Tag: Florida

Jeb Finds a New Way to Destroy Medicare

Trish

Say you’re one of the country’s biggest hospital chains and you were recently fined hundreds of millions of dollars by the Securities and Exchange Commission for bilking Medicare. What do you do to turn your image around?

How about appointing Jeb Bush to your board of directors? After all, Jeb spent considerable time while governor of Florida attempting to privatize Medicare, cut elderly people out of reimbursement, and generally destroy the program. It’s a slam dunk!

Jeb’s previous health care experience consists of camping on the deathbed of Terri Schiavo and second-guessing her medical team

In his first publicized business activity since leaving office in January, former Gov. Jeb Bush is joining the board of Tenet Healthcare, the national hospital chain that’s working to clean up its image and performance since dealing with widespread allegations of fraud.

…The money-losing chain, which owns and operates 62 hospitals in 12 states, has been struggling to emerge from a series of legal and financial problems. Earlier this month, it paid $10 million to settle a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Medicare fraud allegations. Last year, it reached an agreement with the federal government to pay $900 million to settle allegations of Medicare fraud.

Jeb, whose previous health care experience consists of camping on the deathbed of Terri Schiavo and second-guessing her medical team, thinks it’s a great idea.

”It’s in the healthcare industry, which is something I know something about,” Bush said…”And it’s a place that over the next few years there’ll be some unsettled water. I prefer to go to some place where I can add value, rather than go to a place where things are going really well.”

You picked a winner there, buddy. And in a move he will one day explain to his maker, Bob Kerrey backs the appointment.

Former Sen. J. Robert Kerrey, a Democrat from Nebraska and chairman of the Tenet board’s nominating committee, said in a prepared statement: “I believe [Bush’s] decision to join us reflects the real strides the company has made in recent years to build a solid foundation for future growth based on integrity and quality.”

Not to mention big bucks.

States Put at Risk from Bush Rip-off

Trish

How is the Bush government providing equipment for its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why, stealing it from the states of course.

What I want to know is where the billions of dollars of emergency appropriations for “the troops” have gone.

Florida has about 600 to 700 soldiers in Iraq. Members were sent overseas with their equipment, but when they come back, the gear often stays in the war zones.

The Florida Guard was down 500 Humvees and 600 trucks, short 4,000 pairs of night vision goggle and needed 30 more wreckers, spokesman Lt. Col. Ron Tittle said…

The Florida National Guard has only 53 percent of the dual-use equipment it once had for responding to a storm or domestic disturbance, a recent analysis by the Government Accountability Office found. Texas, California and Louisiana also have about half of their dual-use equipment available to non-deployed Army National Guard forces.

In light of the pilfering, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is worried about the Guard’s ability to respond to stateside disasters.

“Problems from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the Florida National Guard further than ever before, leaving it without all the resources it should have for responding to a domestic crisis,” Nelson said. “Hurricane season is coming fast and we need to make sure the Guard has what it needs.”

The Guard is being a good soldier and saying it will be O.K.

…Tittle said sufficient manpower and equipment remained to respond to a major hurricane, and additional supplies could be borrowed from other states or rented if needed.

Rented? In the devastation, flooding, power outages, and chaos of a major storm, we’ll just trot off to the nearest open Rent-All and come back with a generator or a backhoe? I’m not seeing it.

What I want to know is where the billions of dollars of emergency appropriations for “the troops” have gone. I would not be surprised to hear that government equipment ended up in the hands of the private contractors in Iraq, or that fistfuls of that emergency money went there too.

Ryan Skipper Press: With Friends Like These…

Trish

One of the nation’s top gay focused web sites has smeared Ryan Skipper, a young Florida gay man recently murdered in what police labeled a hate crime. In fact, what queerty.com said makes the local sheriff and news media — blasted by us and many others for repeating the suspect’s version of events before investigating — look like paragons of open-mindedness and circumspection.

At no time does Pensito Review accept sources at face value and pass them along, unexamined. And if you ever catch us doing that, we’ll strap on some balls and admit it.

