FRIDAY NEWS TO SPREAD 1

BREAKING: ACORN Demanded And Won Changes To Preliminary ACORN Report That Whitewashes Wrongdoing
http://biggovernment.com/mvadum/2010/06/16/breaking-acorn-demanded-and-won-changes-to-preliminary-acorn-report-that-whitewashes-wrongdoing/
ACORN demanded and received changes to a congressional report that -surprise, surprise- fails to find ACORN did anything wrong.
Longtime ACORN lawyer Arthur Z. Schwartz sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which was examining federal grants to ACORN, under orders from Congress. Schwartz's demands appear at pages 32 and 33 of the report which is called "Preliminary Observations on Funding, Oversight, and Investigations and Prosecutions of ACORN or Potentially Related Organizations."
paper is available at GAO's website. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10648r.pdf
ACORN's election fraud assurance division, Project Vote, which used to employ President Obama, even threw in a few helpful suggestions in an effort to trick Americans into believing it no longer has anything to do with ACORN. Project Vote lawyer Brian Mellor's letter appears at pages 35 and 36 of the report.
The preliminary -as in incomplete, insufficient, and downright superficial- report is less than enlightening. I got the distinct impression while reading it that its authors hadn't actually been following ACORN's troubled history.
You can't expect much from a federal investigation when the question posed, namely, whether some of the grants ACORN received, were misused. Instead of doing actually shoe-leather investigating, all GAO appears to have done is talked to other government agencies and compiled existing data.
Table 4 at p.19 of the report indicates that of the six major federal agencies GAO asked questions of onlyONE (!) has provided responses so far. Talk about "preliminary"!
It is amazing that GAO's lukewarm threshhold-level probe is considered an investigation at all.
The real issues that have yet to be explored are whether ACORN engaged in violations of RICO through money-laundering of taxpayer funds designated for nonpartisan activities, engaged in partisan activities, and violated ERISA (the federal pension statute) by shifting pension funds around in order to conceal a million dollar embezzlement perpetrated by the ACORN founder's brother (Dale Rathke) - for starters! ACORN's criminal activities stretch almost all the way back to the group's founding in 1970 in Arkansas
Only a proper racketeering investigation will shed light on ACORN's decades of lawbreaking.
Meanwhile, ACORN hagiographer and radical left-wing community organizer John Atlas, author of Seeds of Change, crows that ACORN has been "vindicated" by a new preliminary threshhold-level report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
When he's not agitating people in the inner cities to rise up against their government, Atlas is a full-time unicorn breeder.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-atlas/acorn-vindicated-of-wrong_b_612265.html
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Everybody lies except Obama? http://coralvillecourier.typepad.com/
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Doctors limit new Medicare patients
The number of doctors refusing new Medicare patients because of low government payment rates is setting a new high, just six months before millions of Baby Boomers begin enrolling in the government health care program.
Recent surveys by national and state medical societies have found more doctors limiting Medicare patients, partly because Congress has failed to stop an automatic 21% cut in payments that doctors already regard as too low. The cut went into effect Friday, even as the Senate approved a six-month reprieve. The House has approved a different bill.
. The American Academy of Family Physicians says 13% of respondents didn't participate in Medicare last year, up from 8% in 2008 and 6% in 2004.
. The American Osteopathic Association says 15% of its members don't participate in Medicare and 19% don't accept new Medicare patients. If the cut is not reversed, it says, the numbers will double.
. The American Medical Association says 17% of more than 9,000 doctors surveyed restrict the number of Medicare patients in their practice. Among primary care physicians, the rate is 31%.
The federal health insurance program for seniors paid doctors on average 78% of what private insurers paid in 2008.
"Physicians are saying, 'I can't afford to keep losing money,' " says Lori Heim, president of the family doctors' group.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says 97% of doctors accept Medicare. The agency doesn't know how many have refused to take new Medicare patients, Deputy Administrator Jonathan Blum says. "Medicare beneficiaries have good access to physician services. We do have concerns about access to primary care physicians."
