While the news media focus on the Obama-led assault on Wall Street and big business, as well as the continued controversy over health care, a legal watchdog group has exposed another example of government mismanagement – even out-and-out fraud.

In the latest of many scandals involving President Barack Obama’s, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s monstrous economic stimulus, a fraud-infested welfare program to make low-income houses energy efficient is cheating taxpayers out of billions with a recent example documented in Wisconsin, according to public-interest group Judicial Watch.

According to a report by JW, at least $5 billion in stimulus funds were allocated to “weatherization” programs nationwide with virtually no oversight and plenty of corruption. The U.S. Department of Energy distributes the cash to local “community groups” that usually subcontract companies to do the actual work. Low-income homeowners get free insulation, sealing and even new central heating and cooling systems compliments of Uncle Sam. Some people even get new refrigerators, water heaters and furnaces.

In  Wisconsin, a nonprofit called La Casa de Esperanza (The House of Hope) got nearly $20 million to weatherize homes in three counties, but instead has spent some of the money on gift cards for its employees, Christmas decorations, Halloween candy and to pay parking tickets, according to a Milwaukee newspaper — the Journal-Sentinel – report.

Additionally, the husband of a charity employee illegally got $10,000 worth of U.S. taxpayer-financed work on his home and much of the weatherization done on houses that actually qualified was faulty or didn’t meet the federal standards. In all, the state of Wisconsin is getting $141.5 million in stimulus funds for its weatherization projects.

La Casa’s finance director defended his community group’s weatherization program, saying that “if you looked at every single operator you would find similar problems everywhere” because “that’s the nature of the business.”

Perhaps that’s why funding for the decades-old federal weatherization program got nixed in 2008. Even when it was fully operational it only received about $220 million annually, not the huge infusion that President Obama has given it. The stimulus also gave other states big chunks of cash for weatherization, including $327 million to Texas and $132 to North Carolina.

The allocations are simply a speck on the never ending list of examples of fraud and abuse in the $787 billion stimulus that Obama promised would jumpstart the economy and put Americans back to work, according to Judicial Watch. 

“Instead, tens of millions of dollars have gone to companies under criminal investigation for defrauding the government and tens of millions more have funded wasteful projects including multi million-dollar turtle crossings, abandoned train stations and Social Security stimulus checks for 10,000 dead people,” JW officials said in a statement.

Media bias watchdog Brent Bozell says the mainstream media is whitewashing the Climategate e-mail scandal because it exposes the massive global warming fraud.

Jim sent this in:

Public Warehousing Company, a logistics company organized under the laws of the Nation of Kuwait, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta, GA, on multiple charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, committing major fraud against the United States, making false statements, submitting false claims and wire fraud.

All of the charges concern multi-billion dollar contracts issued by the Department of Defense for feeding American troops in Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan. PWC officials made an initial appearance and were arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Janet F. King in Atlanta on Friday, November 20, 2009, according to a report obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police’s White Collar Crime Committee.

Criminal Division Chief F. Gentry Shelnutt, who is currently serving as the Acting U.S. Attorney on this case, said, “This indictment is the result of a multi-year probe into abuses in vendor contracts in the Middle East involving the illegal inflation of prices in contracts to feed our troops. The indictment alleges PWC submitted false information and manipulated prices to overcharge for food. Others who have engaged in similar conduct should beware. This indictment is only the first step. Our investigation of entities and persons who have defrauded the United States and our military is ongoing.”

In Arlington, Va., Sharon E. Woods, Director, Defense Criminal Investigative Service said, “The Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service will aggressively pursue any and all allegations of fraud and abuse perpetrated on the U.S. Department of Defense. Our constant focus is on ensuring taxpayer dollars are not wasted or stolen, and on protecting America’s warfighters.”