According to friends, Ryan Keith Skipper, 25, went cruising Wahneta, Florida, for some quick and easy sex when he came across 21-year old Joseph Bearden. Testing his luck, Skipper offered Bearden a ride, which Bearden accepted. Skipper then took him to his house, where they smoked a bit of ganj and, according to police reports, chatted about using Skipper’s computer expertise to copy checks.

Skipper and Bearden then apparently took Skipper’s laptop and headed off to meet Bearden’s friend, 20-year old William David Brown Jr. From what police gather, Bearden and Brown, nestled in Skipper’s car, then stabbed Skipper 20 times before tossing his body on the side of the road.

That would make a good movie but it bears little resemblance to what actually happened.

Not a single one of Ryan’s friends has said he was cruising that night. All have said they know of no time Ryan ever looked for sex with strangers.

Ryan’s brother, who is in the computer/internet/all that stuff business, was preparing a laptop to send him from his home in Las Vegas but had not yet shipped.

At the time of his murder, Ryan owned a desktop computer, but no printer and no scanner.

Ryan has no history of criminal activity beyond some underage personal consumption charges related to pot. He was a student at a technical college and held a steady job at Sunglass Hut.

Though they jumped to the conclusion expected by rabid anti-gay evangelicals, Queerty is refusing to apologize. They blame their sources and then, worse, their defenders hide behind the excuse they are a blog, not a legitimate news outlet.

In this story, we passed along the Associated Press story…

Skipper’s friends, meanwhile, wrote us an angry note insisting that not only do we have the story wrong, we’re defaming this boy’s name: a stunning allegation, if you ask us…

Rest assured…that was not our intent. We simply report the news as we find it. We’re sure Skipper would be pleased to know that you’re keeping his good name alive. We must say, however, that we find nothing wrong with cruising for sex and, thus, cannot agree that we assassinated anyone’s character. Regardless, we’re sorry for your loss. It’s always upsetting when people are murdered – especially when it’s a senseless a crime as the one that took Skipper. We’ll be sure to keep our virtual eyes on any and all developments in this convoluted and multi-faceted story.

The only convoluted stories are the ones coming from the suspects. But George Bush himself could not have sidestepped this any better. Next they’ll be saying, “mistakes were made.”

“It’s always upsetting when people are murdered.” Yeah, don’t you hate that? What a bother. It probably happens to them all the time, which is how they know it’s “always upsetting.” Sheesh.

That they find nothing wrong with cruising is not the point, SINCE RYAN WASN’T DOING THAT ANYWAY.

We didn’t know Ryan when we read the first reports of his death, but we have half a brain and could see that the suspects’ version wasn’t adding up. Since then, we have spoken to his brother, scoured the web for updates, and are in the process of speaking to his friends. At no time does Pensito Review accept sources at face value and pass them along, unexamined. And if you ever catch us doing that, we’ll strap on some balls and admit it.

Ryan’s family has been cautioned that capital murder trials can take up to two years to prepare. If this is the kind of support they can expect from the “good guys,” it’s going to be a very long 24 months.

Why Hasn’t Pervo Mark Foley Been Arrested?

Buck Banks

It was last September when the story first broke that U.S. Rep. Mark Foley was sending inappropriate e-mails to underaged U.S. House of Representatives pages. It was September 29 when Foley resigned from the House and entered rehab for alcoholism and “behavioral problems” related to childhood sexual abuse by a priest. Here iwe are on the cusp of April and the perv still hasn’t been charged. Why not?

According to the Associated Press:

It’s in the best interests of the GOP powers that be to keep the Foley case under wraps and out of the media — at least until after the prez elections of 2008.

“I can’t really give any more detail other than to say we’re still in the preliminary investigative stance and we are working with state authorities,” said Debra Weierman, spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office.

Florida authorities announced their own criminal investigation in November but have remained tightlipped on the status since then.

Foley’s lawyer maintains that he never did anything physical to the pages, so no crime was committed. That may be the case some places, but not in Florida:

Federal law generally requires a person to meet or attempt to meet a minor for sex for it to be a crime. However, under laws in some states where the Florida Republican communicated with minors, an attempt to seduce the victim might be enough for a criminal case.

