What if Phoenix had an additional billion dollars? Government is no different than your household. Your household doesn't have unlimited dollars, and neither does government. Two of the biggest long-term threats facing Phoenix are aging infrastructure and the availability of water. The billions would be better spent repairing our aging infrastructure and/or toward creating a water delivery system ensuring a long-term solution to our future water demands. Taxpayers fund 78 percent of light-rail operations; fares cover a mere 22 percent. Only 2 to 4 percent of the population rides light rail, forcing massive costs on other taxpayers who heavily subsidize it but may never use it. Phoenix roads and sewer and water lines are becoming dated and must be kept up. Failing Eastern cities allowed their infrastructure to deteriorate, causing a mass migration away from city cores. Without a consistent water supply, our economy and your job go away. Phoenix, along with other Valley cities and Tucson, must find a long-term solution to our water needs. This would mean creating a regional plan and partnering with Mexico to forge an agreement that would give us 100 years of water by putting a desalination plant and water delivery system from the Gulf of California to our Valley. The City Council has a responsibility to all citizens. These two issues affect all Phoenicians and should rank much higher on the list than a system that helps less than 4 percent of our people. If you had a billion dollars, which would you choose?
South Carolina mom arrested for using profanity at her local grocery store. Again, don't these pigs have any real criminals to hunt down???? Sure maybe, mommy is an *sshole, but I don't think it's the government job to lock up all the *ssholes in the world in prison. If that were true we wouldn't have any police officers to patrol the streets. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/15/mom-arrested-cussing-kids-store/14116273/ Mom arrested for cursing at kids gets apology South Carolina mom arrested for using profanity at her local grocery store. WAGT 10:46 a.m. MST August 15, 2014 A South Carolina mother who was arrested for cursing at her kids at a grocery store received an apology from the woman who first complained, according to video from WAGT. Danielle Wolfe, 27, was arrested after the witness said she used profanity while reprimanding her children. After admitting to police that she had indeed cursed, Wolfe was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. The witness, who remained anonymous, said she didn't expect Wolfe to get arrested. She called Wolfe to make amends and both women apologized to each other, WAGT says. There is a law in South Carolina that forbids using "obscene" language in public.
Deputy shoots daughter sneaking back home Only trained professionals like the police should be allowed to have guns!!!!! Well at least that's what the cops seem to think. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/15/deputy-shoots-daughter-intruder/14121331/ Deputy shoots daughter sneaking back home Michael Winter, USA Today 2:40 p.m. MST August 15, 2014 A Virginia sheriff's deputy mistook his 16-year-old daughter for an intruder early Tuesday and shot her as she sneaked back into their home, authorities say. After alerting 911, the deputy then crashed his car while racing her to the hospital, and emergency responders finished transporting her for treatment at Winchester Medical Center, the Frederick County Sheriff's Office told WHAG-TV The teen was shot once in her torso and was listed in stable condition Thursday. She suffered no additional injuries when her father, Loudoun County Sheriff's Deputy Easton McDonald, hit a barricade. The shooting happened about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday while McDonald, a 13-year veteran, was getting ready for work, said Frederick County Sheriff's Capt. Donnie Lang. The home's alarm system indicated a door of the attached garage had been opened, and McDonald grabbed his personal handgun to investigate. Seeing a dark figure approaching him, he fired. "Then he hears her voice and recognizes that it's his daughter," Lang toldThe Washington Post. McDonald thought she was asleep upstairs, but she had slipped out of the house earlier in the night. The Frederick County sheriff and Commonwealth's Attorney will decide whether any charges should be filed. McDonald, who was described as being distraught, is on administrative leave pending an internal investigation by his department.