The AARP, the nation's largest consumer group representing seniors, is taking notice. Some U.S. areas already face a shortage of primary care physicians. Policy director John Rother says the trend away from Medicare threatens to make it worse.
States are starting to see a flight from Medicare:
.In Illinois, 18% of doctors restrict the number of Medicare patients in their practice, according to a medical society survey.
.In North Carolina, 117 doctors have opted out of Medicare since January, the state's medical society says.
.In New York, about 1,100 doctors have left Medicare. Even the medical society president isn't taking new Medicare patients.
"I'm making a statement," says Leah McCormack, a New York City dermatologist. "Many physicians are really being forced out of private practice."
Florida has the highest percentage of Medicare patients, and most doctors can't afford to leave the program. But "the level of frustration has been higher this year than I've ever seen it before," says Linda McMullen of the Florida Medical Association.
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Rahm Emanuel Won’t Let an Oil Spill Go to Waste http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/06/president_bamas_chief_of_staff.html
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Congress votes to spare doctors from Medicare cuts http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/24/AR2010062405322.html?hpid=topnews
Why Sarah Palin Will Never Lead the Religious Right http://www.alternet.org/news/147289/why_sarah_palin_will_never_lead_the_religious_right/
After the McChrystal Affair, Let's Talk About the 5 Basic Reasons the US Doesn't Need to Be in Afghanistan The tabloid drama between the White House and McChrystal should give way to some sober assessments about Afghanistan http://www.alternet.org/news/147319/after_the_mcchrystal_affair%2C_let%27s_talk_about_the_5_basic_reasons_the_us_doesn%27t_need_to_be_in_afghanistan/
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Why the BP Disaster Threatens to Expose Fox News' Insanity to Its Right-Wing Audience
"I'm wondering if Fox News isn't pressing up very closely to its tipping point; to the moment where Fox News reveals how certifiably insane it is by rushing to BP's defense." http://www.alternet.org/media/147315/why_the_bp_disaster_threatens_to_expose_fox_news%27_insanity_to_its_right-wing_audience/
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Note to Media: Afghanistan Is Not Just About Clashing Egos http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/06/24/mcchrystal-afghanistan-policy-and/
The Bank Lobby Gets Desperate on Derivatives http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/06/23/the-bank-lobby-gets-desperate-on-derivatives/
More of the Same Promised in Petraeus’ Afghanistan http://news.antiwar.com/2010/06/23/more-of-the-same-promised-in-petraeus-afghanistan/
Switch to Petraeus Betrays Afghan Policy Crisis http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2010/06/23/switch-to-petraeus-betrays-afghan-policy-crisis/
CIA hires Xe, formerly Blackwater, to guard facilities in Afghanistan, elsewhere http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/23/AR2010062305255_pf.html
NED Report: International Agencies fund Venezuelan opposition with $40-50 million annually http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_60407.shtml
Venezuela's Chavez orders seizure of more companies, voices about corporate water use http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_60223.shtml
GASLAND (movie trailer) http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_60398.shtml
BOOK LAUNCH: The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19321
Is President Barack Obama so dense that he could not see why Gen. Stanley McChrystal might actually have wanted to be fired — and rescued from the current March of Folly in Afghanistan, a mess much of his own making? http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/062410a.html
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As the Official Story of the 1980 October Surprise case crumbles – with new revelations that key evidence was hidden from investigators of a congressional task force and that internal doubts were suppressed – history must finally confront the troubling impression that remains: that disgruntled elements of the CIA and Israel’s Likud hardliners teamed up to remove a U.S. president from office http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/062410.html
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Age of Obama http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/ageofobama.html
U.S. Congressional Wartime Commission Targets Armed Contractors http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15604
The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15591
Offshore Corporate Tax Havens: Why Are They Still Allowed? http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15596
HERE IS ONE TO PAY ATTENTION TO SEE WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT Freedom Road Socialist Organization at U.S. Social Forum http://www.fightbacknews.org/2010/6/24/freedom-road-socialist-organization-us-social-forum