Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

Dubai’s Floating Homes

Posted on by

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Surrounded by 300 deserted man-made islands, Dubai’s newest real-estate wonder has all the amenities of a luxury hotel — plus views of the bottom of the sea.

The Floating Seahorse villas feature submerged bedrooms whose curtains open up to transplanted coral and the waters of the Persian Gulf. Wide-mouthed groupers and other fish dart past its over 15-centimeter-thick (6-inch-thick) acrylic windows.

 

But the Seahorses, part of an ambitious larger hotel development called The Heart of Europe — which will be built on reclaimed islands — have an even more grandiose-sounding aim. They want to save The World, as the long-stalled Earth-shaped island project off the Dubai coast is called, by providing a major development that jumpstarts building on its other sandy islands.

“We wanted to be the first one. We always knew it’s a risk and a chance,” said Josef Kleindienst, the chairman of Kleindienst Group, which is building the Floating Seahorses and the Heart of Europe.

He added: “The World has started to move.”

Dubai is already home to the world’s tallest building, an indoor ski slope and man-made islands viewable from space. But while the machine-crafted frond of the Palm Jumeirah archipelago flourished, The World stopped spinning with Dubai’s financial crisis of 2009.

Together with several other state-linked firms, Nakheel, the government-owned builder behind both projects, found itself at the time unable to repay billions of dollars in loans. Those defaults triggered a collapse that forced neighboring oil-rich Abu Dhabi to give Dubai a $10 billion bailout.

Other projects have restarted in the years since, nudged by improving investor confidence and Dubai hosting the upcoming 2020 World Expo, or world’s fair. But The World project as envisioned by Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has languished.

Today, only two of the 300 islands are being actively used. One is a day-use beach resort on Lebanon island, another is an island with a luxury villa and a helipad believed to be used by Dubai’s ruling family. The Dubai Media Office did not respond to a request for comment about the island.

In a statement, Nakheel acknowledged only two islands are developed, but said that financial deals involving the project are resuming on the project.

“We continue to see a renewed interest in The World, and have reached settlement agreements with third-party developers on payments worth over 1 billion dirhams ($272 million), allowing work there to recommence,” it said, without elaborating.

Some construction material and machinery can be seen entering The World by boat from Dubai’s coastline. Earth-moving equipment rattles over the sandy dunes of one of the first islands after The World’s circular breakwater, which offers the project its globe-like shape and stills its currents.

The rest of the islands are deserted until reaching the dock of the development run by Kleindienst, a former Austrian police officer and one-time member of the far-right Freedom Party who has written about making his fortune in stocks. He also wrote a book about his party obtaining classified police files on its political opponents, something its leaders denied in an ensuing political scandal in Austria in 2000.

  

At the dock, a sign painted in black, red and yellow announces in German: “Welcome to Germany: Passport Control.” Behind it, the initial cement-block frames of two planned Bentley-branded villas stand on Sweden island. Plans call for 10 similar villas to be built there, as well as hotels, restaurants, bars and other attractions on empty surrounding islands as part of The Heart of Europe development.

The real star, however, is the Floating Seahorse anchored alone in a nearby channel.

Weighing 240 tons, the villa on the sea smells of the Myanmar teak adorning its walls. A wet bar on its top floor is both open-air and air conditioned, with a hot tub. Below, the glass walls of its living room and dining room open out on blue beach chairs and netting allowing a look at the water below.

Below deck, automated curtains in the bedroom open out onto an under-the-sea view. Coral transplanted from the site of the Burj Al Arab, Dubai’s iconic sail-shaped luxury hotel, sits on the lip of the Seahorse under shade, drawing the sea life.

“It’s amazing. It attracts a lot of fish,” said Gianni Malerba, the director of hospitality operations for The Heart of Europe. “It fits very well with the ‘wow factor’ of Dubai.”

So far, Kleindienst said his organization has sold Floating Seahorses to both people who will use them and others who will rent them out as part of the planned hotels at the site. The latest models of the Seahorses have a list price of 12 million dirhams ($3.2 million).

Kleindienst said they plan to open the heart-shaped St. Petersburg island by October, with dozens of Seahorses connected to water, electricity and other utilities on the island via gangplanks.

For now though, the area runs off a generator and the model sits alone, drawing curious customers. Dubai’s skyscrapers are visible on the horizon.

