Where have I heard that phrase before?

Jim sent this in:

The Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended during the Obama Administration, authorizes the federal government to enter into partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies to train officers to assist in identifying those individuals who are in the country illegally.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is responsible for supervising state and local officers under this program. However, following complaints received by members of the US Congress, the Government Accountability Office was asked to review this program.

The GAO’s report reviews  the extent to which ICE has designed controls to govern the program’s implementation, and how the resources are being used and the activities, benefits, and concerns reported by participating agencies.

ICE has designed some management controls to govern program implementation, such as background checks of state and local officers, but the program lacks other controls, which makes it difficult for ICE to ensure that the program is operating as intended.

First, the program lacks documented objectives to help ensure that participants work toward a consistent purpose. ICE officials stated that the objective of the program is to address serious crime, such as narcotics smuggling committed by removable aliens; however, ICE has not documented this objective in program materials.

As a result, of 29 program participants reviewed by GAO, 4 used 287(g) authority to process individuals for minor crimes, such as speeding, contrary to the objective of the program.

Second, ICE has not described the nature and extent of its supervision over participating agencies’ implementation of the program, which has led to wide variation in the perception of the nature and extent of supervisory responsibility among ICE field officials and officials from the participating agencies. ICE is statutorily required to supervise agencies participating in the program, and internal control standards require an agency’s organizational structure to clearly define key areas of authority and responsibility.

Defining the nature and extent of the agency’s supervision over this large and growing program would strengthen ICE’s assurance that management’s directives are being carried out. Finally, while ICE states  that participating agencies are responsible for tracking and reporting data to ICE, in 20 of 29 agencies

GAO reviewed, ICE did not define what data should be tracked or how it should be collected and reported.

Communicating to participating agencies what data is to be collected and how it should be gathered and reported would help ensure that ICE management has the information needed to determine whether the program is achieving its objective. ICE and program participants use resources for personnel, training, and equipment, and participants report activities, benefits, and concerns regarding the program.

In fiscal years 2006-2008, ICE received about $60 million to train, supervise, and equip program participants. As of October 2008, ICE reported enrolling 67 agencies and training 951 state and local law enforcement officers.

According to data provided by ICE for 25 of the 29 program participants reviewed by GAO, during fiscal year 2008, about 43,000 aliens had been arrested pursuant to the program, and of those, ICE detained about 34,000. About 41 percent of those detained were placed in removal proceedings, and an additional 44 percent agreed to be voluntarily removed.

The remaining 15 percent of those detained by ICE were given a humanitarian release, sent to federal or state prison, or released due to the minor nature of their crime and federal detention space limitations. Program participants report a reduction in crime, the removal of repeat offenders, and other public safety benefits.

However, over half of the 29 agencies GAO contacted reported concerns from community members that use of program authority would lead to racial profiling and intimidation by law enforcement officials.

Members of the U.S. Congress and state Governors send their holiday greetings and well wishes to servicemembers deployed overseas.

Pepper sent this in:

(Columbia, S.C.) – South Carolina’s unemployment rate hit an all-time high at 12.3% for the month of November.  Upon hearing about the state’s unemployment numbers, Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02), a member of the Education and Labor Committee, continued to sound the alarm about the need for Congress to consider job creation policies:

“How high will unemployment numbers have to rise before Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid finally straighten out Congress’ misplaced priorities?  Congress has spent plenty of time debating health care takeovers, energy tax policies, and rampant spending increases – but no real policies to jump start America’s economy.  With double digit unemployment figures across the nation, lawmakers should be debating and discussing job creation ideas each and every day.

“I represent two counties in the state with the highest and the lowest unemployment rates.  Lawmakers need to debate a diverse range of policies that fit the needs of both types of communities, and fast.  It’s high time for Speaker Pelosi to give our communities the tools they need like tax relief for small businesses and families to get America’s economy rolling once again.”

Click here and here for job creation ideas that Congressman Wilson has encouraged Speaker Pelosi to consider.

WSPA highlighted today that Allendale County has the highest unemployment rate in South Carolina at 23%. The lowest in the state is the 8.8% jobless figure for Lexington County.

Jim sent this in:

Democratic  Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters on Friday that the US Congress will need to condone at least $1.8 trillion in additional federal borrowing in 2010 if the government does not want to default on the dangerously high U.S. debt.

Jim sent this in:

Civil libertarians are warning Americans about the ambitions of federal lawmakers to control all waters within the United States including those on private property, in the latest power grab by politicians in Washington, DC.

