3 Corporations Take on Obamacare, Pelosi Mute

Posted on January 31, 2018January 31, 2018 by Denise Simon

Maybe between Amazon, a tech company, JP Morgan, an investment company and Berkshire Hathaway, a financial think tank and provider could solve the corruption within government healthcare first…Just last year:

The Justice Department charged more than 400 people across the country in a major crackdown on health care fraud, officials said Thursday. The accused individuals cost the federal government $1.3 billion in false Medicare and Medicaid billings, according to authorities

The investigation focused on opioid-related crimes as the government continues to try to address the public health crisis that has been sweeping the country. Many of the health care providers charged had billed Medicaid and Medicare for drugs that were never purchased, while others took advantage of addicts by giving out unnecessary opioid prescriptions for cash or charging for false treatments, according to the Justice Department. More here.

It is pathetic that the FBI has an exclusive division to investigate and prosecute healthcare/government fraud.

The FBI is the primary agency for exposing and investigating health care fraud, with jurisdiction over both federal and private insurance programs. Health care fraud investigations are considered a high priority within the Complex Financial Crime Program, and each of the FBI’s 56 field offices has personnel assigned specifically to investigate health care fraud matters. Our field offices proactively target fraud through coordinated initiatives, task forces and strike teams, and undercover operations.

The Bureau seeks to identify and pursue investigations against the most egregious offenders involved in health care fraud through investigative partnerships with other federal agencies, such as Health and Human Services-Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), Office of Personnel Management-Office of Inspector General (OPM-OIG), and Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), along with various state Medicaid Fraud Control Units and other state and local agencies. On the private side, the FBI is actively involved in the Healthcare Fraud Prevention Partnership, an effort to exchange facts and information between the public and private sectors in order to reduce the prevalence of health care fraud. The Bureau also maintains significant liaison with private insurance national groups, such as the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, the National Insurance Crime Bureau, and private insurance investigative units. More here.

Another pathetic item is during 2017, when the House repealed Obamacare and the Senate failed to do so….no one spoke to the whole fraud component which is in fact costing the taxpayers billions…..BILLIONS.

Image result for obamacare BBC

So, will these companies come to the rescue for their own employees or perhaps lay the groundwork for total repeal?

“The ballooning costs of health care act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy,” Berkshire Hathaway (brk-b) chairman and CEO Warren Buffett said in a statement. “Our group does not come to this problem with answers. But we also do not accept it as inevitable.”

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and J.P. Morgan Chase are forming a not-for-profit health care venture to lower health care costs for their U.S. employees, the companies announced Tuesday morning, sparking a slide in the shares of a host of health care-related companies. The initial focus of the independent company will be on technology that will provide their U.S. employees and their families with simplified and high-quality health care at accessible costs, the companies said.

Drug distributors Cardinal Health (cah, -2.80%), AmerisourceBergen (abc, -2.73%) and McKesson (mck, -1.64%) were all down nearly 3%. Health insurers also fell, with the 6.2% drop in UnitedHealth (unh, +0.06%) the steepest.

The move comes amid growing speculation that Amazon is likely to enter the prescription drug business and that has sent tremors through the pharmaceutical supply chain.

“The health care system is complex, and we enter into this challenge open-eyed about the degree of difficulty,” Jeff Bezos, Amazon (amzn, +0.69%) founder and CEO, said in the statement. “Success is going to require talented experts, a beginner’s mind, and a long-term orientation.”

The effort is in its early planning stages, the companies said, and the initial formation of the company would be led by Todd Combs, an investment officer of Berkshire Hathaway; Marvelle Sullivan Berchtold, a managing director of J.P. Morgan Chase; and Beth Galetti, a senior vice president at Amazon.

“Our people want transparency, knowledge and control when it comes to managing their health care,” said Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase (jpm, +0.48%). “The three of our companies have extraordinary resources, and our goal is to create solutions that benefit our U.S. employees, their families and, potentially, all Americans.”

“The ballooning costs of health care act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy,” Berkshire Hathaway (brk-b) chairman and CEO Warren Buffett said in a statement. “Our group does not come to this problem with answers. But we also do not accept it as inevitable.” Drugstore operators CVS Health (cvs, -1.85%) and Walgreen Boots Alliance (wba, -1.10%) as well as pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Holding (esrx, -0.13%) dropped between 4.5% to 6% in premarket trading. Hat-tip Forbes.

