I took a break to enjoy the holiday, as I'm sure many of you did, but my inbox kept busy, and on Friday came a doozy, courtesy of the Washington Post.
You remember that little bit of a banking crisis we had a couple of years back, where banks around the world might have possibly, maybe, just a little, conspired in a giant scheme to package toxic mortgage loans into Grade A, investment-ready securities instruments, which then blew up in everyone's faces to the tune of a whole lot of taxpayer bailouts?
Well all of a sudden, it looks like an agency of the Federal Government is looking to do something about it, in a real big way.
Last Friday the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced they're suing 17 firms (I'll give you a list, bit it's pretty much all the usual suspects); depending on who you ask the Feds are seeking an amount as high as $200 billion.
As Joe Biden would say, it's a big...well, it's a big deal, anyway, and that's why we're starting the new week with this one.
For years, we've heard from political ideologues and ambitious district attorneys about how much waste, fraud and abuse there is in state programs like Medi-Cal. Whenever there is a case in which a low-income recipient is charged or convicted, the right-wing cheering section is quick to applaud and point to the case as proof of rampant fraud.
But where was the applause when Attorney General Kamala Harris recently announced a $241 million settlement in a case of Medi-Cal fraud by Quest Diagnostics, the state's largest provider of medical laboratory testing?
The settlement resulted from allegations that Quest systematically overcharged the state's Medi-Cal program for more than 15 years and gave illegal kickbacks in the form of discounted or free testing to doctors, hospitals and clinics that referred Medi-Cal patients and other business to the labs. Here's what AG Harris said:
Whitman's continued attacks on the IHSS homecare program are turning even staunch Republicans against her.
Here's another post on the Whitman web site from Cheryl Rose, a homecare provider and lifelong Republican.
Not wishing to be overshadowed by the aggressive anti-fraud tactics in Stanislaus County (California's War on the Elderly and Disabled: A Dispatch from the Front Lines) Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully is publicizing the exploits of her own "fraud squad" in the struggle against what she claims is "massive fraud" in the In Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program.
An editorial from Saturday's Sacramento Bee: High-tech fix won't stop IHSS fraud
In an effort to cut what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger claims is rampant fraud in the state's In-Home Supportive Services Program, the Department of Social Services is pushing a pilot program to assess the efficacy of an expensive high-tech system to fingerprint and photograph care providers and their recipients.
The MorphoTrak device, which the state is testing in three counties, including Sacramento, has been used by the military in Iraq. It can fingerprint, snap a photo and transfer data instantaneously. The machines cost up to $5,000 a copy. If deployed statewide, the state would need 600 to 1,000 of these devices potentially. But let's hold on a minute.
Before the state commits to buying this expensive equipment and building yet another expensive police bureaucracy that treats all IHSS recipients and their caregivers as potential criminals, it needs to perform a far more thorough assessment of the potential for fraud within IHSS and the best way to address it.
Here's the latest "high tech" weapon in Gov. Schwarzenegger's war on 450,000 elderly, blind and disabled Californians.
Without any authority from the Legislature, the Schwarzenegger Administration is planning to purchase up to $5 million worth of military/security cameras to take pictures of the 465,000 seniors and people with disabilities who receive In Home Supportive Services (IHSS) homecare.
The "MorphoTrak" cameras are currently being used in Iraq and other military locations. According to their manufacturer, they are also recommended for, among other things, "border crossings, gang enforcement, and airport/maritime security." The camera itself costs $4,200, plus hundreds of dollars more for docking stations and other equipment.
(Steve's work with IHSS providers is critical for California's disabled. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
A homecare provider from San Diego told legislators yesterday how she and her client--a qaudriplegic Vietnam veteran--were threatened and harrassed by a fraud investigator from the state.
Nancy Jo Riley of San Diego testified that she and her client were "randomly selected" for a fraud investigation last October as part of a new "anti-fraud" initiative by the state. According to Ms. Riley, the agent from the Department of Health Care Services (DCHS) first threatened in a phone call to cut off all IHSS unless she and her client met with him immediately. At the subsequent meeting, the investigator asked her and her client a long series of "humiliating" questions. He then said he could not understand why a person with a severe disability like his should be subject to a fraud investigation in the first place. He also said that her client, whose hands are frozen in a fist-like position because of his disability, would "probably" be exempted from new fingerprint requirements for homecare consumers.