Under state law in Florida, where the age of consent is 18, a crime may have been committed if Foley is simply found to have seduced or attempted to seduce a minor using lewd or explicit language.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel was a little more blunt:

“This type of activity would fall under Florida law’s criminal statute,” said Maureen Horkan, director of the Child Predator Cybercrime Unit in the Florida Attorney General’s Office, adding that the statute is “broad.”

The law states “any person who knowingly utilizes a computer online service or Internet service to seduce, solicit, lure, entice, or attempt to seduce a child” would be committing a third-degree felony and could receive a jail sentence of up to five years.

So why are law enforcement authorities dragging their feet on the investigation? It doesn’t sound like they are working the case zealously:

Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials said Wednesday the Foley investigation is “still ongoing” and is weeks if not months away from concluding.

“We are still conducting an active and ongoing investigation into the matter and continue to work with the Florida Attorney General’s Office Cybercrime Unit,” said Kristen Perezluha, an FDLE spokeswoman.

Meanwhile, FBI officials said they are still conducting a preliminary investigation into the matter. “Nothing has changed,” said Debbie Weirman, an FBI spokeswoman. “We are still working with Florida authorities. It is still a preliminary investigation.”

In an interview Wednesday, Stephen Jones, a lawyer for one of the underage pages at the center of the controversy, said authorities have not questioned his client since October.

“Nothing has occurred this year,” Jones said. “[State and federal] authorities have not contacted us recently.”

Foley is an embarrassment to the Republican Party. Any charges or a trial would just dredge up the scum that surrounds Foley, whose resignation contributed to the Democvratic takeover of the House of Representatives last November. It’s in the best interests of the GOP powers that be to keep the Foley case under wraps and out of the media — at least until after the prez elections of 2008. And remember, Florida is a RED state.

Here’s what Foley would have to do if convicted and labeled a “sexual predator” under Florida law:

    To ensure all sexual predators and sexual offenders are identified through the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) system the following Florida driver’s license or ID card registration change was added:

  • Within 48 hours after initial registration, whether the sexual offender/predator is released or under custody of the Department of Corrections (DC), he or she shall register in person and present proof of initial registration at a driver license office of the DHSMV to secure a Florida driver’s license or ID card.
  • The sexual offender/predator must also report to DHSMV within 48 hours any change of address or renewal of driver license or ID card.
  • The failure of a sexual offender/predator to maintain, acquire or renew a driver’s license or ID card, to submit to the taking of a digitized photograph, provide location information or by act or omission to comply with registration requirements, is a third degree felony.

    • Added Community Notification Requirement (Effective July 1, 1998):

  • Within 48 hours upon notification by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) of the presence of a sexual predator, the sheriff of the county or the chief of police of the municipality where the sexual predator establishes or maintains a permanent or temporary residence shall notify each licensed day care center, elementary school, middle school and high school within a 1-mile radius of the residence of the sexual predator.

    • Sexual Offender/Predator Designation:

  • A sexual predator or sexual offender who was designated by a court on or after October 1, 1998, and released from supervision or confinement for at least 20 years and has not been arrested for any felony or misdemeanor offense since release, may petition the court for removal of the sexual offender/predator designation.

I wonder how the former pages feel about justice deferred ….

Usual Suspect Strikes Again in Florida Tax Scheme

Trish

Florida taxpayers have paid a consultant $40,000 so far to tell them to cut wasteful tax spending. This could only be brought to us by that great brain trust, Republican state legislators.

Donna Arduin, former advisor to Jeb Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger, is at it again

To date, the consultant has produced 35 pages of deliverables for her fee — that’s $1,143 per page. Fifteen of those pages were an early draft of a report that was finalized at 16 pages, plus three pages of projections under various tax scenarios.

And not just any consultant, either.

Donna Arduin, former advisor to Jeb Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger, is at it again, according to investigative reporter Shirish Date (pronounced DAH-tay).

