Tag: Fraud

Cracking Down On Social Security Fraud

By now almost everyone knows that Elmo and his band of thugs in DOGE are taking on ‘saving’ the taxpayers money by gutting government.

Recently they were given access to people’s Social Security information, confidential information, in an attempt to head off the millions of dead getting money.

Let’s look at all that imagined fraud.

The Trump administration is falsely claiming that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security payments, the AP reports. Over the past few days, President Trump and Elon Musk have said on social media and in press briefings that people who are 100, 200, and even 300 years old are improperly getting benefits—a “HUGE problem,” Musk wrote. It is true that improper payments have been made, including some to dead people. But the numbers thrown out by Musk and the White House are overstated and misrepresent Social Security data.

  • What has the Trump administration said about payments to centenarians? On Tuesday, Trump said that “we have millions and millions of people over 100 years old” receiving Social Security benefits. He said Social Security would be “very powerful” if those people were removed from the system.
  • So are tens of millions of people over 100 years old receiving benefits? No. Part of the confusion comes from Social Security’s software system based on the COBOL programming language, which has a lack of date type. This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago. Reports from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general state that the agency has not established a new system to properly annotate death information in its database, which included roughly 18.9 million Social Security numbers of people born in 1920 or earlier but were not marked as deceased. This does not mean, however, that these individuals were receiving benefits. A 2023 report states that “almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments.” As of 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old.
  • How big of a problem is Social Security fraud? A 2024 report from Social Security’s inspector general states that from fiscal 2015 through 2022, the agency paid out almost $8.6 trillion in benefits, including $71.8 billion—or less than 1%—in improper payments, mostly overpayments to living people. In early January, the US Treasury clawed back more than $31 million in federal payments—not just Social Security payments—that improperly went to dead people, a recovery that former Treasury official David Lebryk said was “just the tip of the iceberg.” The Treasury estimated that it would recover $215 million over three years.

The fraud in the Social Security system is a typical lie of the GOP….a few years ago it was the welfare system that was the target and that turned out to be ma fucking lie but yet they keep telling it year after year and yet there are some Americans that repeat this lie every chance they get

DOGE is a massive scam….

Even if you believe that Musk is trying to root out waste and fraud (and you really shouldn’t), he and his dweeby hatchet bros are only making things more corrupt and expensive.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/doge-results-government-waste-scam/

Even with information to contrary there are some that want to believe these thugs are doing the right thing….they are not.

But not to worry these parasites will be coming for Medicare soon.  (Post to follow)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Elmo Has Your Records

I read that Musk has now been given access to Medicare and Medicaid…..is this a good idea?

Elon Musk’s access to the operations of the federal government appears to be only accelerating. On the heels of his Department of Government Efficiency gaining access—though it may be only “read-only” access—to a sensitive Treasury Department payment system:

  • Medicare/Medicaid: Representatives from DOGE have gotten access to the payment and contracting systems for the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid, reports the Wall Street Journal. The reps are looking to identify fraud and waste at CMS—the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—and study the agency’s structure and staffing.
  • Musk: “Yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening,” Musk tweeted in response to another’s post about the development.
  • CDC: DOGE reps also visited the Centers for Disease Control and requested a list of employees who have been there less than a year or are within a two-year probationary period, reports the Washington Post.
  • Labor: The reps also visited the Labor Department to discuss access to sensitive data there, per the Post. Labor unions are seeking a restraining order to keep DOGE’s hands off department info, saying the non-government department’s work is “illegal” and has “already been catastrophic.” (Musk has successfully gutted the US Agency for International Development.)
  • VA: Democratic senators are worried about what might happen at the Department of Veterans Affairs. “Musk and his associates already have the personal financial information of every veteran receiving disability or education benefits because of their illegal data mining at the Department of Treasury,” tweeted Sen. Patty Murray. “Will they now look at private health records of veterans?” Sen. Richard Blumenthal raised a similar alarm, calling it “reprehensible an unelected billionaire can freely access veterans’ sensitive and personal information.”

I do not like the idea of this douche bag having access to my medical stuff.

