Medicare

Connecticut Insurance Dept. Launches Investigation Of Misleading Medicare Mailer

Justin Elliott | September 30, 2009, 4:55PM

Medicare Mailer from Target Leads

The Connecticut Insurance Department has begun an investigation into that Medicare mailer we told you about yesterday that tries to scare seniors into buying extra insurance by claiming that Congress has cut benefits -- right when the health care debate is dominating the news.

A copy of the mailer that went to a senior in Washington was sent by a direct mail firm, but listed an insurance agent, Tim Manry, who is apparently the Seattle branch manager for CT-based Futurity First.

Dawn McDaniel, spokeswoman for the Connecticut Insurance Department, which is responsible for regulating the insurance industry, sends along this statement:

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American Police Force

Mysterious Private Security Firm Gets Control Of Empty Jail In Small Montana Town

Justin Elliott | September 30, 2009, 3:16PM

American Police Force logo

A shadowy private security company that has no known clients but claims to have helped foreign governments combat terrorism and will protect anything from cruise ships to Pakistani convoys has taken over a jail in a small Montana town, with plans to build a law enforcement training facility on the property.

The state legislature is looking into the matter and residents of Hardin, MT, were alarmed last week when executives from the firm, American Police Force, showed up in the town, which does not have its own police department, with Mercedes SUVs bearing "City Of Hardin Police Department" decals.

And the town has had to tamp down reports on conspiracy Web sites that APF plans to impose experimental H1N1 vaccines on residents under threat of quarantine in the jail.

Under a lease signed with Hardin, APF, based in Santa Ana, California, and incorporated just six months ago, is now in control of a 400-bed detention facility the town built a few years ago but never used, a town official confirmed to TPMmuckraker today. The town reportedly stands to make over $2 million per year.

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Defense Contractors

Oversight Reports Slam Dysfunction At Defense Contract Audit Agency

Justin Elliott | September 30, 2009, 10:08AM

Delta IV Medium rocket

The office in charge of auditing Pentagon contracts is beset by incompetence and possibly malfeasance that has allowed big defense contractors to line their pockets at taxpayer expense, according to two new government oversight reports.

Last year, the obscure but important arm of the federal government called the Defense Contract Audit Agency looked at $501 billion in contractor costs.

Which is, as it sounds, a pretty important job. But the DCAA isn't doing the job so well, concludes the Defense Department's Inspector General, whose 96-page report on the DCAA was unsealed yesterday and can be read here (.pdf), and the Government Accountability Office, whose own damning report is here.

Let's look at a case that shows how auditor malfeasance can line the pockets of big defense contractors with millions in taxpayer dollars.

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Norman Hsu

Democratic Fundraiser Hsu Gets 24 Years In Fraud And Campaign Finance Cases

Justin Elliott | September 29, 2009, 4:49PM

Norman Hsu

Norman Hsu, the Democratic fundraiser whose criminal past became a scandal for Hillary Clinton during the primary in 2007, was sentenced to over 24 years in prison today for committing fraud and violating campaign finance laws, the AP reports.

Prosecutors said that Hsu used "straw donors" who he reimbursed to get around campaign finance limits. The Clinton campaign gave back over $800,000 in donations from sources linked to Hsu.

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Medicare

Are Insurers Exploiting Health Care Debate To Mislead Seniors And Drum Up Business?

Justin Elliott | September 29, 2009, 4:00PM

A mailer being sent by health insurers to seniors, and obtained by TPMmuckraker, seeks to exploit fears about Congressional changes to the health care system to sell supplemental insurance. And it contains false claims about "new" reductions in Medicare benefits imposed by Congress.

Yesterday, 66-year-old Donna Price of Battle Ground, Washington, received this official-looking mailer in a pull-apart envelope from direct mail firm Target Leads (aka TL Service Center).

It announces: "IMPORTANT: NEW MEDICARE CHANGES." And continues:

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Allen Stanford

Stanford Gets Prison Transfer To Pore Over Mass Of Case Docs

Justin Elliott | September 29, 2009, 11:48AM

A judge will allow accused fraudster Allen Stanford to be transferred from a private Texas jail to a federal prison in downtown Houston so he can better prepare his case, Bloomberg reports.