Brigadier General Rodney Johnson, the commander of U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, said, “These indictments are the culmination of the steadfast dedication and professionalism of our Special Agents, the FBI and other law enforcement counterparts. I am proud that U.S. Army CID could play a major role in bringing this case to justice. The defendants, tempted by monetary gain, betrayed the trust invested in them by the U.S. Army and now they must face the consequences.”

The indictment charges PWC in six counts. Count one charges PWC and unidentified co-conspirators with conspiracy to defraud the United States, including committing major fraud against the United States and making and submitting false statements to the United States. Count two charges PWC and unidentified coconspirators with a second conspiracy to defraud the United States, including committing major fraud against the United States, making and submitting false, fictitious or fraudulent claims to the United States, making false statements to the United States and wire fraud. Counts three and four are substantive major fraud charges brought against PWC, and counts five and six are substantive wire fraud charges.

According to the charges and other information presented in court: PWC offered proposals and was awarded a Prime Vendor contract on May 28, 2003 (PV-I), on February 16, 2005 (Bridge), and on July 7, 2005 (PV-II). Each of these contracts was a prime vendor contract for the provision of food and other items to military customers in the Middle East, including Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan. PWC has been paid over $8.5 billion for the contracts.

The conspiracy alleged in count one is based upon PWC allegedly providing false invoices and statements to the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (DSCP), a troop support center component of the Defense Logistics Agency, which is a logistics combat support agency within the Department of Defense. DSCP is the center for managing the purchase and acquisition of four major commodities, including subsistence/garrison feeding, used to support the U.S. military throughout the world.

In count one, PWC, along with others, is charged with conspiring to submit false information and documents to DSCP with regard to the Delivered Prices of Market Basket items as part of its proposal for the award of PV-II.  It is alleged in count one that PWC’s submission of false Market Basket Pricing information was done to impair and pervert the functioning of DSCP in its evaluation of proposals, and later to conceal the use of such false statements and documents.

The conspiracy alleged in count two is based upon PWC’s allegedly fraudulent overbilling of the United States through multiple means. The multiple means alleged include the following:

Count two also alleges that PWC insisted that vendors provide a discount to it and label that discount something other than what it was to facilitate PWC not passing the discount on to the United States. Examples of this fraudulent conduct noted in the indictment include:

Count two also charges that PWC fraudulently inflated the Distribution Fees that it billed to the United States by asking vendors to manipulate the way products were packed, thus enabling PWC to bill the United States twice as much as it should have.

Counts three and four charge substantive counts of major fraud against the United States alleging schemes to defraud the United States and obtain money and property from the United States by means of false or fraudulent promises and representations with respect to “PV-I” and “PV-II,” both of which are prime contracts with values of at least $1,000,000.

Specifically, Count three charges PWC with a fraudulent scheme to persuade a vendor located in Rome, Ga., to reduce the pack sizes of products that it sold to PWC, thus enabling PWC to bill the United States for twice as many packs of products and thus collect twice as much in Distribution Fees for the same amount of product.

Count four alleges a fraudulent scheme by PWC in which it encouraged a vendor with facilities in Conyers, Ga., to conceal consolidation fees that should have been paid by PWC in the prices of the products that it sold to PWC, thus resulting in inflated Delivered Prices being billed to the United States.

Counts five and six charge substantive counts of wire fraud, relating to the use of interstate wires with respect to the fraudulent scheme described in Count four involving the company with facilities in Conyers.

As a corporate defendant, PWC faces a sentence of probation and a fine of up to twice the pecuniary gain realized by PWC, or twice the loss to the United States.

FBI Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Greg Jones said, “The FBI is well-suited to the task of investigating such extensive government fraud cases. It is very unfortunate that established companies that have contracted to do business with the U.S. Government would abuse this relationship by falsifying and overcharging the billing to the government.”

“It is more unfortunate that this company chose to do so when these funds are in such demand for other support and equipping of our U.S. troops in various combat zones around the world. We are committed to continuing the necessary work with our law enforcement and military partners in pursuing this and other such acts of government or defense contractor fraud,” he said.

