Month: September 2009

SEIU, Somalis, and home health care

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update October 21st:  Big Government has yet another update here.

Update October 12th:  Big Government has an update here.

For some time now I’ve been thinking about several strands of information that appeared interwoven, but exactly how I wasn’t sure.  I still don’t have all the pieces but I’m getting closer thanks to two bits of information this week—one from Kathleen Parker, the other from a Catholic blogger in Illinois.

This is what I already knew:  the Service Employees International Union was/is organizing Somalis* (probably other immigrants too), and Somalis have been implicated in at least Maine and Minnesota (this post has links to both stories) with home health care fraud.   Basically, how that works is the former refugees and immigrants set up home health care businesses where they get paid by the taxpayer to ‘take care of’ family and friends whose medical issues may be dubious at best.  The original concept—keeping people out of nursing homes—was probably a good one, but it has become an enormous arena for health care fraud.

Here is a New York Times article from last spring about the financial overload of the Minnesota system for home health care thanks to the Somalis.

Somali patients have been asking them to fill out forms stating that they need personal-care assistants. Some do not need the help, Dr. Pryce said, but are being egged on by Somali-run health care agencies that want to collect insurance payments for the services.

Somalis in Minneapolis, often entrepreneurial and business minded, have opened the agencies to take advantage of relatively generous rules in Minnesota that were originally meant to help keep the elderly and chronically ill out of nursing homes.
Tricia Alvarado, director of home care for the Minnesota Visiting Nurse Agency, which evaluates requests for home help, agreed that there had been an explosion of Somali agencies, with 100 or so opening in just the last three years. Many are run by people without any medical training. And Ms. Alvarado confirmed that the agencies were putting a hard sell on potential clients.

[….]

The current situation with the Somalis is part of a larger problem in Minnesota: the number of clients, and the costs of personal care, more than doubled from 2002 to 2008, and the number of agencies more than tripled. A report in January by the state legislative auditor said, “Personal care services remain unacceptably vulnerable to fraud and abuse”; the state is drawing up plans to tighten its control of the services.

Now jump to Kathleen Parker yesterday, here.  (Yes, Ms. Parker is one of the faux conservatives who criticized Sarah Palin and loved Obama in 2008.   I guess we should be happy she has finally figured out what’s going on.)   I’ll get to the point I was most interested in shortly, but to set the stage here is some of the beginning of her colunm.

While everyone in Washington is suddenly pretending they’ve hardly ever heard of ACORN, they might want to pretend they’ve never heard of the SEIU, one of the nation’s largest unions.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and the Service Employees International Union are as tight as Heidi Klum and a new pair of jeans.

[….]　

You also don’t talk about either organization without mention of Wade Rathke, co-founder of ACORN and founder of SEIU Local 100 in New Orleans. Rathke, who resigned from ACORN last year as “chief organizer” after it became known that his brother embezzled almost $1 million from the association, continues to run Local 100, as well as ACORN International, recently renamed Community Organizations International.

[….]

Now picture a triangle. One point is ACORN; another point is the SEIU; the third point is the taxpayer. Now picture arrows flowing back and forth, representing the exchange of greenbacks and services.

Parker goes on to tell us that in Kansas last week, the State declined to give SEIU the names of all the people in the state caring for people at home!  Good for Kansas!

Just last week, the Kansas City Star reported that two state agencies acting on an SEIU public records request sought to identify in-home health workers who care for the elderly and disabled. After complaints, the state acknowledged that it was under no legal obligation to provide the information and ceased helping the SEIU. Unionizing is not a state function, needless to say. And never mind the invasion of privacy.

Now, skipping over to Illinois  where unionizing is obviously a state function,we begin to see the pieces coming together.   Parker goes on to tell us that the SEIU has had success in the land of Obama with finding out who provides home health care there.

One needn’t be a mathematician to imagine what a national health-care option might mean to a union in search of new dues-paying recruits. The SEIU, which has promised “to fight tooth and nail” for a public option, is demonstrably persuasive. In Illinois, former governor Blagojevich (thank you for your patience) helped position the SEIU so that it could unionize health-care workers when he signed an executive order allowing collective bargaining.

If you are still scratching your head and asking, o.k. so how does the SEIU get more dues-paying members out of this, the Catholic blogger I mentioned in my opening paragraph (not some big name blogger, just apparently some local lady) provides the shocking answer.

Southern Illinois Catholic says:

Pat Quinn [present Illinois governor] passed a horrible pr[o]-union law that permits the unionization of private individual caregivers. That is parents, eg, of disabled persons. Guess what? If the person votes against unionizing, but a majority of persons vote for a union, all caregivers will owe union dues–for the responsibility of caring for their own child! Illinois is apparently NOT a right to work state.