Texas Gov. Perry indicted on coercion for veto threat More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our religious leaders, government masters and police??? http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/15/texas-rick-perry-indicted-coercion-veto-threat/14138475/ Texas Gov. Perry indicted on coercion for veto threat Gov. Rick Perry of Texas was indicted on two felony counts including abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public official. Associated Press 6:38 p.m. MST August 15, 2014 AUSTIN, Texas — A grand jury indicted Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday for allegedly abusing the powers of his office by carrying out a threat to veto funding for state prosecutors investigating public corruption — making the possible 2016 presidential hopeful his state's first indicted governor in nearly a century. A special prosecutor spent months calling witnesses and presenting evidence that Perry broke the law when he promised publicly to nix $7.5 million over two years for the public integrity unit, which is run by Travis County Democratic District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg's office. It's the same office that indicted U.S. Rep. Tom Delay as part of a finance probe. Several top aides to the Republican governor appeared before grand jurors in Austin, including his deputy chief of staff, legislative director and general counsel. Perry himself did not testify, though. Grand jurors indicted Perry on abuse of official capacity, a first-degree felony with potential punishments of five to 99 years in prison, and coercion of a public servant, a third-degree felony that carries a punishment of two to 10 years. A spokesman for the governor didn't immediately return messages seeking comment. No one disputes that Perry is allowed to veto measures approved by the Legislature, including part or all of the state budget. But the left-leaning Texans for Public Justice government watchdog group filed an ethics complaint accusing the governor of coercion because he threatened to use his veto before actually doing so in an attempt to pressure Lehmberg to quit. "I took into account the fact that we're talking about a governor of a state — and a governor of the state of Texas, which we all love," said Michael McCrum, the San Antonio-based special prosecutor. "Obviously that carries a lot of importance. But when it gets down to it, the law is the law." In office since 2000 and already the longest-serving governor in Texas history, Perry isn't seeking re-election in November. But the criminal investigation could mar his political prospects as he mulls another run at the White House, after his 2012 presidential bid flamed out. McCrum said he'll meet with Perry's attorney Monday to discuss when he will come to the courthouse to be arraigned. McCrum said he doesn't know when Perry will be booked. Asked why McCrum never spoke to Perry personally, McCrum said, "That's prosecutorial discretion that I had." Lehmberg oversees the office's public integrity unit, which investigates statewide allegations of corruption and political wrongdoing. Perry said he wouldn't allow Texas to fund the unit while Lehmberg remained in charge. Perry said Lehmberg, who is based in Austin, should resign after she was arrested and pleaded guilty to drunken driving in April 2013. A video recording made at the jail showed Lehmberg shouting at staffers to call the sheriff, kicking the door of her cell and sticking her tongue out. Lehmberg faced pressure from other high-profile Republicans in addition to Perry to give up her post. Her blood-alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit for driving. Lehmberg served about half of her 45-day jail sentence but stayed in office, despite Perry's assertions that her behavior was inappropriate. The jail video led to an investigation of Lehmberg by a separate grand jury, which decided she should not be removed for official misconduct. The indictment is the first of its kind since 1917, when James "Pa" Ferguson was indicted on charges stemming from his veto of state funding to the University of Texas in an effort to unseat faculty and staff members he objected to. Ferguson was eventually impeached, then resigned before being convicted, allowing his wife, Miriam "Ma" Ferguson, to take over the governorship.
Don't these pigs have any real criminals to hunt down???? Sure the woman's a pervert, but she isn't hurting anybody. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/08/15/phoenix-voyeur-sentenced-abrk/14125621/ Woman gets 1.5 years for Phoenix voyeuristic recordings Corina Vanek, The Republic | azcentral.com 1:48 p.m. MST August 15, 2014 The woman accused of taking videos of unsuspecting women in public restrooms and selling them online was sentenced to 1½ years in prison followed by lifetime probation on Friday. Laura Laibe, 38, was arrested in October 2013 after police said she placed recording devices on the floors of public restrooms and filmed women and children inside, records show. She pleaded guilty to three counts of voyeurism and one count of unlawful filming in the case, which police said went on for months. During the course of the investigation, undercover police bought videos and images from her website, picks4sale.com, where she sold the recordings for $5 to $10 each, records show. The videos were taken in a multitude of public places, including University of Phoenix Stadium, Walmart, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and Chase Field. Prosecutor Kathleen Campbell acknowledged that while the videos were an invasion of privacy, the majority of the images did not contain nudity. Campbell said the majority showed the lower extremities, including feet, but did not include genitals, though one video did contain a woman's exposed buttocks. "She wanted to expose the maximum number of women and children in the videos," Campbell said. "She committed these offenses for pecuniary gain and she made quite a bit of money off these victims." Campbell stressed that while Laibe was not recording the videos for her own gratification, she was supplying a product to a dangerous clientele and contributing to the problem. "A number of women came forward after seeing the case in the media that believe they were victims," Campbell said. She said many of the women that believed they had been filmed will never know for sure, nor will they know who might have purchased the tapes of the women and some children. "They will have to wonder what type of unsavory individuals now have possession of the videos of their children," Campbell said. Three friends and family members spoke on Laibe's behalf, and told Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Virginia Richter that Laibe was a good mother to her five children and they would never consider her a threat to children or other women. Her supporters said that Laibe had taken responsibility for her actions and wanted to get back to being a mother for her children. When Laibe addressed Richter, she said that her time in jail had been an enlightening experience. "I've learned how insignificant financial gain was compared to the loss of my freedom and the loss of the right to be with my children," she said. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse to break it." She said the crime was "motivated by greed," and promised that she would never get in trouble with the law again. Defense attorney Stephen Kunkle stressed that the longer Laibe spent incarcerated only punished her five young children even more. "Another day she is in prison is another day those children grow up without a mom," he said. He said that most of the videos do not display nudity, and video surveillance is becoming more common. "We live in an age where there are cameras everywhere," Kunkle said. In addition to the imposed sentence, Laibe was also ordered to comply with all sex-offender terms while on lifetime probation.