Jim sent this in:

Last week, millions of Americans watched President Barack Obama continue to sell his national health care plan on news shows, talk shows and even the David Letterman Show.  Reporters during televised question and answer portions of Obama’s performances attempted to appear unbiased, but their tone and demeanor is a marked difference from the attack approach they use on conservative politicians. And not one reporter asked about the potential for fraud and corruption in such a huge financial endeavor as providing health care for Americans.

When President Obama stated that cutting Medicare and Medicaid fraud and waste would help to fund what’s become known as ObamaCare, that statement begged the questions: “Mr. President, why hasn’t the US government already cracked down on fraud and abuse in programs that are being looted by thieves and liars? Why wait, Mr. President?”

With the Obama Administration and Democrat leaders in both houses of the US Congress desperately pushing a major overhaul — many say government takeover — of US health care, a report obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police’s Fraud & White Collar Crime Committee sheds light on the fraud and corruption already existing in government medical programs. And one can only imagine the amount of corruption that will occur with total government control of the medicine,

On April 22, 2009, Government Accountability Office officials testified before an ad-hoc Congressional subcommittee at a hearing entitled, “Eliminating Waste and Fraud in Medicare and Medicaid.”

In a subsequent letter responding to a May 29, 2009 request for responses to questions for the record related to the April 22, 2009, testimony, the GAO responded to the following questions:  What do you see as the biggest challenge for Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide an estimate for improper payments under Medicare Part D? Has GAO identified any problems with the current process for reviewing and paying Medicare claims that would make the program more vulnerable to fraudulent claims?  Is there any reason the US federal agency which administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program cannot include penalties in its Medicare Administrative Contractor contracts for paying improper or fraudulent claims that they are aware of?

With total outlays of about $46 billion in fiscal year 2008, Medicare Part D is the last significant part of Medicare for which the department has yet to develop an estimate of improper payments. In developing its estimate, it will be important for CMS to determine where the vulnerabilities and risks exist in the Medicare Part D structure and operations that could impact CMS’s ability to effectively detect, measure, and ultimately reduce improper payments.

In HHS’s fiscal year 2008 AFR, the department reported that it had calculated payment error rates for two components of Medicare Part D but also that its measurement was not fully implemented. Also, it will be important to consider Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General identified concerns about CMS’s implementation of internal controls to ensure payment accuracy as well as inadequate analysis of claims data.  

The GAO investigation identified several weaknesses with the current process for reviewing Medicare claims. Limitations in the number of medical reviews conducted leave the home health benefit — within the Medicare program — vulnerable to improper payments, including payments resulting from fraud and abuse.

In previous studies, the GAO reported in February 2009 that in fiscal year 2007, only 0.5 percent of the more than 8.7 million home health agency (HHA) claims processed were subjected to prepayment review by Medicare’s contractors.

The contractors focused primarily on claims submitted by HHAs whose billing patterns differed from their peers on measures such as cost per episode. Of those claims that were reviewed, over 40 percent were denied in whole or in part. There are also weaknesses with respect to selecting claims to review in Medicare Fee-for-Service.

In addition to the weaknesses with the current Medicare claims review process, analysts found that failure to effectively screen health providers before granting them billing privileges also increases the program’s vulnerability to fraudulent claims.

Consistent with the Social Security Act and applicable federal procurement regulations, CMS may include provisions in Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) contracts to:  prescribe the costs incurred by MACs in processing and paying Medicare claims that CMS may reimburse;  provide incentives or disincentives related to payment accuracy; and hold MACs and their employees liable for improper or fraudulent claims payments under limited circumstances.

Otherwise, neither the Social Security Act nor applicable federal procurement regulations expressly provides for CMS to reduce amounts owed to MACs under their contracts or to assess charges against MACs for improper or fraudulent claims payments.

Opponents of the plan currently considered by the US Congress — commonly known as ObamaCare — believe that if the US government succeeds in taking control of the health care industry, losses due to fraud and abuse will drastically increase.