Friday, January 29, 2016

VIDEO: Warning, Multiple F Bombs, University of California, UCSB, Students Chant 'F' Your Borders, To Border Patrol Police At Campus Job Fair

From the Tax Funded Ca. State University System that put the 'Illuminati' in charge of its UCSF Psychiatry Dept. 

Ask yourself, How many of these parasites are going to go on to employment on your dime as social workers, psychologists, and other members of the Thought, Mood, and Behavioral Gestapo.


the college fix

AUSTIN YACK - UC SANTA BARBARA 


‘This is a very triggering event for people,’ says one UCSB protestor 
SANTA BARBARA – A cadre of University of California-Santa Barbara students took to the quad Thursday to protest the participation of U.S. Customs and Border Protection recruiters at a campus job fair, loudly chanting “f*ck your borders, f*ck your walls” among other slogans.
The 50 or so student protestors who lined the outside of the campus building hosting the career fair held aloft a large banner stating “Undocumented Unafraid,” and also chanted “Hey hey, ho ho – CBP has got to go.”
“We do have undocumented students here on campus who are at potential risk,” said UCSB graduate student Idalia Robles in an interview with The College Fix. “This is a very triggering event for people in those circumstances. There is no space on this campus for an organization that continues to threaten the safety of students.”
A video taken by a College Fix reporter shows students continuing to chant similar slogans – sometimes in English and other times in Spanish – as the demonstration continued into the afternoon.
Several students declined to be interviewed by The College Fix, but the group appeared to include a mix of members from several student organizations on campus. Robles said demonstrators had mostly converged to show solidarity with undocumented students.
“This event is a university endorsed event, right? And there is the presence of Customs and Border Patrol. We are in a Hispanic serving institution. One of the concerns that are very present in the Chicano-Latino-Mexicana community is that of immigration and the abuse of power at the hands of immigration officers,” she said. “[A]s someone committed to social justice, I know that this is something crucial.”
Students at the public university were notified Monday via email about career fair participants, along with a statement by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The CBP statement read:
“Uniformed CBP staff will be on site with the sole purpose of providing students with information about a broad range of career opportunities. The CBP personnel will be attending in a recruitment capacity.”
“CBP recently launched a national recruiting strategy to aggressively recruit women, minorities, veterans, and college students.”
“Current openings entail not only frontline law-enforcement positions, but also a variety of administrative, professional, and technical functions.”
The protest had begun inside the career fair, but The College Fix was informed by observers that the crowd had been moved outside. Once outside, the protest continued.
“CBP detains people without adequate legal aid in horrible conditions where prisoners are often abused and violated. Is that what you want as your employer?” shouted one protestor into a megaphone.
“Shame!” the crowd replied.
The statement issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection indicates its officials may have expected the uproar. Last fall, after students complained about the planned presence of border patrol agents at a similar job fair at UC Irvine, the agency backed out of participating in that event.
The protest at UC Santa Barbara occurred on the same day that UC President Janet Napolitano announced more than 3,000 undocumented undergraduate students would now have access to a system-wide student loan program funded by taxpayers.
“By reducing barriers and expanding access to higher education for undocumented students, the University of California is investing not only in the future of these students, but also in the future of our state and nation,” Napolitano stated in a news releasing announcing the California DREAM Loan Program.
The initial $5 million for the program is equally funded by the University of California and state general funds appropriated to UC, the statement added.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Hundreds of DHS Badges, Guns And Cell Phones Stolen Since 2012

Thanks Janet. We feel so much safer knowing you're in charge of the things that really Need securing in America.

weaselzippers


Great job guys
Via Texomas:

(FOX NEWS) Hundreds of badges, credentials, cell phones and guns belonging to Department of Homeland Security employees have been lost or stolen in recent years — raising serious security concerns about the potential damage these missing items could do in the wrong hands.
Inventory reports, obtained by the news site Complete Colorado and shared with FoxNews.com, show that over 1,300 badges, 165 firearms and 589 cell phones were lost or stolen over the span of 31 months between 2012 and 2015.
The majority of the credentials belonged to employees of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), while others belonged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) employees.
The lost or stolen guns also mostly belonged to CBP employees, 
Thank You Texomas and Bill. 

Big Investor Pushes Underperforming J&J To Step Up Or Split

fiercepharma
January 28, 2016 | By 

Split 'em up, move 'em out.