According to the American Land Rights Association, the Obama Administration and Congress are attempting to pass the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2009 (S787) that would amend the 1972 Clean Water Act and replace the words “navigable waters” with “waters of the United States.” 

“The US Constitution’s Tenth Amendment automatically reserves power for controlling waters to the states, not to the Oval Office and US Congress,” said political strategist Mike Baker.

“This is just one more power grab by out-of-control politicians who only adhere to constitutional law when it suits them,” he added. 

Section 3, Paragraph 8 stipulates that  ”this Act will treat, as ‘waters of the United States’, those features that were treated as such pursuant to the regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Corps of Engineers in existence before the dates of the decisions referred to in paragraph (10), including–

(A) all waters which are subject to the ebb and flow of the tide;

(B) all interstate waters, including interstate wetlands;

(C) all other waters, such as intrastate lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, or natural ponds;

(D) all impoundments of waters of the United States;

(E) tributaries of the aforementioned waters;

(F) the territorial seas;

(G) wetlands adjacent to the aforementioned waters.”

After being overuled by the U. S. Supreme Court in two recent decisions that the words “navigable waters” in the Clean Water Act limited federal agencies to regulation of navigable waters only, Democrats and liberal Republicans in Congress are striking back.

They are attempting to pass the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2009 (S 787) that would amend the 1972 Clean Water Act and replace the words “navigable waters” with “waters of the United States.” 

“The bill also defines “waters of the United States” with such breathtaking scope that federal agencies would be required to regulate use of every square inch of the U.S., both public and private,” according to the American Land Rights Association.

“Obviously, those behind this legislation have only contempt for the Constitution, limited government and private property rights.  To understand what the framers of the Constitution intended, one need only look to their writings and the writings of those from whom they took wisdom and direction,” said officials at ALRA. 

“This is a terrible bill that would give the Federal government jurisdiction over anything that is wet including seasonal mud flats. This means that the Feds could enter your property and dictate what you can do with bodies of water on your land,” said political strategist Mike Baker.

“It also means that the Great Lake States and Provinces could not protect the Great Lakes from being pumped dry to feed the growth of California and the Southwest. In that area, Democrat Senator Russ Feingold has sold out his own state: Wisconsin.”

“Senate Bill 787 will change federal jurisdiction over “navigable” water, to give the federal government control over all water everwhere, in municiple reservoirs, and on private lands, and in private wells. This bill ignores state water law authority and the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” stated Barbara H. Peterson, a farm lands protection activist.

“If the Feds own the water, then they can do anything they want to with it, and I have to ask permission to get a drink or water my animals,” she stated. 

More information on this subject may be found on these web pages:

www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s787/text

www.landrights.org/

www.thewesterner.blogspot.com/…/us-senate-moves-to-seize-deserts-under.html

www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_SN_787.html 

www.protectmywater.org/documents/060109_2_pager.pdf

While millions of Americans watched President Barack Obama sell his national health care plan on nationwide television on September 9, he told members of both houses of Congress and all Americans that his plan would be paid for by reducing fraud, abuse and waste. 

With the Obama Administration and Democrat leaders in both houses of the US Congress pushing a major overhaul — many say government takeover — of US health care, a report obtained by NewswithViews.com’s Jim Kouri shed light on the fraud and corruption already existing in government-run medical programs.

“There are billions and billions of dollars — taxpayer dollars — that are literally stolen every year and the government leaders know it’s happening. However, it’s easier to just increase taxes or decrease benefits than it is to go after criminals within the US and local governments,” said political strategist Mike Baker.

“If stopping government fraud and abuse is so easy, why don’t these politicians stop it now?” he asked.

According to Steven Malanga of the Manhattan Institute, experts estimate that “abuses of Medicaid (alone) eat up at least 10 percent of the program’s total cost nationwide — a waste of $30 billion a year. Unscrupulous doctors billing for over 24 hours per day of procedures, phony companies invoicing for phantom services, pharmacists filling prescriptions for dead patients, home health-care companies demanding payment for treating clients actually in the hospital — on and on the rip-offs go.” 

The cheating is brazen because scam artists have figured out that years of lax oversight have made Medicaid easy plunder, according to Malanga.

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.

“When you study the history of fraud and abuse within a program the size of Medicare/Medicaid you can only imagine how much more money will be stolen by taxpayers in a program as huge as Universal Health Care. Can you imagine a trillion dollars stolen from the American people in the name of medical care?” asks Mike Baker.

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 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.