Maybe Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats should have consulted with Watson…

Watson Health value-based care offerings deliver innovation designed to help drive value for providers and health care organizations as those providers and organizations work to manage population health, deliver more efficient care, engage patients and consumers, and optimize business performance – through the power of data-driven insights.

Is IBM part of the problem or the solution?

Watson Health offers end-to-end solutions for providers and organizations pursuing greater value in healthcare by offering solutions such as the following.

Providers
Robust data integration and aggregation, risk-stratified analytics, performance measurement reporting, care management and patient engagement tools.

Health plans
Analytics utilized by health plans to: identify consumer insights and support acquisition marketing, support care management, empower consumers for more informed decisions, and execute risk score optimization and compliance reporting.

Employers
Flexible delivery of tools to help employers increase value of benefits and programs and provide employees with personalized, relevant information to help them understand their benefits.

Pharmaceutical and bio-tech
Studies based on real-world evidence to help pharmaceutical and bio-tech companies understand the market landscape. Health economics and outcomes research combined with stakeholder research and engagement and management tools.

In today’s value-based healthcare environments, costs and revenues often depend on how fast and how effectively you can identify and engage at-risk patients, members and employees. Our solutions help you gain insight from your data to stratify your populations, design targeted programs, close care gaps and align with quality measures and initiatives.

Outcomes: Leverage insights, outcomes and economics through solutions, expertise and partnerships.

Essential connections: Vastly improve your understanding of your members, stakeholders, patients or employees, to gain essential knowledge and data to breakdown silos.

Confidence: Provide greater evidence and clarity to help you make informed decisions.

The 2nd Dossier, Courtesy of Sid Blumenthal/Cody Shearer

Posted on January 30, 2018January 30, 2018 by Denise Simon

Finally….after almost a year….I knew there was a second dossier and yup….it is confirmed. It was the same trio from the whole Libya and Benghazi scandal without Tyler Drumheller, due in part because he is dead. But Sid and Cody continued the Hillary mission with great success it seems.

Yesterday, this site published the letters that Senator Grassley, including one he wrote to then DNC chairperson, Donna Brazile asking for communications of several people including Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer……now it bubbles to the surface.

Cody is this shadowy fixture of the Clinton machine was everywhere in the 1990s — including war-torn Bosnia, where he became the subject of a State Department investigation after he represented himself as an agent of the U.S. government and took cash from a genocidal warlord. photo

Cody, like that of his father, Lloyd Shearer, the former editor of Parade magazine, was often gossipy and reputation-ruining. A series of columns the younger Shearer wrote on the sexual proclivities of former Texas senator John Tower sank his nomination for defense secretary in 1989. Get the picture here? Read more here.

Is Hillary still reading from that book Fire and Fury or is she now consulting with her team of operatives and lawyers including David Kendall?

FBI was given a second dicey Trump dossier in Oct 2016 by Christopher Steele, this one written by Clinton hatchet man Cody Shearer. The second dossier was meant to “corroborate allegations” made in the first phony dossier created by Steele, funded by Clinton and the DNC. Both dossiers cite the Russian FSB (KGB) as the source…….

Second Trump-Russia dossier being assessed by FBI

Exclusive: memo written by former journalist Cody Shearer independently sets out some of the allegations made by ex-spy Christopher Steele

The FBI inquiry into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 US presidential election has been given a second memo that independently set out some of the same allegations made in a dossier by Christopher Steele, the British former spy.

The second memo was written by Cody Shearer, a controversial political activist and former journalist who was close to the Clinton White House in the 1990s.

Unlike Steele, Shearer does not have a background in espionage, and his memo was initially viewed with scepticism, not least because he had shared it with select media organisations before the election.

However, the Guardian has been told the FBI investigation is still assessing details in the ‘Shearer memo’ and is pursuing intriguing leads.

One source with knowledge of the inquiry said the fact the FBI was still working on it suggested investigators had taken an aspect of it seriously.

It raises the possibility that parts of the Steele dossier, which has been derided by Trump’s supporters, may have been corroborated by Shearer’s research, or could still be.