The state money that a family gets for the disabled person’s care will go in the pocket of a labor union. Insane. The goal which will appeal to families is that the union is going to lobby the state government for higher stipends for the disabled person, from which the union will, thank you very much, take its cut. Terrible for all Illinois taxpayers. This is abominable. Join a special interest group for disabled person’s families and caregivers, not a union.

It looks like it’s going to come to pass, however, at this point. Horrible. Horrible. The unions starved for membership, exploit families of disabled persons.

Be sure to read the news article linked at Southern Illinois Catholic.

So what does the SEIU do with all its taxpayer funds?  It works to elect people who believe in their socialist world view—like Obama.

Update minutes later:  Big Government has more on SEIU/ACORN/Illinois here.

*For new readers:  The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.  Somalis are ideal candidates to work with SEIU!

Seattle Somali Ethnic Community Based Organizations, are they mini-ACORNS?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I said I would say more about the article from Seattle a couple of days ago,here.  I don’t know if the FBI has managed to make a DNA match between the Somali parents of a man believed to have killed himself (and twenty-some peacekeepers) in a suicide bombing in Africa yet or not.  As a matter of fact, the authorities are making a huge assumption that these people are his parents.

Unless the dead Al-Shabaab  jihadist was born in the US, no one will know for sure without DNA testing if he is the biological child of the Seattle parents.    I remind readers that the entire family reunification program has been suspended for much of Africa because the US State Department discovered widespread fraud through random DNA testing more than a year ago.   Somalis in particular were bringing in “relatives” who turned out not to be who they said they were.  So, if they find a match we will let you know.

More reporting on this at NPR, here.

Back to what I wanted to mention this morning—Ethnic Community Based Organizations (ECBOS).  Notice that in this article from the Seattle Times there are representatives of two Somali organizations quoted.   They are the Somali Community Services of Seattle and the Somali Community Services Coalition.   These are two of eight Somali ECBO’s in the state of Washington, see this directory.  Only Minnesota equals Washington State in the large number of Somali ECBO’s.

I’ve looked into financial documents for a few of these organizations and like the others I’ve reported on in other states (in our ECBO category here) they follow a similar pattern.  They collect funds from various government agencies at all levels of government and from Leftwing church and other charitable groups, and unions too!  They promote Somali culture and they are called upon for media comments anytime anything goes wrong in the ‘Somali community.’ 

Now that the ACORN scandal has given us a fuller picture of how “community organizing” works, I see that these ECBO’s follow the same pattern.  I’m betting ACORN and the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) have provided the model and the training as well.   They (Somali ECBOs in this case) teach people how to get their government benefits, they get taxpayer funding to do it, and they then serve as political organizations for their ethnic community promoting the needs of ‘their people,’ or defending them as they do in the Seattle Times.

Note to FBI:  I have a reader telling me that something is fishy at Sea-Tac Airport where I am told Somalis control the auto rental businesses and the airport shuttle services.

CIS reports that the Dallas jihadist apprehended last week overstayed student visa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Last week we told you about the FBI sting operation that resulted in the arrest of a Jordanian Jihadist in Dallas, here.

Now I see that my speculation that he had come across the border in Texas was wrong.  He got in on a student visa and never left.  From Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), here.

I’m all for border fencing and the like; it’s an essential tool of national sovereignty.

But for too many politicians, and even ordinary folks, support for border security is a cop out, a substitute for thinking about the overall immigration problem, only part of which has anything to do with our border with Mexico.

One vital issue that is neglected because of this tunnel-vision on border fences is visa overstays. The Dallas jihadist shows how important this is; I suspected he was an overstayer, and the Dallas Morning News confirmed:

The father said that his sons Hosam and Hussein came to the United States in 2007 on student visas. Authorities said, however, Hosam Smadi was not currently enrolled in school.

Just more evidence that LEGAL immigration programs are filled with fraud and need to be reformed, and then policed!

Clinton, Obama, Podesta, scandals, ACORN, Podesta, immigrants, diversity, Podesta, Tides, Soros, Podesta

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I guess you get my drift—John Podesta is in the middle of it all!   Podesta as we told you previously is the head honcho of the very far Left “think tank”  Center for American Progress.   He got our attention in January when his Center released a report and a plea to the incoming Obama Administration to airlift 100,000 Iraqis to the US —ASAP—this year—pronto!  

What made me think of him this morning was a column by Andrew Breitbart published in the Washington Times entitled, “Podesta spends Soros money stupidly.”  Breitbart tells us about a recent lunch date between Clinton and Obama and speculates that  they discussed how to manipulate their media friends away from scandals like the growing ACORN debacle.

A telling event occurred on Sept. 15, Day 6 of the drip, drip, drip ACORN video rollout. President Obama met for lunch with former President Bill Clinton at trendy Il Mulino in New York City.

For the second consecutive day, the New York Post featured the ACORN scandal on its cover – complete with James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles in their outrageous “pimp and ho” costumes.