Arduin…is a partner in a consulting firm with Arthur Laffer – as in the Laffer Curve, the justification of President Reagan’s massive tax cuts in 1981 – and Stephen Moore, former head of the anti-tax Club for Growth.

Florida is paying the firm of Arduin, Laffer and Moore Econometrics $10,000 a month under a six-month contract with the state House for Arduin’s service, which so far has included delivery of a 16-page treatise that argues that taxes on wealth are bad for the economy while taxes on consumption are good…

[House Speaker Marco] Rubio spokeswoman Jill Chamberlin said Arduin also has given oral advice to Rubio and other House leaders on numerous occasions…

Arduin did not return phone calls for this article.

Rubio, on Arduin’s advice, has proposed that Florida do away with property taxes and instead up the state sales tax. And up it. And up it.

The plan is so bad that the St. Petersburg Times said, “Better ideas have been drawn up on cocktail napkins as bartenders served a final round.”

Others are more specific.

“It’s the same old discredited nonsense of supply-side economics,” said Brice Nissen, a Florida International University professor and head of the Center for Labor Research and Studies there. “It would be a massive giveaway to the most wealthy.”

Ed Montanaro, formerly the state’s chief economist and now a professor at Carthage College in Wisconsin, said most government economists prefer to spread tax sources across income, wealth and transactions to keep the revenue stream as stable as possible…

“This is an ideological shift, not a pragmatic one,” Montanaro said of Arduin and Rubio’s new proposal. “Those boring little details that ideologues don’t often have patience for are the difference between effective, efficient government and chaotic government.”

Date is also an author, and his latest book is JEB: America’s Next Bush.

Florida Power Company to Build Huge Coal Plant in the Everglades

Trish

It’s not just because I finally watched “An Inconvenient Truth” this weekend that I find the news that Florida Power & Light is planning to build one of the country’s largest coal-fired generating plants in the Everglades so infuriating.

The plant would emit 16 million tons of climate- changing carbon dioxide, making it the largest single source of global warming pollution in the state.

It’s also the unmitigated gall of a company that sucks every last dime of profit from its customers while feeding at the public trough. Floridians will be a long time forgetting how FPL used hurricane damage as an excuse to raise rates and then asked the state legislature for money to fix its equipment and lines. And got both.

But this latest news takes the cake.

Florida Power & Light’s rush to build one of the largest coal plants in the nation sets back the state’s efforts toward a clean energy future and dramatically increases global warming pollution…

The proposed coal plant would be a 5,000-acre industrial facility constructed in the heart of the Everglades, in the city of Moore Haven in Glades County, and would emit harmful pollutants 24 hours a day for more than 50 years.

The pollutants include: sulfur dioxide, that would acidify lakes, rivers, and the Everglades; nitrogen oxide, which is a precursor to smog and exacerbates respiratory diseases like asthma; soot that has been scientifically linked to lung cancer and cardiac arrest; and mercury, which is a potent neurotoxin that has already contaminated every major water body in Florida, leading to fish consumption advisories by the Department of Health. Lastly, the plant would emit 16 million tons of climate-changing carbon dioxide, making it the largest single source of global warming pollution in the state.

FPL does not talk about the emissions from the plant and its effect on our health and environment but rather on the low cost of coal as compared to other fuels.

It also talks, on its web site, about what a great friend to the environment it is.

We strive for more efficient operations and improved performance with less impact on the environment.

…Our commitment to reduce emissions has yielded important dividends for air quality.

…We look for ways to improve our operations to minimize impacts on wildlife near our facilities.

If, like me, you can’t let this plan stand, contact FPL and tell them what a bunch of money-grubbing hypocrites they are. As you might expect, they make it hard to give them feedback by requiring names and addresses in an online form but make something up. And give them an earful.

Brainless Florida Republicans Attempt to Brainstorm Tax Cuts

Trish

Florida’s Republican-controlled state legislature is wrestling with property tax reform, and hardly a day in session passes without some new and even more ridiculous proposal to solve the problem.