Fraud?

What about the fraud and games the wealthy play with the stability of this country?  These ‘people’ will target individuals while allowing insurance companies and Pharma get a free ride.

At what point are you fuckers going to wake up?

You have a screwing coming and you just bend over and take it like a submissive alter boy.

Pay attention!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden Enables The Fraud

This is one of my FYI posts for I watch policies that could effect our seniors….the biggest thing that seniors need to be aware of is the ‘medicare advantage plans’….they are not all they are cracked up to be.

I have made my thoughts known about these so-called Medicare Advantage plans….I think it is taking advantage of seniors who are worried about their aging body.

But as usual the insurance industry has spent its cash well….all the facts point to these ‘advantage” plans are little more than a scam….the president has allowed this raping of seniors to continue.

Medicare Advantage providers whined for months that they simply couldn’t survive without being able to rip off the government, so the government said ‘you can rip us off for just a little longer,'” The American Prospect‘s David Dayen tweeted in response to the CMS announcement.

The changes involve tweaks to the Medicare Advantage risk-adjustment model, which determines how much the federal government pays insurers to cover patient care.

Medicare Advantage plans are notorious for piling on diagnoses to make patients appear sicker than they are to reap larger payments from the federal government. CMS estimates that overpayments to Medicare Advantage totaled $11.4 billion in fiscal year 2022, a sizeable drain on the Medicare trust fund.

“Nearly every large insurer in the program has settled or is facing a federal fraud lawsuit for such conduct,” The New York Timesnoted Friday. “Evidence of the overpayments has been documented by academic studies, government watchdog reports, and plan audits.”

…

Medicare Advantage insurers have been fighting the Biden administration’s proposed changes for months, running ads warning that the reforms would result in higher premiums and worse care for patients—claims that federal health officials adamantly rejected.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-medicare-advantage-reforms

The lobbyists for the insurance industry has buckets on money to throw at Congress we, the people, do not.

Plus Wall Street is happy with the Biden decision….

UnitedHealth Group, a dominant force in the lucrative Medicare Advantage market, has seen its stock jump over the past week as Wall Street analysts and investors embrace the Biden administration’s decision to delay reforms aimed at tackling abuse in the privately run, government-funded health program.

STATreported late last week that “Wall Street was overjoyed” by the announcement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which said it would phase in changes to the model that dictates how much government funding Medicare Advantage insurers receive to cover patient care.

Instead of implementing the changes all at once, the Biden administration will roll out the reforms over a three-year period, allowing Medicare Advantage insurers to continue overbilling the federal government in the meantime.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/wall-street-biden-medicare-advantage

Oh there is AARP to protect seniors….that is a lie for they endorse a ‘plan’ that is scamming their members.

Please if you are considering one of these ‘plans’ think twice and check out the evidence before wasting your cash.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Be Well….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–17Mar21

If you celebrate the day or looking for a good excuse to get drunk…then you are an amateur….

The pandemic that is running its course through our nation has created another problem. Greed and Fraud.

The pandemic has cost billions in fraud….identity theft for one and there is so much more….and to the tune $63 billion….

With the floodgates set to open on another round of unemployment aid, states are being hammered with a new wave of fraud as they scramble to update security systems and block scammers who already have siphoned billions of dollars from pandemic-related jobless programs. The fraud is fleecing taxpayers, delaying legitimate payments and turning thousands of Americans into unwitting identity theft victims. Many states have failed to adequately safeguard their systems, and a review by the AP finds that some will not even publicly acknowledge the extent of the problem. The massive sham springs from prior identity theft from banks, credit rating agencies, health care systems and retailers. Fraud perpetrators, sometimes in China, Nigeria or Russia, buy stolen personal identifying information on the dark web and use it to flood state unemployment systems with bogus claims.