More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our religious leaders, government masters and police??? http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/08/15/police-phoenix-pastor-sexually-abused-women-girls-abrk/14141173/ Police: Phoenix pastor sexually abused 2 women, 2 girls Police arrested Jorge Vasquez for alleged sexual abuse. The Republic | azcentral.com 12:36 a.m. MST August 16, 2014 Police have accused a Phoenix man of taking advantage of his position as a minister to sexually abuse at least two women and two girls in his congregation. Jorge Vasquez, 47, was arrested Thursday and is being held in a Maricopa County jail on suspicion of six counts of child molestation, two counts of sexual conduct with a minor, four counts of sexual abuse, two counts of sexual assault and four counts of kidnapping, among other allegations. Detectives from the Family Investigations Bureau of the Phoenix Police Department first learned about the allegations earlier this month, according to a police statement issued Friday. Investigators say they developed probable cause to believe Vasquez engaged in sexual contact with females ages 12 to 33 against their will during counseling sessions or on other occasions during his 7-year tenure as pastor at La Roca, or the Rock Church, near 21st Avenue and Buckeye Road. Vasquez has denied any of the allegations, police say. The minor girls, who were both in their early teens at the time of the alleged abuse, told police that pastor said he was teaching them about sex to prepare them for their future husbands or boyfriends, according to police records filed in court this week. For one reported victim, the alleged abuse occurred when a woman having marital problems called Vasquez to make a pastoral visit at her home, records show. Another woman told police the pastor made unwanted sexual contact with her on a job site - employment that he helped her get. The investigation is ongoing. Authorities are urging anyone with information to call the Phoenix Police Department at 602-262-5151 or Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS, or 480-TESTIGO for Spanish.
Tom Horne isn't buying votes he's ?????. OK, maybe he is buying votes, but he's the AG and he's gonna do whatever he wants. http://www.azcentral.com/story/laurieroberts/2014/08/15/tom-horne-campaign-commerce-authority-event/14114581/ Tom Horne campaign goodies paid for by... the taxpayer? Laurin Roberts, 10:43 a.m. MST August 15, 2014 A thousand or so people (read: voters) who attended Thursday's Innovation Summit, held by the Arizona Commerce Authority, got a little something-something, courtesy of the Arizona Attorney General's Office. This, in the midst of early voting in the Aug. 26 primary election, in the midst of a tough re-election battle for a certain attorney general. This, at a time when the Attorney General Tom Horne and senior AG staffers are already being investigated for campaigning on the taxpayer's dime. Now, it appears they're distributing campaign material, paid for by the taxpayer. ag bag Giveaway at Thursday's Commerce Authority summit.(Photo: file photo) Stephanie Grisham, AG spokeswoman, says the AG's office has given away the TOM HORNE bags for several years. Cost of 1,000 bags: $2,130. "They are a component of the Community Outreach Division, headed up by Kathleen Winn," Grisham said, via e-mail. "Yesterday's event was part of our year-long partnership with the Arizona SciTech Festival. Although the Commerce Authority was a sponsor of the event our dealings were through SciTech and as a sponsor, we were asked to donate materials such as bags, pencils, and other educational materials that our office provides as part our Community Outreach efforts." Oh, it's educational all right. I feel extremely educated about what's going on here. Winn is one of Horne's top lieutenants. The two of them are currently appealing a civil fine imposed by the Yavapai County Attorney's Office, which found that they illegally coordinated when Winn was running an independent campaign for Horne during the 2010 election. They, along with other senior Horne staffers, also are being investigated to determine whether they illegally were campaigning earlier this year while on state time, on the taxpayer's dime. Now comes TOM HORNE giveaways, also paid for with the taxpayer's dime. No doubt, it's merely a coincidence that Winn was handing out TOM HORNE bags just 12 days before Election Day, in a year in which Horne is scrabbling just to win the nomination. Riiiiiight. "I'm a Republican, and I am offended by this kind of stunt," an attendee at Thursday's event, a prominent mover-shaker in the economic-development world, told me. "As citizens, we need to set a higher standard of expectation for those running for office." That's true. And not just because of taxpayer-supplied TOM HORNE bags.