All Puerto Rican Birth Certificates To Be Revoked

Good lord, they couldn't find a better way to deal with it? And why isn't Puerto Rico a state already?

This summer all Puerto Ricans will have the chance to be born again -- at least on paper.

The government of Puerto Rico is invalidating every birth certificate issued on the island before July 1, 2010, in an attempt to curb rampant fraud and identity theft that officials say has ruined lives, strained social service programs and compromised national security.

(snip)

It's a radical solution to what many say has been a serious and growing crisis involving Puerto Rican birth certificates, which are used to apply for everything from U.S. passports to Medicaid.

The U.S. State Department and Homeland Security Department estimate that an astonishing 40 percent of all U.S. passport fraud cases in recent years involved Puerto Rican birth certificates, though exact numbers are unknown.

Wingnut e-mail links wearing Obama tee shirts to crime

By GottaLaff

Via Wonkette, the latest in jaw-dropping wingnut lunacy:


The above was part of an e-mail, sent to most members of Congress. Wonkette has the other part.

"There MUST be a message here, but I can't quite grasp it." Hey, know why?

1. If this is the kind of thing you send around, you can't grasp much of anything.

2. The only message "here" is that there were whole a lot of Obama tee shirts out "there". He won. By a landslide. Remember?

3. People who get hauled in also wear lots of other tee shirts with lots of other logos. Deeper meaning? I. Don't. Think. So.

4. Seriously? A Nixon/Ike/Ford/St. Ronnie/Dole shirt? Really? Those exist? And if they did, who'd wear them, this guy?


Bob Dole tee shirt indeed.

President Obama to appear on 1,000 episode of "American's Most Wanted"

Cue the right wing cracks about his birth certificate.

President Barack Obama is going to help TV's "America's Most Wanted" mark the milestone broadcast of its 1,000th episode.

Obama will be interviewed by the show's host, John Walsh, on the episode airing 9 p.m. ET Saturday on Fox.

The president will discuss the show's impact in its 22 years as well as his administration's anti-crime initiatives, including those involving white-collar crime, Fox said Wednesday.

Anthem Blue Cross broke law more than 700 times, official says

By GottaLaff

These are the people that are causing us to die, and pay the big bucks for the privilege:

California's largest for-profit health insurer violated state law more than 700 times over a three-year period by failing to pay medical claims on time and misrepresenting policies to customers, the state's insurance commissioner said Monday.

Anthem Blue Cross could face fines of up to $7 million stemming from the alleged violations from 2006 to 2009. Commissioner Steve Poizner said that the insurer repeatedly failed to respond to state regulators in a "reasonable time" as they investigated complaints over the last year.

(Up to) $7 million dollars is a drop in the bucket to these thugs. They keep stealing our money, we keep getting sick.

Lose, lose.

Anthem Blue Cross to delay insurance rate hike amid criticism

By GottaLaff

Did my family just get a reprieve? Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease:

Health insurer Anthem Blue Cross will postpone its much-criticized plan to raise rates for some California residents who buy insurance on their own, after reaching a deal Saturday with state regulators.

Anthem's planned rate hike, which the state estimates would affect about 700,000 customers, averaged 25 percent and would have been as high as 39 percent for some.

Anthem Blue Cross of California, based in Thousand Oaks, agreed to postpone the increase from March 1 until May 1 so California could have outside experts review the company's complex and detailed plan filing, including data on the medical costs it expects to incur.

We're among the lucky "some" who got the "as high as 39%" notice recently. 39%. I finally won something, only in reverse.

Between health insurance and mortgage payments, we pay around $50K a year... just for those two big fat money gobblers (L.A. area real estate is not cheap).

At least our house payments go toward something that actually, you know, protects us and provides a safe haven.

U.S. soldier 'waterboarded his own daughter, 4, because she couldn't recite alphabet'

By GottaLaff

Now where would anyone get an idea like this? Think... think... Waterboarding. It's something I'd never heard of until... until... ahhh yes.

Money see, monkey do. And the chimp in chief made it a household word. Some role model, eh Sarah Palin?

A soldier waterboarded his four-year-old daughter because she was unable to recite her alphabet.

Joshua Tabor admitted to police he had used the CIA torture technique because he was so angry.

As his daughter 'squirmed' to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline.

This is the example the United States set under BushCo. Be proud, Cheney supporters. Give yourselves a high five, Yoo, Bybee, et al.

[His girlfriend] told [the police] about the alleged torture and the terrified girl was found hiding in a closet, with bruising on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat.

Asked how she got the bruises, the girl is said to have replied: 'Daddy did it.' [...]

Police have not revealed Tabor's military service, but his base is home to units that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Daddy did it."

Why, one could imagine that quote coming from Jenna or Not Jenna, because their daddy did it, too... hundreds and hundreds of times.

H/t: TexBetsy

FBI broke law for years in phone record searches

By GottaLaff

Under whose watch again?

The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after the fact to justify their actions.

E-mails obtained by The Washington Post detail how counterterrorism officials inside FBI headquarters did not follow their own procedures that were put in place to protect civil liberties. The stream of urgent requests for phone records also overwhelmed the FBI communications analysis unit with work that ultimately was not connected to imminent threats.

A Justice Department inspector general's report due out this month is expected to conclude that the FBI frequently violated the law with its emergency requests, bureau officials confirmed.

There's a whole lot more here.

The GOP is afraid of Dawn Johnsen. I bet she'd be all over this.

The real reason for their vehement opposition is that Johnsen is committed to overturning the Bush administration’s policies on torture and warrantless surveillance that would clip the wings of the imperial presidency.