“If this would happen in any other country, even if it is done in 50 years, nobody would consider it as delayed,” Kleindienst said. “Only in Dubai, everyone expects it needs to be done in one day.”

Healthcare Provider Lawsuits v. Feds Begin

Posted on by

Blue Cross insurer sues U.S. for funds owed under health care law

BusinessInsurance: Highmark Inc. and its subsidiaries have sued the federal government for failing to pay funds the insurers say they are owed through one of the Affordable Care Act’s public health insurance exchange safety net programs.

Pittsburgh-based Highmark, the fourth-largest Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurer, is demanding $222.9 million, which it argues it is owed through the ACA risk corridor program for 2014 losses, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington.

Highmark said the government has paid only $27.3 million of the total owed for 2014. In early April, Highmark President and CEO David Holmberg said during an analyst call that the insurer was owed more than $500 million from the risk corridor program for 2014 and 2015.

The risk corridor program is intended to help stabilize premiums by offsetting insurers’ losses during the first three years of the public health exchanges.

But the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last year said it would pay only 12.6% of the money insurers requested for 2014 losses. CMS said the rest of the tab would be paid in 2015 and 2016 if necessary.

The suit accuses the government of breach of good faith and fair dealing among other allegations.

CMS could not be immediately reached for comment.

“The United States has specifically admitted in writing its statutory and regulatory obligations to pay the plaintiff insurers the full amount of risk corridor payments owed to them for calendar year 2014, but it has failed to pay the full amount due,” the lawsuit states.

“Instead, the government arbitrarily has paid the plaintiff insurers only a pro-rata share — less than 12.6% — of the total amount due, asserting that full payment to the plaintiff insurers is limited by available appropriations, even though no such limits appear anywhere in the ACA or its implementing regulations or in the plaintiff insurers’ contracts with the government.”

In a statement Monday, Mr. Holmberg said the Highmark has a “fiduciary responsibility to our 5.2 million health plan members to seek payment.”

Still, Mr. Holmberg said the insurer “remains committed” to the public health exchanges.

Highmark said it tried to negotiate with CMS, which the insurer said refused requests for full payment. It also said CMS has taken the position that “none of the risk corridor payments” for 2014, 2015 and 2016 are due until fall 2017 after the program has concluded.

The insurers involved in the lawsuit, First Priority Life Insurance Co. Inc. et al v. USA, include First Priority Life Insurance Co., Highmark BCBSD Inc., Highmark Inc., Highmark Select Resources Inc., Highmark West Virginia Inc., and HM Health Insurance Co.

In February, Lake Oswego, Oregon-based insurer Health Republic Insurance Co. of Oregon, which now is out of business, filed a $5 billion class action against the federal government for failing to make the risk corridor payments.

**** Good news?

Sessions, Cassidy to introduce ‘The World’s Greatest Health Care Bill. Ever’

FNC: House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., plan to introduce what they are terming an “alternative” health care bill Thursday which will not repeal ObamaCare, but work alongside the existing Affordable Care Act and modify various parts of the system.

 

The legislation is technically called the HELP Act, short for “Health Empowerment Liberty Plan.”  Sessions however prefers a less clinical moniker with a title infused with a dose of Donald Trump-esque hubris. Instead, the Texas Republican calls the legislation “The World’s Greatest Health Care Bill. Ever.”

Sessions notes that the legislation allows people to keep ObamaCare if they so desire, noting that his measure does not entail a full repeal of ObamaCare.

“Someone who repeals (ObamaCare) is left with nothing,” he said.

That’s why his bill works in tandem with the existing law.

Meanwhile, it does get worse.

UnitedHealth Quits 27th Obamacare State as Insurer to Exit N.J.

Bloomberg: UnitedHealth Group Inc. is exiting New Jersey’s Obamacare exchange, marking the 27th state market the insurer is quitting.

UnitedHealth’s Oxford Health Plans unit won’t participate in New Jersey’s individual market in 2017, on the Affordable Care Act exchange or elsewhere, according to a letter obtained by Bloomberg through an open-records request. Another unit will continue selling plans outside of Obamacare, and the company will keep offering coverage to small businesses, according to Marshall McKnight, a spokesman for New Jersey’s Department of Banking & Insurance.

Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hemsley said last month that UnitedHealth would only offer ACA plans in a “handful of states” for 2017, though the company hasn’t listed them. The company is retreating from the markets created by the ACA amid mounting losses on the policies. Bloomberg has confirmed that the insurer is exiting at least 27 of the 34 states where it sold 2016 coverage.