Does anyone think the president and the former president were unaware that the city in which they were dining was mesmerized by the ACORN scandal – especially since ACORN had bragged that its employees had kicked Mr. O’Keefe and Ms. Giles out of their New York office?

[….]

No one in the morally superior media world has asked, why did Mr. Obama have lunch with Mr. Clinton that day? So let me take a guess, and it seems like an obvious answer. Mr. Obama, under siege by a video-a-day expose that was exposing the Democratic Party to an avalanche of consequences (ACORN defunded in the House and Senate, ACORN delinked from the census, etc.), needed advice from the last president to navigate through a major political scandal.

Well lookie here—the next day Mr. Fix-it Podesta is called in to “investigate” ACORN!

The next day, Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, the Democratic Party’s top fix-it guy with control over much of the left’s well-funded vast attack machinery (think George Soros, the Tides Foundation, et al.), was among a small advisory group placed in charge of investigating the matter.

[….]

So, who is John Podesta? He runs the Center for American Progress think tank, which in 2004 helped launch Media Matters for America, the well-funded watchdog outfit run by ex-conservative journalist David Brock, which feeds the media reams of anti-conservative documents that attempt to diminish the credibility of alternative media outlets.

Now back to my interest in Podesta  (bio here) who ran the Obama transition team, is connected to the Tides Foundation, George Soros and immigrants and who is coincidentally from Chicago like so many of Obama’s other friends.   I wonder did the blogger at New Zeal ever learn anything about the Podesta family in Chicago—where apparently all old Communists went to live in the late 1940’s and ’50’s?

The Immigrant connection!

The Tides Foundation, George Soros, American Center for Progress are all Open Borders pushers.   Do they really care so much for the poor and angry immigrants they import—my answer is NO!  Immigrants are pawns.   Those ACORN tapes and the attitude of ACORN workers toward the idea of bringing young girls across the border illegally tells us that. It’s all about their political agenda and about winning.   With perfect timing I just got an e-mail from reader B.L. with this quote from Clinton about a Vast Right-wing conspiracy.

Yesterday, Clinton was asked on ‘Meet the Press’ (Limbaugh calls it ‘Meet the Depressed’) if he feared a Republican takeover of Congress in 2010 and he confidentally said no:

“There’s no way” that could happen, Clinton said, adding that “the country is more diverse….”

Get it!  Immigrants=diversity=Democratic voters.

Back to Breitbart who is morally outraged, as most of us are, at the idea of ACORN workers not batting an eyelash at the part of the scam involving underaged girls from El Salvador illegally entering the US.  Here he suggests Mr. Fix-it Podesta may have a harder time with this scandal.

Plus, unlike Mr. Clinton’s war-room blame-the-messenger excuse – “it’s just about the sex” – this year’s ACORN scandal won’t be pushed aside, because this time it includes 13-year-old sex slaves from El Salvador.

I hope he is right, but I wouldn’t be so sure.   Thirteen-year-old girls from El Salvador are a twofer for some Democrats.  Think about it!  Useful now, but in 5 years they could be counted on as reliable Democratic party voters.  Recall the Alinsky mantra:  the ends justify the means, any means!

Democrats pushing health care coverage for illegal aliens

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, for immediate coverage for all legal immigrants. 

From The Washington Times this morning:

Fearful that they’re losing ground on immigration and health care, a group of House Democrats is pushing back and arguing that any health care bill should extend to all legal immigrants and allow illegal immigrants some access.

The Democrats, trying to stiffen their party’s spines on the contentious issue, say it’s unfair to bar illegal immigrants from paying their own way in a government-sponsored exchange. Legal immigrants, they say, regardless of how long they’ve been in the United States, should be able to get government-subsidized health care if they meet the other eligibility requirements.

[….]

Coverage for immigrants is one of the thorniest issues in the health care debate, and one many Democratic leaders would like to avoid. But immigrant rights groups and the Democrats who sent the letters say they have to take a stand now.

Most federal benefits for legal immigrants kick in at 5 years, however….

Under the 1996 welfare law overhaul, Congress restricted most federal benefits to longtime holders of green cards – those who have been in the country at least five years.

But Democrats chipped away at that rule when they reauthorized the State Children’s Health Insurance Program earlier this year and allowed states to cover all immigrant children and pregnant women, regardless of how long they’ve been in the country.

Refugees are eligible for all federal benefits almost immediately and that is one of the driving forces around the world for people to attempt to get “refugee” status as we see happening in those Thai refugee camps we told you about last night, here.

Poison pill!

Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, said proposals that include government coverage for illegal immigrants leave him incredulous.

“If anybody can, with a straight face, advocate that we should provide health insurance for people who broke into our country, broke our law and for the most part are criminals, I don’t know where they ever would draw the line,” he said.

Mr. King, who opposes Democrats’ health care plans in general, said illegal immigrant access in legislation “would be a poison pill that would cause health care to go down” to defeat.