The US Justice Department is investigating unemployment fraud by “transnational criminal organizations, sophisticated domestic actors, and individuals across the United States,” said Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the department’s criminal division. The Labor Department inspector general’s office estimates that more than $63 billion has been paid out improperly through fraud or errors—roughly 10% of the total amount paid under coronavirus pandemic-related unemployment programs since March. California has been the biggest target, with an estimated $11 billion in fraudulent payments and an additional $19 billion in suspect accounts. Colorado has paid out nearly as much to scammers—an estimated $6.5 billion—as it has to people who filed legitimate unemployment claims.

What kind of person or corporation is driven by greed in this time of misery and sorry?

Time to identify and prosecute these slugs of society….make them pay triple of what they have stolen.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“If We Lose”!

It appears that the same rhetoric will apply for the election of 2020……Russia did it!  Or is it….China did it?

The VP candidate , Harris, has made her thoughts known…..

Kamala Harris says foreign interference, doubt cast about the election by President Trump, and voter suppression could potentially cost her and Joe Biden the White House in November. “I am a realist about it. Joe is a realist about it,” the California senator said on CNN’s State of the Union that aired Sunday, the AP reports. The 2020 election will be held under challenging circumstances. It will be the first US election in over a century to be conducted during a pandemic, which is expected to lead to a massive surge in mail voting. Trump has railed against mail balloting, which he says without proof will lead to voter fraud. And for the first time in decades, both parties will be able to closely scrutinize who casts ballots due to a recent court ruling that wiped out tighter restrictions on poll monitoring.

Meanwhile, US intelligence agencies have concluded Russia is once again attempting to interfere in the election by amplifying discord in the country. That all adds up to a volatile environment that Harris says could alter the outcome. “We have classic voter suppression, we have what happened in 2016, which is foreign interference. We have a president who is trying to convince the American people not to believe in the integrity of our election system and compromise their belief that their vote might actually count,” Harris said. “These things are all at play.” The Hill notes that Trump has consistently denied the allegation that Russian activities helped him win the 2016 election, dismissing it as a “hoax.”

Where did Harris get her info?

Microsoft?

The same Russian military intelligence outfit that hacked the Democrats in 2016 has attempted similar intrusions into the computer systems of more than 200 organizations, including political parties and consultants, Microsoft said Thursday. Those efforts appear to be part of a broader increase in targeting US political campaigns and related groups, the company said. “What we’ve seen is consistent with previous attack patterns that not only target candidates and campaign staffers but also those who they consult on key issues,” Tom Burt, a Microsoft vice president, said in a blog post. Most of the infiltration attempts by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian agents were halted by Microsoft security software and the targets notified, he said. The company would not comment on who may have been successfully hacked or the impact, the AP reports.

Microsoft did not assess which foreign adversary poses the greatest threat to the integrity of the November presidential election. The consensus among experts is that the answer is Russia. “This is the actor from 2016, potentially conducting business as usual,” said John Hultquist of cybersecurity firm FireEye. “We believe that Russian military intelligence continues to pose the greatest threat to the democratic process.” The Microsoft post shows that Russian military intelligence continues to pursue election-related targets undeterred by sanctions, US indictments, and other countermeasures, Hultquist said. The same GRU military intelligence unit, known as Fancy Bear, that Microsoft said is behind the current activity broke into voter registration databases in at least three states in 2016.

How true is this report?

Or is it just Microsoft doing some PR work?

But Sounds to me like the Dems are already setting the stage for the excuse of their loss to Trump.

If it was not Russia….then maybe China…..if mot China then what could have caused the loss?

This month, U.S. intelligence reported that Russia wants Donald Trump to win reelection, while China and Iran seek to help Joe Biden. Both sides of the political aisle have cited the report, claiming that one adversary or another would be happy if the other party takes power in January.

It shouldn’t surprise us that foreign countries have preferences about American electoral outcomes. Why wouldn’t they, given U.S. influence in the world? According to political scientist Lindsey O’Rourke, during the Cold War, the United States engaged in 64 attempts at covert regime change. More recently, we have overthrown and ultimately helped kill leaders in Iraq and Libya, while aiming to replace governments in Syria and Venezuela. Hillary Clinton believes that Vladimir Putin’s grudge against her goes back to comments she made about the 2011 parliamentary elections in Russia, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently urged the Chinese people to overthrow their government.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/09/03/the_real_threat_to_us_elections_doesnt_come_from_beijing_or_moscow_576253.html

I am weary of all the excuses…..just once I want someone, anyone, to grow a set and tell the truth….if we lost it is because we had a crappy candidate or shitty policies….something like that.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

But if they lose what will the story be in reality?

