Maine: Somali pair convicted in medicaid fraud case

Your tax dollars:

From the Sun Journal (hat tip:  Susan):

LEWISTON — An Auburn man and a Portland woman were convicted Thursday of defrauding the federal government of tens of thousands of dollars in Medicaid money, according to the Office of the U.S. Attorney in the District of Maine.

The scheme likely was linked to the raid of a Lewiston office building by federal officials a year ago.

Ahmed Yusuf Guled, 75, of Auburn and Dahabo Abdulle Osman, 59, of Portland were found guilty after a nine-day jury trial in U.S. District Court in Portland, according to federal prosecutors.

Guled was convicted of 16 counts; Osman, 9.

Each of them was convicted of three counts that carry 10-year maximum prison sentences apiece. The remaining counts have maximum terms of five years apiece. Each of the counts carries a maximum fine of $250,000.

The couple was found guilty of conspiring to defraud the federal government and commit health care fraud offenses by obtaining Medicaid money in connection with MaineCare’s Home and Community-Based Care Program, also known as the Waiver Program.

Readers, this form of health care fraud is going on everywhere.  We first learned about it in this story on Minneapolis.  Here is basically how it works:

Under this program, MaineCare members, who are assessed at a nursing home level of care, may choose to get personal care services and skilled nursing services at their homes instead of at a nursing home or similar institution.

Prosecutors introduced evidence at trial that showed Guled, with the help of his adopted sister [adopted sister, my foot!-ed], Osman, deceived nurse assessors contracted by the state into believing that he was eligible for care at a nursing home.

For that reason, Osman was paid wages as his personal care assistant. Those wages were reimbursed by Medicaid through three separate home health agencies. The evidence showed that the services weren’t medically necessary and that Osman didn’t provide all of the services billed by the home health agencies.

Read the whole story.

The most intriguing aspect of all this to me is where are they (African refugees, esp. Somalis) learning how to do these health care scams.  I know the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) is organizing home health workers, but could they be teaching how to rip off the taxpayer?

For new readers, more Somalis are on the way:

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US (this linked post continues to be one of the most widely read posts we have ever written) in the last 25 years and then in 2008 had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.  That specific program has not yet been reopened (that we know of), but will be soon.

Nevertheless, thousands of Somali Muslims continue to be resettled by the State Department as I write this. We recently learned that we will be taking 6000 Somalis this year from one camp in Uganda and as many as 11,000-13,000 total from around the world.

Through the Refugee Resettlement program alone 2657 legal Somalis have already arrived in this fiscal year (2010) as of May 30th with an unknown number arriving through other legal programs and  illegally across both our borders.

Be sure also to read this Comment Worth Noting from a Somali woman who refers to the Somali influx as an “invasion” and says they have no plans to assimilate.

Somalis disturbingly call their immigration to certain countries or cities as “invasions” and they call cities with no or little Somali populations as “Tuulas” or “villages”….

I think Lewiston, ME has probably gone beyond being a Tuula!

Heritage Foundation: Welfare entitlements exploding

Your tax dollars:

Yesterday’s Morning Bell from the Heritage Foundation tell us:

Despite its failure last week, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is continuing to push his tax-extenders bill. Bundled together with the many egregious pieces of this bill is a $2.5 billion Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) emergency fund. This provision ties right into the current administration’s philosophy on government welfare: grow the number of Americans dependent on government by increasing spending.

This is obviously the wrong approach. Instead of throwing more money at the ever-expanding and fiscally unsustainable welfare state, Congress should implement practices that work to move people out of poverty, versus those that do nothing but grow federal bureaucracies.

When President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his famous “War on Poverty” in 1964, his intent was to win the war by eliminating the causes of poverty. He actually promised to shrink, not enlarge, the welfare state.

Just the opposite has occurred. Today, we spend 13 times more on welfare than in 1965 (even after adjusting for inflation), and the welfare state has made the problem of poverty worse by undermining the very fundamentals that decrease dependence: stable families and a strong work ethic. Out-of-wedlock childbirth is at an historic high of 40 percent and means-tested welfare has grown faster than any other sector of government.

One of the Heritage Foundation’s recommendations is to limit immigration of low-skilled workers.

Limit low-skill immigration. A significant portion (15 percent) of welfare spending goes to homes headed by lower skill immigrants with a high school degree or less. The government should limit immigration to those individuals who will be net fiscal contributors, meaning they will pay more in taxes than they take in benefits. Also, the government should not provide amnesty to illegal immigrants, as doing so would instantly add millions of people to the welfare roles.

As much as I respect the work of the Heritage Foundation in its research and documentation of issues, they seem unable to understand that their facts are meaningless to those who are pushing a political agenda that involves importing more poverty and expanding the welfare state as a way to crash our system and bring about a new form of government.   They seem to think that simply by stating facts and logic they will win the political argument.   See last nights post on the “purification” movement for example to see who and what they are up against.  What are the odds that those revolutionaries will listen to facts, logic and reason?