Should Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) join the Big Pharma split-up club? One of its major shareholders thinks so, and it's pressing activist investors to join the cause.
Artisan Partners has a short list of suggestions for the healthcare conglomerate, including a three-way split. The firm also urges J&J execs to consider revamping the board, rejigging executive pay and opening up its finances to greater scrutiny.

Right now, J&J is trading at a "significant conglomerate discount," the firm said in a presentation posted online Thursday morning--a $90 billion discount, it figures. The company's already well-defined units would be better off as standalone businesses--consumer products, medical devices and pharmaceuticals.

It's not an original idea; CNBC's Jim Cramer suggested last year that an activist investor might step up and fight for a split. He figured that J&J would be worth 50% more in three pieces than the whole was at the time. "I don't care how big JNJ is, this one's ripe for the prodding," Cramer said.
And Cramer's advice followed pressure from at least one big-name analyst. In mid-2012, as Pfizer ($PFE) was moving into split-up mode, Goldman Sachs' Jami Rubin told investors that J&J chief Alex Gorsky, then fairly new in the job, should consider a three-way breakup. One of her points: The medical devices division was underperforming and dragging down the rest of the company.

Of course, that hasn't changed much; the unit has fallen on such hard times that J&J now says it will restructure the business and lay off 3,000 people.

Artisan has similar arguments. The firm said J&J has significantly underperformed its head-to-head peers in each of its three businesses, and its conglomerate structure drags down its stock compared with those rivals. Even its top-performing business--prescription drugs--isn't on par with Big Pharma.

Why? "[I]nadequate execution and poor operating performance on a number of fronts," Artisan says. Its capital investments--including M&A spending--haven't delivered big enough returns. Also, J&J's executive pay plans are flawed--Artisan says Gorsky is overpaid compared to other, better-performing biopharma CEOS--partly because its financial reports aren't as transparent as they should be.

The firm urged J&J to consider bringing new blood onto its board, saying that there's a "notable lack" of actual industry experience there.

Last year at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Gorsky seemed to hint that J&J was open to hiving off some of its weaker parts. "We think it's important to be very thoughtful about where we're going to participate and where we're not going to participate," he told presentation watchers in San Francisco. "If we're not a No. 1 or No. 2 in a particular area, if we don't see a path to achieving leadership, … then that's maybe better served in someone else's hands."

Still, J&J has long defended its conglomerate structure, almost as sacred at the company as its oft-quoted credo. During Tuesday's earnings call with analysts, Gorsky said the company's "broad-based structure" has helped "deliver strong, consistent and sustainable financial performance."

But that's exactly what the split-up fans dispute. And the diversified structure is falling out of favor across Big Pharma, as companies spin off, sell or swap their lesser-performing units to focus on their strengths.

Pfizer's long-anticipated divorce, which would split its established products business off from its "innovative core" of newer brands and pipeline drugs, is the leading example, though still uncertain, not to mention a couple of years off. But a long list of current deals fits this mold, from Novartis ($NVS) and GlaxoSmithKline's ($GSK) oncology-for-vaccines swap last year, to Merck & Co.'s ($MRK) consumer health sale to Bayer, to Sanofi's ($SNY) in-the-works trade with Boehringer Ingelheim, which would strengthen the French drugmaker's consumer business and send its animal health unit to Boehringer.

Neil Woodford
Then there's GSK, which is under its own pressure from U.K. investors to break up into several pieces. Top fund manager Neil Woodford has said GSK operates like four different publicly traded companies under one roof, an approach that all but guarantees poor management and hampers the growth in each of them.

Artisan figures that a three-way split at J&J would create up to $90 billion in new value, about one-third of the company's current market cap of $282 billion. That 30% or so increase isn't as much as Cramer calculated. But it might be enough to get some activist investors excited.
- read Artisan's prescription for J&J

Editor's note: This story was updated with details from Artisan's investor presentation.

Thank You Ms Staton and FiercePharma


J&J would create up to $90 billion in new value, about one-third of the company's current market cap of $282 billion.

Uh huh.


Well, the Obama DOJ certainly taught Them a lesson they won't forget.








Wouldn't want Doc nodding off on the job without their coffee. 


Got drugs, real diseases, and premature death to push, . . . and strung out thought criminals to police.