Several legislators expressed outrage over this intrusion, which Ms. Riley described as a "raid" and a violation of her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. Her testimony came shortly after a representative from DCHS had denied at the same hearing that his department was conducting fraud investigations.
The latest Field Poll is out (SF Chronicle here and Field PDF here) and it shows the favorability ratings of various leading contenders for 2010 gubernatorial race in both parties. And while the Chronicle wants to make this an "omg DiFi is the favorite" and "ha ha - Newsom sucks" story, the two most important things the poll actually tells us are:
1. DiFi has very high unfavorability ratings among Democratic contenders, and
2. Nobody - and I mean nobody - knows a thing about the Yacht Party potentials, except that they don't like them.
Let's take this in order. First, the Dems:
Name
Favorable
Unfavorable
No opinion
Dianne Feinstein
50%
39%
11%
Jerry Brown
34
34
32
Antonio Villaraigosa
28
33
39
John Garamendi
27
20
53
Gavin Newsom
25
41
34
Jack O'Connell
10
16
74
Among Dems only Gavin Newsom has higher unfavorables, but not by much, and since this poll was taken right before the election - when Newsom was getting pounded in the press and on the airwaves by the Yes on 8 campaign - this may be a low point for Newsom.
That makes the 39% unfavorable figure for Feinstein rather significant. Sure, she has the highest favorable rating - 50% - of anyone in the field regardless of party, but that's not a great figure for such an established politician. As we've noted before, her numbers among Dems aren't so hot either. I don't see much basis for a DiFi inevitability argument, which the Chronicle is trying to get started.
Jerry Brown has a lot of room to grow, since much of that 32% "no opinion" are probably younger Californians who (like me) were born late in or after his previous terms as governor.
Antonio Villaraigosa has to be considered a sleeper here. At 39% "no opinion" that gives him room to grow as well. He has been building a solidly progressive reputation over the last year, coming out strong against Prop 8 and leading the fight for mass transit in LA (seriously, getting to 2/3 with a sales tax for rail in LA County is a major achievement). As Brian noted a few weeks ago, his endorsements were the closest match to our own. He is also making a high profile link with Barack Obama, serving on his economic advisory team. If you want to run for governor, it is a damn smart move to link yourself to a popular president who won CA by 24 points.
And what of the Yacht Party contenders? They have Bill Simon written all over them:
Name
Favorable
Unfavorable
No opinion
Meg Whitman
17%
16%
67%
Tom Campbell
14
13
73
Steve Poizner
10
14
76
Even with enormous unknown ratings, none of them have a net favorability rating outside the margin of error, and Steve Poizner already has a significant unfavorability rating that will only grow once his links to voter registration fraud get a wider airing. The Chronicle article promotes Meg Whitman as a breakout star, but I'm not seeing it here. All California voters will need to hear is that she's a Republican and that she was an advisor to the McCain campaign and that may be enough to torpedo her.
The only Republican who might have a snowball's chance is Tom Campbell, the moderate Republican, but he didn't fare well in a statewide race in 2000 (losing to DiFi). Of course it's highly unlikely that the "down with the ship" Yacht Party primary voters will vote for a moderate like Campbell.
This goes to show that the 2010 governor's race may well be decided in the June primary, which should be one of the most interesting primary fights we've seen in this state in a long, long, LONG time.
Swing State Project, a Democratic-leaning online blog covering election races nationwide, recently identified three California Assembly races to watch - all involving portions of San Joaquin County - and calling them all toss-ups at this point.
In AD-10 they site the near equal registration numbers – a 2.04% difference, advantage Republicans – that have close from 6% since the 2006 primary election. The difference was only 1.97% in May but odd numbers from San Joaquin County skewed the 60-day report.
In AD-15 nothing is certain, but it looks like Joan Buchanan should come out on top. Still, this is one to watch and could be close.
In AD-26 there is a 1% Democratic advantage and the election should be a close one for John Eisenhut. The Republicans have a strong candidate with a known family name — Berryhill.
Each of these districts share something in common. All three include a portion of San Joaquin County. Why is this important? In spite of the rapid rise in Democratic registration throughout California, San Joaquin is the only county in any of these districts to experienced a drop in registration. As a matter of fact, about 4,000 voters, 3,700 of them Democratic, have dropped off the San Joaquin rolls since May, 2008.
Comparing reports on the Secretary of State's Website, it was found that Republicans managed to increase registrations in San Joaquin County between May and September adding about 1,800 new voters. Over the same period, Democrats lost nearly 3,700, very close to the 4,000 total decrease county wide. Something doesn't smell right, and it isn't rotting fish in a drying delta.