The company will still probably sell ACA plans in at least three states next year: New York and Nevada have confirmed UnitedHealth’s participation and the company has filed plans to participate in Virginia.

In addition to UnitedHealth, several other insurers offered plans in New Jersey last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. They include Oscar Insurance Corp., AmeriHealth, Health Republic Insurance of New Jersey and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

$$ Taken Out of Veteran’s Pockets for Visa Program

Posted on by

 

But we are still in Afghanistan and will be there for many years…where is the United Nations? What role does the refugee resettlement program have in this so as not to penalize veterans?

The Senate Grew A Special Visa Program With Money Taken Out Of Veterans’ Pockets

DailyCallerNewsFoundation: The Senate used money from benefit cuts to military veterans in the 2016 budget to pay for the resettlement of an additional 3,000 Afghan interpreters in the United States. A dispute over a similar pay-for plan is behind the Judiciary Committee’s refusal to expand the program again in the 2017 budget.

The Special Immigrant Visa program allows Afghan interpreters who aide the U.S. government to get out of harm’s way by resettling in the United States, and last year the Senate authorized a major expansion of the program. The $336 million price tag of the expansion fell on U.S. military veterans in the form of increased pharmacy co-pays, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

“That’s bullshit,” former Army combat veteran Alex Plitsas told TheDCNF. “Military families shouldn’t be paying for the SIV program through a pseudo tax. The program should be funded outright because of the service our interpreters rendered. This is infuriating.”

Last year’s defense bill increased co-pays for military families, saving the government about $1.5 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). A portion of the money saved was used to pay for the extra Afghan visas, a spokesman for the Armed Services Committee told TheDCNF, although the bulk of the money went elsewhere. Budget caps require lawmakers offset increases in spending with budget cuts.

Plitsas added: “They went this route to avoid having to cut any of the service budgets (army, navy, etc) that’s why I’m calling this a pseudo tax on military families. More importantly, this is a visa program overseen by State, why the hell isn’t this coming out of state’s budget?”

The committee spokesman told TheDCNF most of the $1.5 billion went back to the Treasury to pay down the debt, and some of the savings were used to offset the cost of expanding retirement benefits in other ways for “hundreds of thousands” of service members. Those changes will cost the government about $1 billion over the next ten years, according to the CBO.

Senators voted for the co-pay increases on the merits of the policy and were not treating it as a pay-for, the spokesman added. The increase was included for “no other reason” than to address rising pharmacy costs and to encourage veterans to use drugs available for free through military treatment centers rather than through pharmacies, the spokesman stressed.

Nevertheless, in making the decision to offset the visa expansion with funds from the co-pay increase, the Senate took hundreds of millions of dollars off the table that could have gone to support veterans or been used for some other purpose. There’s no reason the money has to come out of the defense budget, especially since there is overlap in jurisdiction with the State Department’s control of visa programs.

A disagreement between Senate Republicans over a similar pay-for plan this year has kept another expansion of the program out of the 2017 defense bill, a GOP Senate aide told TheDCNF. One proposal to offset the cost by taking money out of the State Department’s budget was floated and rejected.

“I’ve been told by multiple sources that they’re trying to use the co-pay hike to pay for the visa increase again this year,” the aide said. “With so much wasteful government spending that should be cut, it is befuddling how some in Congress are so eager to put military and veteran benefits on the chopping block.”


Sens. John McCain and Jeanne Shaheen are vocally pushing for more visas, on top of the 7,000 already allocated through Fiscal Year 2017. But neither has publicly addressed how the increase would be paid for. The CBO estimates the proposed increase would bring the cost of the program up to $446 million over the next ten years, from its current cost of $336 million.

Shaheen did not respond to multiple requests for comment. McCain’s office directed TheDCNF to the Armed Services Committee.

“Senate Republicans recognize the contribution of certain Afghan citizens who have been helpful to our war effort,” a spokesman for Republican Sen. Roger Wicker who sits on the Armed Services Committee, told TheDCNF. “However, any bill to expand the SIV program should contain acceptable offsets and go through regular order through the Judiciary Committee.”

According to Matt Zeller, a former U.S. Army infantry officer and CEO of No One Left Behind, there are approximately 10,400 former Afghan interpreters in the program’s application pipeline. Without an increase in visas, as many as 6,400 applicants will be left in Afghanistan, given the program currently only allows for 4,000 visas per year.