As for today's DoJ, the ones who made it in:

A Justice Department inspector general's report due out this month is expected to conclude that the FBI frequently violated the law with its emergency requests, bureau officials confirmed.

I'm all a-flutter.

Video- Crime down despite economy

Why Democrats won't prosecute Bush's crimes

By GottaLaff

Jonathan Turley just now on MSNBC:

"Democrats like to disclose crimes, but don't like to prosecute them. Why? Because they'd have to [...] indict Bush."

Color me naive, but isn't that why one would disclose the crimes? To prosecute them? To prevent future crimes? To uphold the law?

BushCo lied and withheld information from Congress. That's a crime. So says Turley. So prosecute.

I'm sorry, I may be a little slow here, but what's the problem again?

Police departments keeping public informed on Twitter

Wonder if this will put police scanners out of business?

(CNN) -- When a report of a possible explosive device on the roof of a city parking garage came in to the Lakeland, Florida, Police Department, public safety officials there sprang into action.

They sent out a squad to investigate and they posted a notice on Twitter.

(snip)

But increasingly, police and fire departments across the country are tapping into social networking to disseminate information to the public.

"We think the police department has an obligation to get information out to the community through whatever means or mechanisms we have at our disposal," said Lakeland Police Assistant Chief Bill LePere. "Traditional media releases, expecting the local print media to pick it up and run it in the newspaper tomorrow, is 24 hours too late."

Guilt by hunch

By GottaLaff

How many times has this happened? It doesn't matter whether it's during campaign season, or if it's just easier to blame someone for a crime in order to appease a nervous nation, or even protect the actual guilty party.

Here's the headline on the New York Times website:

Portrait Emerges of Anthrax Suspect’s Troubled Life

The anthrax investigation yielded nothing more than a strong hunch that Dr. Bruce E. Ivins was the perpetrator, a Times examination found.

Guilt by hunch. Destruction of lives, reputations and credibility. Spread the rumors and misinformation, then retract when nobody is listening. That's what we've become.

Rudy Giuliani's Sleaze False Robocall Smear

Via Ben-

Jonathan Martin has the day's GOP robocall, which broadens an entirely new, though traditional, line of attack previewed a couple of days ago by Florida Republicans:

"You need to know that Barack Obama opposes mandatory prison sentences for sex offenders, drug dealers and murderers" Giuliani says, referring to Obama's opposition to mandatory minimum sentences, which was also an issue Clinton used against him in the primary. "It's true, I read Barack Obama's words myself."

We've heard reports of it in Virginia and Maine.

Ex-CIA Official Pleads Guilty to Steering Agency Contracts

By GottaLaff

(He even looks like a Foggo)

A bloggo on Foggo:

The CIA's former top administrator pleaded guilty today to steering agency contracts to a defense contractor and concealing their relationship, making Kyle "Dusty" Foggo the highest-ranking member of a federal intelligence or law enforcement agency to be convicted of a crime, officials said.

Foggo admitted in U.S. District Court in Alexandria that he conspired to defraud the United States in his relationship with Brent R. Wilkes, a California businessman. Prosecutors say Wilkes subsidized meals and vacations for Foggo and his family, and that Foggo helped Wilkes get lucrative contracts, including one in which the CIA was bilked when it paid 60 percent more than it should have for water supplied by a Wilkes-affiliated company to CIA outposts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Youse guys bettah watch out. We're onta yas.

Quote-O'-The-Day: Get Rove edition

By GottaLaff

Thom Hartmann just now:

"The Republican party has become a criminal enterprise."

Liveblogging Thom again:

How do you resolve that? Go after the guys at the bottom, the Bill Canarys, and work your way up. Run it like a mob prosecution, because they are the mob.

It's not about politics. The Democrats and the media are playing it that way, but it goes way beyond that. It's about criminal activity. We have election fraud.

The Republican plan: Disenfranchise as many people as possible via criminal means. Don Siegelman talks all about that.

Today, Karl Rove did not show up, so let's go find his criminal co-conspirators and bring THEM before the Committee and let them roll over on Rove. It'll happen.

If it doesn't, we've lost more than just a court case.

From the "I Knew That Dep't": Justice Improperly Screened for Political Ties

By GottaLaff

Tell us something we don't know:

Justice Department officials improperly used political and ideological factors to screen applicants for the agency's prestigious honors and summer intern programs, sometimes rejecting otherwise qualified candidates because of their ties to Democrats, internal auditors said in a report issued this morning.

The long awaited review faulted Bush administration officials for violating Justice Department policy and civil service rules beginning in 2002, when they tried to fill career posts with rookie lawyers whose political affiliations mirrored their own.

Justice Official: Who do you like better, President Bush or Al Gore?

Applicant #1: Um, Al Gore?

Justice: I'm sorry, what? What did you just say?

Applicant #1: President Bush. I said, President Bush!

Justice: Too late. You blew it. No job for you! Next!

Two members of the screening committee in 2006, Esther Slater McDonald, an adviser to the associate attorney general, and Michael J. Elston, chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, considered political and ideological factors when rejecting candidates "and thereby committed misconduct," the investigators said. [Via TPM: The IG report found Michael Elston and another DOJ official "violated federal law" by deselecting candidates based on their liberal affiliations.]

Applicant #1: What are you writing on my application?

McDonald allegedly wrote "disparaging" remarks about job seekers' liberal ties on their applications, and Elston allegedly failed to take action when the problems were brought to his attention by another concerned member of the hiring panel, according to the report.

Justice: Nothing. I'm writing nothing. Now get out. Next!

Applicant #2: Hi! I'm a huge Cheney fan!

Justice: You're hired.