Wednesday, January 27, 2016

State Dept Says "Celebrating Diversity" Is Key In Fight To Destroying ISIS

Anyone care to slap a few DSM billing codes on these people?

weaselzippers
Too funny… wait, they’re serious?



Thank You Zip.


University of Oregon's SJW Brigade Upset With MLK's "I Have A Dream" Quote Etched Over Student Building: Not "Diverse" Enough

Have you downloaded a dictionary lately? Does the "Complete" English language seem somewhat less "Complete" than it was a few years ago?

weaselzippers

It’s come to this.


Since 1986, the University of Oregon has housed a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. in the lobby of the Erb Memorial Union. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream…”
However, this hasn’t always been the quote that filled the entrance of the EMU and there was talk of the quote changing again. The quote is not going to change, but that decision was not made without some hard thought by the Student Union Board.
Laurie Woodward, the Director of the Student Union said that when she approached the union with the question of if they wanted to keep the current MLK quote or supplement a new one, one of the students asked, “Does the MLK quote represent us today?”
“Diversity is so much more than race. Obviously race still plays a big role. But there are people who identify differently in gender and all sorts of things like that,” sophomore architecture major, Mia Ashley said.
Thank You Daily Emerald and Zip. 


Thank You, the Cube.

Dallas Woman Sentenced To Five Years For Submitting Fraudulent Psychotherapy Claims

fiercehealthpayer antifraud
Using Medicaid provider numbers, a company president submitted more than $1 million in claims

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Video: VA Director Says VA Turning Veterans Into Drug Addicts



Thank You Project Veritas

VIDEO: Common Core III: Exec Says "I Hate Kids . . . It's All About The Money"



"Old White Men, who are frustrated with their lives."

More of that tolerance, diversity and inclusion.



VIDEO: Common Core II: Textbook Publisher "It's Never About The Kids"



"No, I hate kids. I'm in it to sell books. Don't even kid yourself for a heartbeat."

VIDEO: Common Core Exec Reveals Anti American Agenda: Guns, STDs, Islam, Climate Change, Dead White Guys



Wait a minute. Aren't these the people who can't stop screeching about tolerance, diversity and inclusion?

Isn't this the gestalt that wants to criminalize free speech as hate speech?

Dead White Guys?

Sounds like "Hate Speech" to us.

Thank You Project Veritas.

Friday, January 22, 2016

White House: "Entirely Likely" "Even Expected" That Iran Will Use Money We Released For Terrorism





Isn’t that treason?
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday it was “entirely likely” and “even expected” that Iran will continue to support terrorism as it receives tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief through the Iran nuclear deal.
The deal brokered by the Obama administration and other world powers gives Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, $100 billion in sanctions relief in exchange for compliance with the agreement meant to stop the rogue regime from getting nuclear weapons.
After Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged Thursday that “some” Iran deal money would go to terrorists, CBS reporter Margaret Brennan asked Earnest at the White House briefing whether he agreed.
“I think that reflects his rather logical conclusion that a nation that supports terrorism may use some of the money that’s coming into the country to further support terrorism,” Earnest said. “The thing that’s important for people to recognize is that critics of this agreement often exaggerate the value of the sanctions relief that Iran will obtain, and they often overlook the rather severe economic priorities that are badly underfunded inside of Iran.”
You Tell 'Em Josh. Another Mensa candidate.

Thank You Free Beacon and Nick.

Report: CMS Underpays Medicare Advantage Plans For Treating Chronic Conditions

fiercehealthpayer
Avalere analysis shows that CMS' model under-predicts costs by $2.6 billion

Thank You Ms Moody and FHP

Lawmakers Slam Oversight Of Failing CO-OPs

fiercehealthpayer
CMS' Andy Slavitt defends the startup insurers
At a Senate committee hearing Thursday, Congress members grilled Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt about what has gone wrong with the Affordable Care Act's flailing startup health insurers.

More than half of the 23 consumer operated and oriented plans (CO-OPs) have shut down, mostly due to financial struggles, and some Congress members at the hearing made it plain where they think the blame lies for the CO-OPs' problems. "I think HHS blew it," Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) went further, criticizing the CMS' response to the small insurers' financial issues. "CMS has actually encouraged the CO-OPs to 'cook their books' with some creative accounting," he said, noting that last year the agency issued guidance that suggested the CO-OPs apply surplus notes to their program startup loans, which essentially allowed them to record loans as assets in their financial filings.

