Bad Deeds for 8-26-2009

 

Failed Texas Bank Lied About Housing Losses According to Former Executive – Craig Wolfe, who served previously as vice president for loss mitigation at Houston-based Franklin Bank, claimed in a whistleblower letter prior to the failure that others at the institution improperly shifted losses that should have been booked in 2007 into 2008. Wolfe said in the letter that he refused on three different occasions to sign the bank’s Sarbanes-Oxley attestation certifying its balance sheet and financial statements. He was swiftly demoted, and the company moved forward with the statements as presented to him.

After Franklin Bank shut its doors, a loss review conducted by the FDIC identified major accounting errors and raised “significant questions about the competency of the management.”

In addition to facing continued regulatory scrutiny, the bank’s parent company was hit with several securities class-action suits alleging that it misled investors.

See, free-market and private enterprise takes care of itself. NOT!

 

Right-Wingers Opposed to Turning a Day of Fear into a Day of Service – Right-wing commentators are claiming that the White House is planning to “erase the meaning” of the 9/11 attacks and turn the anniversary into “a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry” — despite the fact that the idea to link the 9/11 anniversary to volunteerism was originally promoted by President George W. Bush. (“President Bush today [9-8-2008] renewed the call he made in the wake of the 9/11 attacks for every American to give 4,000 hours or two years of their lives in service to others.”) The bill, passed this spring, had bipartisan support.

An article by Matthew Vadum, published Monday in the American Spectator, states that the president’s plan for a National Day of Service, to be celebrated on September 11, would eliminate 9/11 as a political tool for Republicans. “The plan is to turn a ‘day of fear’ that helps Republicans into a day of activism called the National Day of Service that helps the left,” writes Vadum. “In other words, nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all meaning.”

See, in the right-wing view, doing good deeds is evil. But war and lying is good. And, if George W. Bush said it, it’s good; but if Barack Obama says the same thing, it’s bad.

 

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley Likes Beliefs More Than Facts – At a recent town hall, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said, “I think most of us believe we have the best health care system in the world, …” Well, it may be true that the people at that town hall may believe that we have the best health care system in the world, but the fact is that U. S. health care is ranked 37th in the world. Or maybe Grassley was referring to the health care of U.S. Senators provided by our government.

The Senator has in the past endorsed the “death panel” myth and told his constituents, “you have every right to fear” it.

 

How United Health Care is Gaming Heath Care Against Doctors and Patients – United Health Group, the insurance giant is literally instructing its employees to go to town halls and spit talking points. They have rigged the system to lower how much insurance pays of your bills. They bought the agencies that are supposed to independently determine “usual and customary “ costs. The AMA sued them, claiming United Health Group was now low-balling the usual and customary rates used by the insurance industry, so insurance companies, including United Health Group, could cheat patients and providers on their reimbursements, while telling patients the company providing their rate estimates was, quote, “independent.”

While United Health Group was telling other insurance companies they would get a 16 to one return on investment if they bought those rate estimates from United Health Group. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said United Health Group low balled consumers by as much as 30 percent. A Senate committee concluded that millions of Americans, including more than one million military families, paid billions more for out-of-network health care than they should have.

Republicans like to quote the Lewin Group‘s claim that more than 100 million Americans would ditch employer health plans for a public option. House Whip Eric Cantor, Orrin Hatch of Senate Finance, they have called Lewin non-partisan. But the Lewin Group, too, is owned by United Health Group, which has given thousands to Hatch and Cantor in just the past two years.

Last year, hospital executives raided big insurance companies in a national survey. United Health Group was worst. Favorable, just eight percent; unfavorable, 91 percent.

United Health Group has reportedly hit small businesses and consumers with regular double-digit rate hikes recently, far out-stripping inflation. In 2007, United Health Group denied, but agreed to settle, claims of handling patient claims improperly in at least 37 states.

They have colluded with elected officials to fatten their profits at your expense. With all of this terrible behavior, the United Health Group CEO has made $750 million so far, and will make even more if the public option does not pass.

 

 

Republicans Need Healthcare the Most; They’re Sick – Republicans politicians already have government health care plans, which is a good thing because clearly they‘re sick:

Patient number one: Senator Chuck Grassley. Diagnosis: possible dementia—telling a town hall in Iowa he opposes the public option because he wants the public to have options. Doing nothing to rebuke a man also who threatened Grassley‘s fellow lawmakers, saying, quote, “I‘d take a gun to Washington if enough of you would go with me.”