With reports of "slamming" coming out of San Bernardino County, the CDP needs to get on this quickly. CA Democratic Party Region 7 Directory Gary Robbins and San Joaquin Co. Central Committee Chair Richard Blackston have already been informed, and San Joaquin should be added to the already started investigation.
Vikingkingq published an excellent diary here and Calitics on Wednesday and a follow-up on Thursday about this issue. I too ran into the same tactics he described at UCSB here in Orange County on Thursday afternoon.
It appears there was a statewide effort by the company collecting the signatures to hide what they were doing. Reports of this tactic have come from Davis, Santa Barbara, Berkeley and Orange County. The story that keeps coming out is that petitioners approached registered voter, made their pitch to get a signature for the children's cancer hospital initiative and then asked the voter to "sign multiple copies".
Yesterday, I posted a diary about possible ballot petition fraud going on in Santa Barbara, California related to the Electoral College Initiative that seeks to split California's electoral votes by congressional district.
There have been some developments, so I've decided to post an update.
(An interesting personal account of the dirty tricks. - promoted by shayera)
NOTE: cross-posted from DailyKos.
First, I should explain that I'm a graduate student at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Today I witnessed what I think is an incidence of ballot petition fraud relating to the electoral vote apportionment initiative - the proposal to apportion California's electoral votes by congressional district, unilaterally giving 19 of California's electoral votes to the Republicans in 2008.
Outside the UCEN (student center plus bookstore plus food court) at UC Santa Barbara, there were a number of people with cardboard clipboards soliciting people to sign ballot petitions for a proposal to spend $1 billion on cancer hospitals for kids. If you agree to sign, they tell you "you need to sign 4 times." What they do not tell you is that the three pages after the ballot initiative on cancer hospitals are different ballot initiatives: the second proposes to abolish eminent domain, the third proposals to abolish rent control, and the fourth is the proposal to apportion California's electoral votes by district (the so-called Dirty Tricks Initiative).
I should note that the clipboard is arranged such that a rubber band holding the petitions to the cardboard is positioned on the top of the page, across the actual ballot language in question - thus, partially hiding the text of the ballot initiatives on pages 2-4 unless you actually stop and pull down the top of the page.
I agreed to sign the cancer initiative, but the comment about signing four times raised a red flag, because I'm familiar with the structure of ballot petitions, so I paused before signing and looked at the other initiatives. However, I'm absolutely sure that most of the people signing, young college students on a rush to get their lunches and off to class, did not take this step.
What they are doing is getting people to sign for ballot initiatives without their knowledge or informed consent, using young peoples' desire to do a good thing and their lack of familiarity with the legal paperwork of initiative petitions. If this is not illegal it is certainly deeply unethical. The moment I realized what was going on, I told the petitioners that they shouldn't be telling people to sign for ballot initiatives they're not aware of. Immediately after, I called the school newspaper, the Daily Nexus, the Courage Campaign, the Santa Barbara Democratic Central Committee, and the California Democratic Party. After that, I have sent in a form to the Sec. of State as well, reporting this.
This just in from The Liberal OC... Chris Prevatt has had it with all the scandals, all the corruption, and all the sleaze that's taken hold of just about every level of local government in Orange County:
In the case of Orange County, it is interesting how many instances of corruption or ethical lapses are prevalent in our government institutions. Whether it is Sheriff Mike Corona [link] and his "Coronies," the Capistrano Unified [link] and Santa Ana Unified School District administrators, or senior managers in the Orange County Health Care Agency, it seems we cannot avoid the scandals and incompetence of these overly paid buffoons.
I received word the other day that the Health Care Agency was partially successful in their appeal of the $143,000 penalty they were issued for failing to properly manage a federal HIV/AIDS grant sub-contractor. The Orange County Register covered the story in a detailed investigative report "Misplaced Faith" released in March 2006.
It never ceases to amaze me how the powers that be here in OC are so willing to waste all of our taxpayer dollars on these dirty crooks... So what can be done about all of this? Follow me after the flip for more...
H/T to Orange Juice for all their great coverage of Santa Ana issues. We probably wouldn't even know about how these administrators are hurting our kids and their educational opportunities if it weren't for Thomas Gordon, Art Pedroza, Claudio Gallegos, and the entire O-J Team. Thanks to all of you for getting the MSM's attention.