The revelation comes at a moment when Donald Trump and some Republican lawmakers have been seeking to cast doubt on the credibility of the Mueller inquiry and the motivation of the FBI in examining Russian collusion, including unproven allegations that investigators had a bias in favour of Hillary Clinton when the investigation was initially launched before November.

Republicans on the House intelligence committee voted on Monday night to release a highly contentious memo, commissioned by the Republican chairman of the committee, Devin Nunes. The memo reportedly claims the FBI had an anti-Trump bias when it sought a warrant from the US foreign intelligence surveillance court to collect intelligence on Carter Page, an adviser to the Trump campaign. The Fisa court is a secret court that examines law enforcement requests to surveil Americans suspected of acting as foreign agents.

The Republican memo reportedly alleges that the FBI relied on the Steele dossier, which was partly paid for using Democratic funds, in seeking the Carter Page warrant, according to the New York Times.

Democrats have said that the Republican allegations are misleading and based on selective use of classified materials. Justice department officials have said the release of the document, because of the classified elements, would be “extraordinarily reckless”.

Trump now has five days to decide whether the Nunes document should become public.

The Shearer memo was provided to the FBI in October 2016.

It was handed to them by Steele – who had been given it by an American contact – after the FBI requested the former MI6 agent provide any documents or evidence that could be useful in its investigation, according to multiple sources.

The Guardian was told Steele warned the FBI he could not vouch for the veracity of the Shearer memo, but that he was providing a copy because it corresponded with what he had separately heard from his own independent sources.

Among other things, both documents allege Donald Trump was compromised during a 2013 trip to Moscow that involved lewd acts in a five-star hotel.

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The Shearer memo cites an unnamed source within Russia’s FSB, the state security service. The Guardian cannot verify any of the claims.

Shearer is a controversial figure in Washington. Conservative outlets have accused him of being part of a “hatchet man” and member of a “secret spy ring” and within Clinton’s orbit. There is no evidence that the Clinton campaign was aware of the Shearer memo.

But other people who know Shearer say he is not just a Democratic party hack and there is no evidence that his memo was ever sought by Clinton campaign officials.

Sources say that while he lacks the precision and polish of a seasoned former spy like Steele, Shearer has also been described as having a large network of sources around the world and the independent financial means to pursue leads.

The White House has vigorously denied allegations that the US president was ever compromised and has rejected claims that campaign officials ever conspired with the Kremlin before the 2016 election.

Steele’s dossier, his motives for writing it and his decision to share it remain controversial among Republicans.

He says he approached the FBI about concerns he had about links between Russia and the Trump campaign after he was commissioned to investigate the matter by a private investigative firm called Fusion GPS on behalf of the firm’s clients.

Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, told congressional investigators that Steele approached the FBI out of a sense of duty and concern for US national security.

Republican supporters of Trump have derided it as “fake news”. Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator from Iowa and ally of Trump, has called for an investigation into Steele amid unspecified allegations about the former spy’s conduct.

Democrats have said the campaign against Steele is part of an effort to seek to discredit him in order to shift attention away from allegations about Trump and Russia.

A spokesman for the US special counsel leading the criminal investigation into the Trump campaign declined to comment. Shearer did not return emails and calls for comment.

A federal criminal investigation into the Trump campaign has so far resulted in four indictments. Two former Trump campaign officials, including Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, have pleaded guilty to perjury and are cooperating with Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is leading the ongoing investigation.

CIA Warning on Russia and China

Posted on January 30, 2018January 30, 2018 by Denise Simon

2018-01-29 Treasury Caatsa 241 Final by CNBC.com on Scribd

The Democrats on The Hill have been complaining for months about the Trump administration easy approach and policy regarding Russia. There may be some truth to that conclusion, however there are some very aggressive actions underway at Treasury and CIA that tell another story of sorts. While there are some additional sanctions that have been applied, there are some key people listed as being close to Putin and the Kremlin that have been identified as people of concern.

Image result for russian oligarchs u s treasury photo

The Democrats need to calm down and recite some facts regarding the actions of the Trump administration with the building approaches regarding shady characters of the Kremlin and Russian influence or operatives.