Stanford, who as of last night was still in a prison infirmary after suffering injuries in a fight, will be closer to court-appointed lawyers at the Houston facility.

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FBI

From FBI Agent's Affair List: 'Lori M. Sex While On The Job. Jeopardized Case'

Justin Elliott | September 28, 2009, 6:45PM

John Guandolo

The FBI says it's reviewing why it didn't reveal to prosecutors in the corruption case of Congressman William Jefferson that an agent on the case had an affair with a key government informant, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.

And in a court filing unsealed today, first noted by the Times-Picayune, Jefferson prosecutors detail more about the FBI agent, John Guandolo, and the list of sexual conquests he wrote.

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Gary Kreep

Man Behind Birthermercial First Teabagged In Mid-1970s

Justin Elliott | September 28, 2009, 5:49PM

Gary Kreep

The attorney behind the first-ever Birther infomercial started teabagging way before it was cool.

Back in the mid 1970s, Gary Kreep spearheaded a national tea bag-based movement to protest the Ford Administration's tax policies, he confirmed to TPMmuckraker today.

"To protest unreasonably high taxes, people stapled tea bags to their tax returns," explains Kreep, now director of the United States Justice Foundation, but then a law student and an officer in the California chapter of the Reaganite Young Americans for Freedom.

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Orly Taitz

Judge To Taitz: You're Not Off The Hook On $10K Fine For Frivolous Filings

Justin Elliott | September 28, 2009, 4:18PM

Orly Taitz

Judge Clay Land today granted Birther attorney Orly Taitz's motion to withdraw as counsel for her ex-client, but said he was not authorizing any breach of attorney-client privilege, and reminded her that she still must respond to his threat of sanctions for frivolous filings.

Land, of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, writes in the order today:

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Michael Gerson

WaPo Columnist Should Have Checked Out The Guestbook At Nazi Propaganda Exhibit

Justin Elliott | September 28, 2009, 2:19PM

From Holocaust Museum guest book 9/13/09

Michael Gerson started his Friday Post column, "Banish the Cyber-Bigots," this way:

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War In Afghanistan

The (Coming) Surge In Afghanistan: Brought To You By Kim And Fred Kagan?

Justin Elliott | September 28, 2009, 11:39AM

AEI's Frederick Kagan and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal

Frederick Kagan, the neoconservative think-tanker best known as the architect of the surge in Iraq, continues to have access to Gen. Stanley McChrystal as an adviser after serving as part of a team producing the recent assessment of the Afghan war, a spokesman for the general tells us.

It had been reported that Kagan and his wife, military historian Kimberly Kagan, were part of the group that advised McChrystal on the high-profile assessment that warns of "mission failure" if more troops are not sent. But it wasn't previously known that Kagan's work with McChrystal extended beyond the review.

It's striking that Kagan, who writes for the Weekly Standard, guest blogs at National Review, and advised the Bush Administration on Iraq, is now advising President Obama's top commander in Afghanistan.

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Orly Taitz

New Filing From Birther Taitz: Case Is Now A 'Quasi-Criminal Prosecution' Of Me!

Justin Elliott | September 28, 2009, 9:59AM

Orly Taitz

When we last checked in on the Birther lawsuit Attorney Orly Taitz is pursuing in federal court, Taitz's client, Army Capt. Connie Rhodes, was denouncing Taitz and threatening her with a bar complaint. And the judge had given Taitz until October 2 to explain why he shouldn't fine her $10,000 for repeated frivolous filings.

Now, in a new motion filed Saturday in U.S. district court in Georgia, Taitz "respectfully" requests that she be allowed to withdraw as Rhodes' counsel. (Rhodes, who has deployed to Iraq, already requested that Taitz no longer represent her.)

But here's the twist: Taitz says her motive for seeking to withdraw as counsel is to be able to divulge "privileged attorney-client communications" and to "offer evidence and call witnesses whose testimony will be adverse to her (former) client's most recently stated position in this case."

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