The program has a final chance at seeing an increase in funding once the National Defense Authorization Act hits the Senate floor this week, allowing supporters like McCain the opportunity to put forth an amendment.

***** Meanwhile Afghanistan is hardly stable or a conflict where victory is claimed.

 

17 May 2016 – The United Nations humanitarian wing has reported that since the beginning of the year, about 1,000 Afghans have fled their homes every day due to fighting, and aid workers are struggling to meet the needs of those on the run from hard hit provinces such as Kunduz, Herat and Uruzugan.

According to a report compiled in April and newly released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the main humanitarian story of the year is the very large number of people fleeing from their homes to save their lives, with about 118,000 on the move in the first four months of the year.

Specifically in Kunduz, OCHA said springtime in the north eastern province “has been tragically filled with conflict and suffering,” leading to an extraordinary displacement of more than 22,400 people. Civilians appear to be caught in the cross-fire between a “spring offensive” launched by non-State actors and subsequent countermeasures put in motion by Government forces.

Fleeing for their lives, 14, 000 people were forced from Kunduz city to remote areas where the conflict is most active. The insecure environment and access constraints created severe challenges in the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

As the violence continued after mid-April, families were forced to flee and seek safety with family members and neighbours who opened their doors to offer a haven in the midst of chaos. “When we conducted the initial needs assessments, as many as six families were living in one house,” reported Syed Zaheer, OCHA Humanitarian Affairs Officer, who helped lead the joint assessment mission.

The security situation in Kunduz province continued to rapidly deteriorate, OCHA said. And as displacement swelled, aid agencies prioritized urgent humanitarian assistance to the 7,000 displaced people, however in many cases one of the biggest challenges is access to reaching the most vulnerable families in need.

According to the report, as the battle raged on for territorial control in all seven districts of Kunduz province, families were further displaced to more remote and insecure areas where humanitarian agencies continue to struggle to gain access.

Although physical access to displaced families remains a challenge due to IEDs, military operations and road closures, humanitarian agencies managed to deliver much needed food, nutritional support, emergency shelter, non-food items (NFIs) and health care.

“The displaced families in Kunduz have endured repeated suffering – some displaced two and three times – raising their vulnerability,” explained OCHA Head of Sub-Office, Gift Chatora. “We have seen the detrimental consequences when displaced families are inaccessible to humanitarian assistance, children miss out on education, nutrition and basic health care while parents lose their livelihoods and means to provide for their families.”

 

 

 

 

 

Contentious House Hearing on Iran Deal/Ben Rhodes

Posted on by

The disdain the White House has for Republicans in Congress has a long history, but his week concerning the NYT’s interview with White House deputy security council advisor Ben Rhodes, Josh Earnest took the nastiness to a new level.

Must watch Gowdy above.

So, the hearing was held without Ben Rhodes as the White House lawyer gave Rhodes executive privilege.

Meanwhile, the Democrats in the hearing based their rhetoric and questions not on the subject at hand and the reason for the hearing but rather they all went on the collective attack of the witnesses over why the United States went into a war over a false claim on WMD.

Democrats turn Iran hearing into debate over Iraq invasion
The Iran-Iraq showdown in the House Oversight Committee probably wasn’t what GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz intended when he arranged the session. And while Republicans made several attempts to turn the focus to the current presidential administration, not the previous one, Democrats weren’t dissuaded and the hearing degenerated into a back-and-forth. More details here from Politico.

For access to the full hearing, click here. The introduction testimony of one panelist, Mr. Hannah, go here.

FNC: Republican condemnation of a top White House aide who boasted about the administration’s success selling the Iran deal to the public reached new levels on Tuesday, as several senators urged President Obama to fire him and a House committee looking into his claims went forward with its hearing – even though he didn’t show up to testify.

The House Oversight Committee hearing was called to examine White House “narratives” on the Iran deal, after top adviser Ben Rhodes was featured in a New York Times Magazine profile claiming they built an “echo chamber” to sell the plan. Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, had called Rhodes to testify, but the White House shielded him from the appearance.

Chaffetz, at the top of the hearing Tuesday, said “there’s still a shroud of secrecy” surrounding the Iran deal and he wanted to hear from Rhodes to seek “clarity.”