Image result for russian oligarchs u s treasury photo

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department named major Russian businessmen including the heads of the two biggest banks, metals magnates and the boss of the state gas monopoly on a list of oligarchs close to the Kremlin.

The list, drawn up as part of a sanctions package signed into law in August last year, does not mean those included will be subject to sanctions, but it casts a potential shadow of sanctions risk over a wide circle of wealthy Russians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle is already subject to personal U.S. sanctions, imposed over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine‘s’ Crimea region.

But the so-called “oligarchs’ list” that was released on Tuesday, prompted in part by Washington’s belief the Kremlin meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, covers many people beyond Putin’s circle and reaches deep into Russia’s business elite.

LONDON (Reuters) – CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Russia will target U.S. mid-term elections later this year as part of the Kremlin’s attempt to influence domestic politics across the West, and warned the world had to do more to push back against Chinese meddling.

In an interview with the BBC aired on Tuesday, U.S. intelligence chief Pompeo said Russia had a long history of information campaigns and said its threat would not go away.

Asked if Russia would try to influence the mid-term elections, he said: ”Of course. I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that.

In an interview with the BBC aired on Tuesday, U.S. intelligence chief Pompeo said Russia had a long history of information campaigns and said its threat would not go away.

Asked if Russia would try to influence the mid-term elections, he said: ”Of course. I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that.

“But I am confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election. That we’ll push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won’t be great.”

He also said the Chinese posed a threat of equal concern, and were “very active” with a world class cyber capability.

“We can watch very focused efforts to steal American information, to infiltrate the United States with spies, with people who are going to work on behalf of the Chinese government against America,” he said.

“We see it in our schools, in our hospitals and medical systems, we see it throughout corporate America. These efforts we have to all be more focused on. We have to do better at pushing back against Chinese efforts to covertly influence the world.”

GLOBAL INFLUENCE

The Kremlin, which under Vladimir Putin has clawed back some of the global influence lost when the Soviet Union collapsed, has denied meddling in elections in the West. It says anti-Russian hysteria is sweeping through the United States and Europe.

In the interview, Pompeo also repeated his message that North Korea was close to developing missiles which could be used in a nuclear attack on the United States.

“I think that we collectively, the United States and our intelligence partners around the world, have developed a pretty clear understanding of (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un’s capability,” he said.

“We talk about him having the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to the United States in a matter of a handful of months.” More here.

Sen. Grassley is Seeking all Comms, and Naming Names, McCabe Resigns

Posted on January 29, 2018January 29, 2018 by Denise Simon

Breaking:

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe stepped down Monday as the agency’s No. 2, multiple sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

McCabe will remain on the FBI payroll until he is eligible to retire with full benefits in mid-March, the sources said.

Let’s being here shall we?

For the period from March 2016 through January 2017, please provide all communications to, from, copying, or relating to: Fusion GPS; Bean LLC; Glenn

Simpson; Mary Jacoby; Peter Fritsch; Tom Catan; Jason Felch; Neil King; David

Michaels; Taylor Sears; Patrick Corcoran; Laura Sego; Jay Bagwell; Erica Castro;

Nellie Ohr; Rinat Akhmetshin; Ed Lieberman; Edward Baumgartner; Orbis Business

Intelligence Limited; Orbis Business International Limited.; Walsingham Training

Limited; Walsingham Partners Limited; Christopher Steele; Christopher Burrows;

Sir Andrew Wood, Paul Hauser; Oleg Deripaska; Cody Shearer; Sidney Blumenthal;

Jon Winer; Kathleen Kavalec; Victoria Nuland; Daniel Jones; Bruce Ohr; Peter Strzok;

Andrew McCabe; James Baker; Sally Yates; Loretta Lynch; John Brennan.

The above paragraph is part of a letter Senator Grassley has sent to Donna Brazile. Another interesting letter was sent to Joel Benenson. Joel worked as a pollster for the Hillary for America campaign and has since been hired by Facebook…sheesh.

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have hired Democratic pollster Joel Benenson, a former top adviser to President Barack Obama and the chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign, as a consultant, according to a person familiar with the hire.

Benenson’s company, Benenson Strategy Group, will be conducting research for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the couple’s philanthropy. The organization — whose mission statement, according to its website, is “advancing human potential and promoting equality” — is endowed with the couple’s Facebook fortune.