Patient two: GOP Chair Michael Steele. Diagnosis: whiplash. Three years ago saying cuts to Medicare had to be on the table. Yesterday, releasing a senior‘s health care bill of rights promising to protect Medicare, today calling Medicare, quote, “a very good example of what we should not have happen with all of our health care.”

And then there‘s patient three: Senator/Doctor Tom Coburn. Diagnosis: pronounced cardiac deficiency—or in layman‘s terms, he‘s utterly heartless. A constituent told him her husband suffered a traumatic brain injury. He‘s on a feeding tube. They have insurance. It will not cover trained help nor a nursing home. Coburn responded that her neighbors should help out but not, of course, via their government and that his office will help, even though his office is the government.

 

Why the Gullible Can’t Help Themselves – The psychological theory of cognitive dissonance holds that when people are presented with information that contradicts preexisting beliefs, they try to relieve the cognitive tension one way or another. They process and respond to information defensively, for instance: their belief challenged by fact, they ignore the latter. They also accept and seek out confirming information but ignore, discredit the source of, or argue against contrary information, studies have shown. An example is the large number of Americans that still believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. In a study, when people who believed this Sadam-9/11 link were shown newspaper articles reporting that the 9/11 Commission had not found any evidence linking Saddam and 9/11, and quoting President Bush himself denying it, 96% of them still would not change their minds.

Which brings us back to health-care reform—in particular, the apoplexy at town-hall meetings and the effectiveness of the lies being spread about health-care reform proposals. First of all, let’s remember that 59,934,814 voters cast their ballot for John McCain, so we can assume that tens of millions of Americans believe the wrong guy is in the White House. To justify that belief, they need to find evidence that he’s leading the country astray. What better evidence of that than to seize on the misinformation about Obama’s health-care reform ideas.

 

Calculation May Explain Why So Many People Believe Stupid, Fact-Less Rumors – There is an old saying, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” If that’s true, assuming an average lifespan of 66 years (world average), 365 days per year, 24 hours in a day, and 60 minutes per hour, that comes to 34,689,600 suckers, which just happens to equal the number of right-wing wackos in existence today. (Just kidding, but you can’t prove it’s not true.)

The “I’d rather believe something crazy” crowd is not new. What makes a difference is knowing how to use them. Even though many people believe that the phrase, “there’s a sucker born every minute” was said by P. T. Barnum, there is no proof he ever said that. It was actually uttered by David Hannum, spoken in reference to Barnum’s part in the Cardiff Giant hoax. Hannum, who was exhibiting the “original” giant and had unsuccessfully sued Barnum for exhibiting a copy and claiming it was the original, was referring to the crowds continuing to pay to see Barnum’s exhibit even after both it and the original had been proven to be fakes.

In turn, Barnum’s fellow circus owner and arch-rival Adam Forepaugh attributed the quote to Barnum in a newspaper review in an attempt to discredit him. However, Barnum never denied making the quote. It is said that he thanked Forepaugh for the free publicity he had given him. (The quote is also attributed to other people.)

 

Perhaps the Health-Care Reform Opponents Should Take This Course – Occidental College – Course No. 180. STUPIDITY.

Stupidity is neither ignorance nor organicity, but rather, a corollary of knowing and an element of normalcy, the double of intelligence rather than its opposite. It is an artifact of our nature as finite beings and one of the most powerful determinants of human destiny. Stupidity is always the name of the Other, … that we conduct in order to render ourselves uncomprehending. Stupidity, which has been evicted from the philosophical premises and dumbed down by psychometric psychology, has returned in the postmodern discourse against Nation, Self, and Truth and makes itself felt in political life ranging from the presidency to Beevis and Butthead. This course examines stupidity.

 

Deaths of 43 Bald Eagles is Unanticipated Side Effect of Rat Eradication in Alaska – Alaska’s Rat Island appears to be pest-free for the first time since rats overran it after a Japanese sailing ship wrecked there in the late 1700s. Scientists stopped by in early August to check on the progress of the $3 million eradication. The project has had some ecological side effects, however. Scientists found more than 250 dead birds on Rat Island last spring when they returned for the first time since the island was baited. Those carcasses tested positive for brodifacoum, the poison used on the rats. Scientists had anticipated that some gulls would die, but the deaths of 43 bald eagles surprised and disappointed them.

The Fish and Wildlife Service will look at water and soil samples to understand the movement of the rat poison in order to determine how it killed so many birds, and what scientists need to do to avoid such deaths next time, if they treat other islands in the chain.

There are several theories, but scientists suspect that gulls ate some of the poison pellets. Eagles may have eaten the dead gulls.

Regards,

Jim