So many proposals have been tossed about to increase taxes that a t-shirt from a Disneyworld hotel gift shop will cost about $19.95 and the tax will be $124

The St. Petersburg Times nailed the current state of lunacy in an editorial.

Republicans in the Florida House have achieved something truly extraordinary. They have managed to rewrite their terribly flawed tax relief proposal and make it worse, a feat previously thought to be impossible. It is time for adult supervision from the governor and the Senate to steer this debate back into reality.

Forcing drastic cuts in government spending through property tax rollbacks, abolishing property taxes on homesteads and replacing some of the money by raising the state sales tax by 2.5 cents would be short-sighted and irresponsible…Better ideas have been drawn up on cocktail napkins as bartenders served a final round.

I won’t bore non-Floridians with the details but suffice it to say that property values (and therefore, assessments) have skyrocketed over the past few years. Homeowners are getting it on two ends — increased property taxes and out of sight insurance premiums.

But the cure could be worse than the disease. Republicans, who adore “not taking anything off the table,” offered up the idea of just eliminating all property taxes. Hold on, Florida’s 67 counties said, what will we do for money? Cut back, the brave legislators replied. Yes, and then what, the counties rejoined.

So a new plan was hatched — raise the state sales tax! After all, it’s you tourists who will pay most of it, they said, plus all those freeloading renters. So many proposals have been tossed about to increase sales and bed tax rates, and to tax things that were previously exempt that a t-shirt from a Disneyworld hotel gift shop will cost about $19.95 and the tax will be $124. Should do wonders for tourism.

Blaming the Victim: Portrayal of Florida Man Killed for Being Gay Doesn’t Ring True

Trish
William Brown, left, and Joseph Bearden, after their arrests in the killing of Ryan Skipper
William Brown, left, and Joseph Bearden, after their arrests in the killing of Ryan Skipper

It sounds like the Matthew Shepard story all over again, this time in Florida.

The body of a gay man, 25-year-old Ryan Keith Skipper, was found dumped on the side of the road last week in the flyover country between Tampa and Orlando, stabbed 20 times. Two men have been charged with the killing, which police are investigating as a hate crime.

The local paper, the Lakeland Ledger, quotes Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd as being unequivocal on the victim’s intentions.

“What we do know is that Ryan was out looking to pick up someone that evening,” Judd said.

The scenario doesn’t add up, friends say

Skipper was driving around Wahneta on Tuesday night when he found [21-year-old Joseph] Bearden walking along Sixth Street in Eloise about 11 p.m. Tuesday, and offered him a ride. The two went back to Skipper’s house, where they smoked marijuana and discussed using Skipper’s computer to copy checks, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The scenario from the local news being disseminated to regional and national outlets, is that the victim, himself a lowlife, was out trolling for a hook-up and made a move on the wrong hombres. But almost nothing in that story adds up, according to people who knew him.

That’s where it starts to get kind of Pulp Fiction.

They left Skipper’s house with his laptop and went to another home, at 110 First St. in Wahneta, to meet [20-year-old William] Brown.

“At this time, they decided to rip Ryan off for his car and his laptop,” Judd said…

Judd said Brown and Bearden attacked Skipper inside his own car. His body was left by the side of the road, stabbed nearly 20 times.

The two suspects then drove to another home at 2131 Cypress Gardens Road, where they discarded some papers from the car. Their next stop was at 16 28th St. S. in Haines City to try to clean up the vehicle.

“The car was full of blood because the homicide had occurred in the vehicle,” Judd said.

Eventually, the paper said, after “parading” the car around and bragging to friends, the suspects abandoned it on a dock near a lake in the town of Winter Haven.

After they were taken into custody, homophobia was introduced as the motive for the murder and robbery.

Several more witnesses also were interviewed Friday night, and it was during one of those interviews that Brown’s admission was revealed.

“William Brown told (a witness) that Ryan Skipper was messing with him, that Ryan Skipper was a homosexual, so (he) killed him,” Judd said.