“I do not doubt his talents and his knowledge,” Chaffetz said. “But the deal that had been spun up and sold to the American public, I’m not sure it was as clear as it should have been.”

He said Rhodes, in the profile, showed “disdain” for the media and foreign policy circles.

Just hours earlier, the White House officially informed Chaffetz it would not make Rhodes available to testify, citing an executive privilege-related claim. Chaffetz did not go forward with plans to keep a seat open Tuesday for Rhodes, and instead called foreign policy analysts and scholars to testify on the deal. One of them, the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin, accused Rhodes of creating a “propaganda operation.”

The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., slammed Republicans for the hearing, criticizing the analysts they called while noting they didn’t invite military generals who support the agreement. He said Republicans rushed to hold the hearing “without even one week’s notice.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said at least Cummings would be able to question the witnesses present. Rhodes, he said, “didn’t bother to show up.”

Meanwhile, several GOP senators have written to Obama urging him to “dismiss” Rhodes “before he further tarnishes the Office of President.”

They wrote: “While members of the Executive and Legislative branches may sometimes deeply disagree on issues of vital importance to our nation’s security and prosperity, we should all agree, for the greater good of our Republic and the citizens whom we represent, to engage in our debates in a respectful, honest, and constructive manner. Mr. Rhodes’s disrespectful, deceptive, and destructive conduct has fallen appallingly short of this standard, however. Indeed, if he had conducted himself this way in a typical place of business outside Washington, where American taxpayers work, he surely would have been already fired or asked to resign.”

The Washington Free Beacon, which first reported on the letter, said it was signed by Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill.; John Cornyn, R-Texas; John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; and David Perdue, R-Ga.

Sources tell Fox News that the House committee was keen for Rhodes to appear voluntarily Tuesday so they avoid the territory of a possible subpoena.

The magazine article that touched off the controversy outlined how Rhodes created a narrative of the deal coming out of the 2013 election of “moderate” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iran’s subsequent “openness” and willingness to negotiate.

In fact, the story stated, the majority of the deal was hammered out in 2012, well before Rouhani’s election. However, the Rhodes narrative was politically useful to the administration as it presented them as reaching out to the moderates who wanted peace.

Judicial Watch Begins Interrogatories on Hillary’s Team

Posted on by

Interviews of Clinton aides in email case to begin this week

 Lukens  Mills

 Mull  Pagliano

 Abedin  Kennedy
TheHill: A conservative legal watchdog’s interviews with current and former aides to Hillary Clinton about her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of State will begin Wednesday and stretch into late June, the group announced.

The first person to be deposed as part of a court case concerning Clinton’s bespoke email setup is Lewis Lukens, a former executive director of the State Department’s executive secretariat, Judicial Watch said in a court filing Tuesday.

Sworn testimony with Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff, is set to follow and has been scheduled for next Friday.
In subsequent weeks, the watchdog group will question former department executive secretary Stephen Mull, IT expert Bryan Pagliano, an official representative from the State Department, longtime Clinton adviser Huma Abedin, and sitting Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy.

Kennedy’s interview, scheduled for June 29, is slated to be the final interview as part of the Freedom of Information Act case.

Each interview could last for as long as seven hours, Judicial Watch predicted.

The depositions are the first of two separate court-ordered processes for Judicial Watch to obtain evidence as part of different open records cases concerning Clinton’s email setup. The twin court cases were launched to obtain separate documents from Clinton’s time in office but have evolved as judges have raised questions about whether the likely Democratic presidential nominee’s arrangement allowed her to circumvent open records laws.

“This court-ordered testimony could finally reveal new truths about how Hillary Clinton and the Obama State Department subverted the Freedom of the Information Act,” Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch’s president, said in a statement Tuesday.

In addition to the officials scheduled to testify as part of the Judicial Watch lawsuit, Judge Emmet Sullivan has said that Clinton herself could be forced to answer questions under oath, depending on information learned through other interviews.

In the second Freedom of Information Act case launched by Judicial Watch, the organization has asked a federal judge to interview Clinton about her email setup. The request would have to be approved by the judge and is likely to face opposition from the State Department.

If it is granted, Clinton’s testimony has the potential to dramatically upend the presidential race, given the simmering concern about her email practices while in office.

Clinton and her campaign have dismissed concerns about the setup, claiming that it was used merely for convenience and that all work-related emails have been handed back to the State Department for record keeping.