This month, U.S. intelligence reported that Russia wants Donald Trump to win reelection, while China and Iran seek to help Joe Biden. Both sides of the political aisle have cited the report, claiming that one adversary or another would be happy if the other party takes power in January.

It shouldn’t surprise us that foreign countries have preferences about American electoral outcomes. Why wouldn’t they, given U.S. influence in the world? According to political scientist Lindsey O’Rourke, during the Cold War, the United States engaged in 64 attempts at covert regime change. More recently, we have overthrown and ultimately helped kill leaders in Iraq and Libya, while aiming to replace governments in Syria and Venezuela. Hillary Clinton believes that Vladimir Putin’s grudge against her goes back to comments she made about the 2011 parliamentary elections in Russia, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently urged the Chinese people to overthrow their government.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/09/03/the_real_threat_to_us_elections_doesnt_come_from_beijing_or_moscow_576253.html

I love excuses!

If Biden losses it will be my fault since I do not support him or his mate for any reason….they are the “old guard” that needs replacing as soon as possible.

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–18May20

It is sad enough that 30 million people are unemployed and having to subsist on the unemployment benefits to make ends almost meet…….now there are those that are committing fraud over these benefits and NO it is not some persons in this country….Nigeria is the culprit.

If you thought the Nigerian prince scam was all there was….then think again……

The Secret Service has detected a large-scale foreign attack on the U.S. unemployment system that is processing record numbers of jobless claims amid the pandemic, according to The New York Times. 

In a Secret Service memo obtained by the Times, the agency described the attack as a well-organized Nigerian fraud ring that could lead to “potential losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“We are actively running down every lead we are getting,” Roy Dotson, a special agent who specializes in financial fraud at the Secret Service, said in an interview with investigators obtained by the Times. 

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/498160-secret-service-unearths-overseas-fraud-ring-stealing-millions-in-unemployment

It is sad that fraudsters use the pandemic to enrich themselves.

My opinion is these people are worse than lowly slugs and should be punished harshly.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Sucker Born Every Minute

I have written several times about the Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby, being conned in their endless search to prove the Bible is a historic document.

The family has scanned the world for artifacts that can prove the existence of everything in the Bible and in doing so has been caught with fakes and stolen artifacts…..read the story so far……https://lobotero.com/2020/03/19/theft-of-culture/

It looks like they were conned yet again…..

Dirk Obbink seemed eerily calm when a reporter knocked on his door near Oxford University last year. “I’d like to tell it,” the scholar said of his alleged role in a major antiquities scandal. “But I’m under a duty not to speak about the matter while it’s under investigation.” But that reporter, Ariel Sabar, has untangled the byzantine tale of how Obbink—a world-renowned classicist from Nebraska—allegedly made millions selling stolen papyri to US evangelicals, including a New Testament fragment that set the world of biblical studies on fire. In Sabar’s Atlantic piece, Obbink is portrayed as a legitimate papyrologist enticed by money. And in the Green family, who own the craft-store chain Hobby Lobby, he appears to have found the perfect mark.

The gospel fragment is one of several Obbink apparently sold to Hobby Lobby for the Green family’s Museum of the Bible and falsely dated to “circa 100 AD,” making them unique—the only New Testament fragments from the century in which Jesus is said to have lived and showing how his earliest chroniclers portrayed him. But those documents weren’t Obbink’s to sell. The scholar was arrested in April and accused of selling artifacts from Oxford’s Sackler Library, which was housing ancient texts on loan from the Egypt Exploration Society, per ArtNet. Now Obbink is out of an Oxford job and facing an uncertain future. But he maintains his innocence, saying that incriminating documents “have been fabricated in a malicious attempt to harm my reputation and career.” Click for Sabar’s full article.