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/chandler/2014/08/16/chandler-usd-pay-kids-activities/14152803/ Chandler USD to pay $183,968 for kids' activities Craig Harris, The Republic | azcentral.com 9:40 p.m. MST August 15, 2014 The Chandler Unified School District has agreed to transfer $183,968 to its schools for after-school activities after a state Attorney General's Office investigation concluded that the district in some cases allowed improper use of extracurricular tax-credit funds. However, the district admitted no wrongdoing and no criminal charges were filed. And, no one in the district was disciplined, said Joel Wirth, Chandler's chief financial officer. "We didn't necessarily agree," Wirth said. "But we have to respect their opinion and work with them on it. The good news is it (money) goes back to our schools." The settlement will come from the district's general fund and be paid into extracurricular accounts at 41 schools. It was agreed to this week, months after the Attorney General Office last year began investigating whether Hamilton High School misused public donations that funded extracurricular activities for its marching band. The state investigation found other problems throughout the district with the state tax credit program for extracurricular activities. One key problem at Chandler high schools was that the district had allowed parents to earmark their tax-credit donations to pay for Advance Placement exams that would grant their children college credit. That, however, was not a proper use under state guidelines. In addition to the financial settlement, the district will no longer allow booster groups to give outthe district's tax identification number to donors as a way to promote tax-exempt donations to their causes. The Attorney General's Office found this violated the state's gift clause. "Arizona's extracurricular activity tax credit donations are intended to support extracurricular activities for students, and it is imperative that our public schools use these monies properly," said Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office. "We appreciate the Chandler Unified School District's cooperation during this investigation and its commitment to adopting necessary reforms to its practices." Chandler, like many other school districts across the state, encourages Arizonans to make financial donations for extracurricular activities. Donors then receive an income-tax credit of up to $200 for individuals or $400 for married taxpayers. Nearly $51 million in such tax credits were taken in 2013 to reduce individual tax liabilities, according to the state Department of Revenue. The donations for which the credits are taken lower the amount of money lawmakers have to spend on public services. The Attorney General's investigation began in summer 2013, following a parent's complaint questioning whether thousands of dollars in tax-credit donations were properly used at Hamilton High, one of the most successful fundraisers among Arizona schools. At issue was why donations that were supposed to pay the tab for a band camp at Northern Arizona University in July 2012 went instead to help fund an overseas band trip to Ireland the following month. Assistant Attorney General Susan Myers, a civil lawyer and specialist in school-fraud cases, began her investigation into Hamilton High, but it expanded to include the entire district. Doris Madden, a former band booster club president who raised concerns, said she's glad changes have been made in the Chandler district. But, she questions why no one was disciplined. "We didn't get everything we wanted," Madden said. "But people are now aware of it." Madden said she hopes the school district will be more accountable with public funds. As part of the settlement, the district will reimburse $71,000 to Hamilton's extracurricular account. The agreement also calls for other reimbursements in the following amounts: • Chandler High School, $46,627. • Basha High School, $21,679. • Perry High School, $7,310. • Arizona College Prep, $2,258. • Eight junior highs, $4,000 each. • Twenty eight elementary schools, $110.50 each. The funds only can be used for state-approved extracurricular activities.