So much for the official story. […]

Privacy: The Newest Battle Cry of Republicans Seeking to Revoke the Constitution

Trish

There is no right to privacy in the Constitution, abortion foes like to remind us. To them, it’s a constitutional stretch to say that a woman has the right to make up her mind about her body, all by herself, without government assistance.

But there will be more privacy than you can shake a very big stick at in Florida if a state lawmaker gets his way. Personnel records of public workers, such as teachers and elections officials, as well as arrest records, civil suits, and just about everything else formerly “public” will forever more be “private.”

In an extreme case, a newspaper could be prevented from printing the name of a killer unless the killer gave permission for the personal information to be disclosed.

The bill requires that personal identification information should always remain private, even when collected legally.

It would give people the option of choosing whether to have personal identification information released to the public when requested by a state agency to supply such information.

Personal identification information is defined as a person’s name and any information that may be used to identify an individual, including an address, telephone number, social security number, date of birth or mother’s maiden name.

The bill is one of the three labeled most egregious by the First Amendment Foundation, a Florida open-government advocacy group made up of newspaper reporters, broadcasters, and other members of the press. The same state representative, William Proctor (R-St. Augustine), made the list twice.

His second (HB 1211) would make it a misdemeanor to distribute personal identification information about someone without first receiving permission from that person, even if the distributors legally acquired the information from public records.

The framers of the Constitution, as we all know but apparently need to be reminded, wanted us to be able to keep a very close eye on the courts, since they alone have the power to deprive us of our liberty. Without knowing who’s been arrested or tried for what by whom, we can’t possibly exercise the oversight a free society requires.

“It would just close the door to a whole host of records that we use regularly to oversee our government,” said Adria Harper, the director of the Florida’s First Amendment Foundation.

In an extreme case, Harper said, a newspaper could be prevented from printing the name of a killer unless the killer gave permission for the personal information to be disclosed.

These same Republicans want us to know the addresses, license numbers, and blood types of sex offenders. How these two initiatives will coexist is an interesting question. Proctor’s explanation of what he is trying to accomplish is, at best, lame.

“The basic question is to what level of privacy is a person entitled,” Proctor said. “There is the problem of identity theft. That’s not a small problem.”

It is and it isn’t. Identity theft, like online child pornography, is being pumped up and used as a rallying cry to either unconstitutionally hide us or unconstitutionally snoop on us. Either way, it’s bad law.

New Governor: Dump “Darkeys” and Faux Florida State Song

Trish

Among the many controversies (and we’ll get to some in later posts) that Florida’s new kinder, gentler Republican-lite governor, Charlie Crist, has brought about is whether to change the state song. Even those of us who never really knew we had a state song can guess what it might be. That’s right, Stephen Foster’s classic, “Old Folks at Home,” popularly known as “Way Down Upon the Suwannee River.”

Pennsylvanian Stephen Foster never set foot in Florida, and his song wasn’t even about Florida until Foster realized that “Swanee” sounded better than “Peedee,” the river in South Carolina he originally sought to memorialize

It all started when Crist — who can’t pass a day without being compared to California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger for his “populist,” centrist, two-month-old leadership — decided to forgo the playing of the state song during his inauguration ceremony. No one seemed to miss it at the time, what with all the other festivities, but later Crist was asked to explain the omission.

”There are lyrics in it that are, in the opinion of some, a derogatory reference to some time in our historical past that involves slavery,” Crist said. ”I can’t condone it.”

Since he said that, people like me who know the first couple of lines and then hum, have been wondering what the actual lyrics are, and how this got to be Florida’s state song. What the research turns up is fascinating.

For starters, Pennsylvanian Stephen Foster never set foot in Florida, and his song wasn’t even about Florida until Foster realized that “Swanee,” as he spelled it, sounded better than “Peedee,” the river in South Carolina he originally sought to memorialize.

Wait, it gets better. Foster wrote the song in 1851 for E.P. Christy and his traveling show, “Christy’s Minstrels.” It sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and by the 1880s, was credited with starting Florida’s tourist industry. But a look at the lyrics is enough to make you recoil, or guffaw, or both. […]