See also Cloward and Piven, here.

Somali smuggler appeals his probation

The guy who admits to helping 270 illegal Somali aliens get into the US and was released from jail with time served, now wants his 3 year probation thrown out as well.

From the Washington Examiner:

The Virginia man who told authorities he helped smuggle 270 Somalis into the United States from Kenya has appealed his three-year probation sentence, court records show.

On June 4, Anthony Joseph was sentenced to four months of time he had already spent behind bars and three years probation — then was released. Now, he wants an appeals court to throw out the probation sentence. Tracy’s guilty plea is sealed so there is no way to know what laws the government informant admitted to breaking.

Federal immigration investigators have been unable to locate any of the Somalis Tracy claimed to have smuggled.

This whole cased turned very fishy when we learned that Tracy was also an ICE informant.  See the original story and updates, here.

The NGO’s role in the Left’s “purification” movement

There is a thought-provoking piece by Andrew Thomas on American Thinker today that attempts to explain to Conservatives what the Left is aiming for—-a borderless world where everything is filled with love and all sorts of  “justice” and there are no bad (US) Capitalists or evil Zionists.  The big question is, is this the new totalitarianism?

This is how it begins, but you really must read the whole article.

A comprehensive and enlightening treatise on this topic was recently published in Orbis, the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s journal of world affairs, written by University of Buffalo professor Ernest Sternberg. The article is titled, “Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For”. It will open your eyes and scare you to death.

In Steinberg’s analysis, from the historical ashes of failed fascist and communist regimes a new totalitarian ideology is emerging:

Though a mouthful, world purificationism would do well in expressing what the movement wants. It wants to achieve a grand historical vision: the anticipated defeat of imperial capitalist power in favor of a global network of beneficent culture-communities, which will empower themselves through grassroots participatory democracy, and maintain consistency across movements through the rectifying power of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), thereby bringing into being a new era of global social justice and sustainable development, in which the diverse communities can harmoniously share an earth that has been saved from destruction and remade pristine.

The sworn enemy of the purifiers is simply referred to as “Empire” (preceding it with “the Evil” is not necessary, apparently). Empire’s evil manifestations are capitalism and Zionism. The geographical focus of purificationism’s hatred is the United States and Israel.

[….]

The purificationist dream is a world without borders, governed by a global network of NGO’s. Almost all current activist organizations containing the words “green”, “justice”, “peace”, or “solidarity” would find a position in the ruling structure. These NGO’s would gravitate toward forming a totalitarian regime since, as Steinberg points out, they are “unaccountable to an electorate and escape political checks and balances…”

So what does this have to do with us and refugees.  I’ve said repeatedly that the reason we continue to pour refugees into the US even when the proof is so obvious that the refugees themselves are often neglected and suffering culture shock, is that they are here as part of a larger political agenda—all wrapped up in cuddly humanitarian verbiage to sell it to the public.

If you don’t think the American Thinker piece I’m noting has relevance, then check out this section of the Steinberg treatise about a 2007 meeting if “purificationists” in Atlanta.

A representative domestic gathering took place when 10,000 activists
met in Atlanta in 2007. As is typical, many agendas converged: urban
community organizing, prison abolition, food faddism, Palestine, immigrant
rights, refugee rights,
street theater, something called transformative justice,
feminism, environmental activism, and hybrid causes such as Queers for
Environmental Justice. A correspondent for the Nation magazine reported
that the ‘‘event is building a left that is grassroots and democratic,’’ full of ideas
‘‘for a radical remaking of this country,’’ though the remaking is by no means
assured, since the meeting’s only memorable outcome, aside from the networking,
was the slogan ‘‘Another US is Necessary.’’

The Purificationists and the Muslims

So why does the Left think they can join with Muslim fanatics to bring about this purification?  Thomas addresses that too, so be sure to read the whole American Thinker piece.  But, here is a line to encourage you to do that!

Thomas:

To me, this sounds like a coalition between factory chickens and poultry butchers.

GAO: US Government slow to take North Korean refugees and asylees

The GAO released a report yesterday that includes this in the summary of its findings.  Security checks seem to be the hangup.

The U.S. government has taken actions to facilitate the U.S. resettlement of North Korean refugees from overseas, but processing times did not improve from fiscal years 2006 to 2008 due in part to some host countries’ policies. The United States opened cases for 238 North Korean refugee applicants from October 2004 through March 2010, and 94 of these North Koreans arrived in the United States. As part of its recent actions to facilitate the processing of North Korean refugees, State has placed a high priority on these cases and provided additional staff time and resources to process these cases. However, according to U.S. officials, some U.S. requirements, such as conducting and clearing security checks, can delay U.S. processing.

I’m betting most readers seeing this information are asking the all important question—why aren’t they just being resettled in South Korea?