The insurers' struggles have ended up wasting taxpayer money, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said, noting that the government has granted $2.5 billion in loans to the CO-OPs, including the one that served his home state, CoOportunity Health, one of the first to shut down.

Slavitt, however, pointed out all the steps CMS has taken, in conjunction with state insurance regulators, to improve oversight of the remaining CO-OPs. In 2015, the agency oversaw 27 financial and operational reviews of the CO-OPs, made 16 in-person visits, and carried out 43 formal communications and hundreds of phone calls, he said.

CMS has also identified goals to get CO-OPs on the right path, including making it easier for them to attract outside capital or a merger partner if their boards choose, and putting in place enrollment freezes or choosing not to certify a plan for future open enrollment periods if it shows signs it might have to close. Still, the future success of the CO-OPs will largely be determined by the companies themselves, Slavitt said, adding that they need to rapidly mature the fundamentals of their operations--particularly their financial systems--and must tighten their core processes and hold their vendors accountable.

Not all Congress members at the hearing put the blame on CMS for the CO-OPs' struggles, though. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) pointed out that Congress has cut vital funding to help the startup insurers stay afloat, essentially setting them up to fail. "Some want to paint the CO-OPs as the kind of token, failed government. But the facts do not bear that out," he said. "From the get-go, these private insurance plans have been facing extraordinarily stiff headwinds."

In fact, Slavitt said he isn't surprised many of the CO-OPs lost money in the early going, as they are small players entering markets where in many cases there hasn't been a new competitor in decades. A new analysis from The Commonwealth Fund goes into greater detail about the challenges CO-OPs have faced, including the necessity to outsource critical health plan functions, the effects of the ACA's premium stabilization programs, and difficulties pricing their products and estimating costs.

Still, CMS believes CO-OPs play a vital role in the ACA marketplaces, increasing competition and serving communities that often fall through the cracks of the healthcare system, Slavitt said, adding, "through all the challenges that they face, CO-OPs have every opportunity to become successful, long-term market participants."
To learn more:
- here's a replay of the hearing
- check out The Commonwealth Fund analysis


Thank You Ms Small and FHP.




You know, if not for LBJ's vote buying pig in a poke, we wouldn't have had the price of Govt Healthcare rise incrementally year after year to the point of making ObamaCare an inevitability.


Thanks a lot Ted, you tireless Champion of Health Care Reform.

Speaking at the 2004 Democrat National Convention in Boston, Ted Kennedy educated the audience on a little known aspect of the American Revolution.

“Today, more than two centuries after the embattled farmers stood and fired the shirt round the world, the ideals of our founders still resonate across the globe.”
Ted Kennedy, July 27, 2004 

Security Breach Exposes Info of Blue Shield of California Members

fiercehealthcare
Insurer's IT systems not hit in incident that affected 21K customers
Blue Shield of California has experienced a security breach that exposed the personal information of nearly 21,000 customers last year, the Orange County Register reports.

No data systems at the insurer were affected, according to a letter sent to members; rather, the unauthorized access between September and December 2015 occurred because of misuse of Blue Shield customer service representatives' log-in information. The compromised information could include names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers, the insurer says.
"We take this issue seriously and regret the concern it may cause," Blue Shield tells members in its letter. "We are working internally and with our vendor to improve our overall security procedures in order to provide additional protections for your personal information." It also is offering affected customers a one-year membership in a credit-tracking service.

The insurer is just the latest Blues company to experience a breach, following in the footsteps of Premera Blue CrossExcellus BlueCross BlueShieldCareFirstand Anthem--which faced a cyberattack that exposed 80 million members' data. Officials familiar with the Anthem breach have said they believe Chinese hackers may have targeted the insurer in order to learn more about the U.S. healthcare system.

In the wake of those cyberattacks, the national Blue Cross Blue Shield Associationannounced in July that it will offer free identity protection services to its 106 million member starting Jan. 1 of this year. Yet concerns remain about how the industry is responding to cybersecurity threats, as a readiness exercise conducted in December showed that some insurers' response plans still come up short when put to the test.  

The recently passed Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act seeks to improve cybersecurity threat preparedness in both the government and private sector, but at least one expert believes it "creates a framework that provides few, if any, privacy and security benefits to the general public," FierceHealthIT has reported.
To learn more:
- here's the Orange County Register report
- view the letter to Blue Shield members


Thank You Ms Small and FH.