Apparently this family has never heard the saying “buyer beware”…..ignorance and greed work well together and the Green family is proof of how profitable ignorance can be.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Famous Mississippian And Welfare Fraud

One famous Mississippian is one Brett Favre…..he went from Delisle in Hancock County to University of Southern Mississippi to Atlanta Falcons to Green Bay Packers where he made a name for himself in football that lead to the Hall of Fame….

Since his retirement he has had his fingers in many things but the one thing that did not add to his good name was he being named in a welfare fraud case……

Former NFL quarterback Brett Favre is repaying $1.1 million in welfare money that he received for multiple speeches where he did not show up, the Mississippi state auditor said Wednesday. Auditor Shad White said his office received $500,000 from Favre on Wednesday, plus a commitment that Favre will repay the other $600,000 in installments over the next few months, the AP reports. Favre’s effort to repay the money came two days after White released an audit of spending by the Mississippi Department of Human Services that showed Favre had been paid by Mississippi Community Education Center, a nonprofit group whose former leader has been indicted in a welfare embezzlement scheme. The center had contracts with Human Services to spend money through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, also known as TANF.

In an audit, White said his employees identified $94 million in questionable spending by the agency, including payments for sports activities with no clear connection to helping needy people in one of the poorest states of the US. The audit released Monday said the center paid Favre Enterprises $500,000 in December 2017 and $600,000 in June 2018, and he was supposed to make speeches for at least three events. The auditor’s report said that “upon a cursory review of those dates, auditors were able to determine that the individual contracted did not speak nor was he present for those events.” In a Facebook post Wednesday night, Favre said he didn’t know the payments he received came from welfare funds and noted his charity had provided millions of dollars to poor kids in his home state of Mississippi and Wisconsin, where he played the bulk of his Hall of Fame career with the Green Bay Packers

Not to worry this situation will not tarnish Favre and he will continue to be the hero of every wannabe quarterback in South Mississippi.

For Favre can do NO wrong.

“lego ergo scribo”

Welfare Fraud

Closing Thought–20Jun19

I hear a lot about all the fraud committed by these illegal immigrants that are sucking off the Food Stamp program and other programs for the poor…..I think that most of it is just noise from haters.

But I will admit that there are some fraud within the programs for the poor….like this one from the state of New York…….

13 arrested in record welfare fraud sweep

https://www.wwnytv.com/2019/06/14/arrested-largest-welfare-fraud-sweep-st-lawrence-county-history/

Damn! And not one Hispanic among them….not even an African-American who use to take the brunt of the rhetoric……

I am not say there is no fraud by immigrants…..this story like the ones the idiots read is one case….but since they can make the leap to accuse everyone of the immigrant class…..why can I not do the same?

Closing Thought–22May19

A follow up to my post of the day on the M-IC…….

I have been a staunch opponent and critic of the Military-Industrial Complex (M-IC)……I see the defense contractors getting away with murder…both literally and physically…..

I have written about the waste at the Pentagon……https://lobotero.com/2015/04/28/wasted-days-and-wasted-money/

And then this post…….https://lobotero.com/2016/04/12/only-the-pentagon-could-spend-640-on-a-toilet-seat/

Finally some proof of the fraud a report has been issued…..

The four-page report covering fiscal year 2013 through 2017 was sent to lawmakers in December, as required under the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, but was released to FOIA requester Steven Aftergood, who writes the Secrecy News blog for the Federation of American Scientists.

Investigators at the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Department Office of Inspector General found that during the five-year period, there were 1,059 cases resulting in criminal convictions of 1,087 defendants. “The cases reported involved 678 defendants as individual persons and 409 defendants as business entities,” the Pentagon said. “As a result of the criminal convictions, a total of $368,670,055 was recovered in fines and penalties; $370,194,702 was recovered through restitution; and $53,361,358 was recovered through forfeiture of property.”

https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2019/05/under-pressure-pentagon-makes-its-contractor-fraud-report-public/156991/

Just another case of fraud by contractors and the American people could care less where their money goes as long as their social bullshit issues are addressed.  Truly sad!