As this is being published, sources confirmed that FBI Director Christopher Wray is on Capitol Hill viewing the controversial Nunes memo on the Obama administration spying operations.

So glad that Senator Grassley is on the case and has the names, I would argue he missed one and that is Bill Priestap. He is/was head of the FBI Counter-Intelligence Division, a person that both Peter Strzok and Lisa Page referred to in text messages essentially providing a heads up to Priestap that when Hillary wins, the blame for the investigations needs to focus on the Department of Justice much more than the FBI. Seems in yet another text message, Priestap agreed.

Of note, in the Grassley list, are two names of particular interest. They are Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal. They have a shady history with Hillary, as they were part of the operation in Libya and Benghazi.

Bill Priestap was the top fella giving directions to then director James Comey.

Grassley, Graham Send Batch of Letters Related to Potential Political Influence on FBI

Jan 26, 2018

WASHINGTON – As part of their ongoing oversight efforts to ensure that the FBI’s law enforcement activities are free of improper political influence, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) yesterday sent six letters seeking information and documents regarding Christopher Steele’s work on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary for America. The letters seek information and documents relating to those political organizations’ knowledge of and involvement in Mr. Steele’s work and his reported interactions with the FBI while he was working on behalf of these political organizations. The letters were sent to:

Another Method on How China Spies

Posted on January 29, 2018January 29, 2018 by Denise Simon

There has been so much domestic chatter about the FISA court granting warrants on U.S. citizens or intercepting communications between foreign nationals/diplomats and Americans, but in related reading –> US and Britain refine their ability to tap into airline passenger’s mobile phones while they are in the air.

Meanwhile…. Image result for chinese computer network african union photo

China built and paid for the African Union’s computer network – but inserted a backdoor allowing it access to the continental organisation’s confidential information

In January 2017, the information technology unit at the African Union’s headquarters in Addis Ababa noticed something strange, according to a stunning investigation in French newspaper Le Monde.

Every night, between midnight and 2am, there was a strange peak in data usage – even though the building was almost entirely empty. Upon further investigation, the technicians noticed something even stranger. That data – which included confidential information – was being sent to servers based in Shanghai.

The African Union’s shiny new headquarters was built and paid for by the Chinese government, as a gift to its “African friends”. But when the building was officially opened in 2012, China left a backdoor into the African Union’s computer network, allowing it to access the institution’s secrets at will.

“According to several sources within the institution, all sensitive content could be spied on by China,” wrote Le Monde. “It’s a spectacular leak of data, spread from January 2012 to January 2017.”

The Chinese mission to the AU did not respond to Le Monde’s request for comment.

Once the problem was discovered, African Union officials acted quickly to fix it. The organisation acquired its own servers, and began encrypting its communications. In July 2017, a team of experts from Algeria – a country with a notoriously efficient intelligence community – along with cybersecurity experts from Ethiopia combed the building from top to bottom, looking for hidden microphones and other potential weaknesses.

China would not be the first supposedly friendly superpower to spy on the African Union. A separate investigation in December 2016, conducted by Le Monde and The Intercept, revealed that African Union officials were targeted for surveillance by British intelligence.

*** The CIA and likely the NSA have a handle on all this but does the White House and the Congress, such that there is a cyber policy? Nope…. Just because there is a Chinese network in the Africa Union, does not mean it does not affect connected networks…..

A senior CIA analyst said China is continuing to conduct aggressive cyberespionage operations against the U.S., contrary to claims by security experts who say Beijing curbed cyberattacks in the past few years.

“We know the Chinese are very active in targeting our government, U.S. industry and those of our partners through cyberespionage,” said Michael Collins, deputy assistant CIA director and head of the agency’s East Asia Mission Center.

“It’s a very real, big problem, and we need to do more about it,” Mr. Collins told a recent security conference in Aspen, Colorado.

Mr. Collins said solving the problem of Chinese cyberattacks will require an “all-of-government, all-of-country approach to pushing back against it.”

The comments contradict a number of cybersecurity experts who have said Beijing’s digital spying and information theft decreased sharply as a result of the 2015 agreement between President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The two leaders announced the cyber deal with great fanfare and said both countries had agreed to curtail cyberespionage against businesses.