Different consequences if you aren’t poor

October 28, 2013

This came to me via email with the request that I post it:

Typical El Paso justice.

The disgraced former EPISD Superintendent now known as inmate Garcia gets a one year reduction in his already light sentence for completing a drug class. Our idiot federal judge was shocked by this. Here is a bit of advice from the non J.D. crowd to our local judicial hacks. Sentence them as if they were poor minorities. That way a one year reduction isnt so bad. 

I am left to wonder if INMATE Garcia had to have a drug problem in order to qualify for this program. If so, has the federal judge ever heard of a probation report? Garcia was out on probation for a time, was he a known drug user? If so, why was he let out in the first place? If he never had a drug problem then why does he get credit for completing a program that fails to address his problems?

Lesson to all.

If you want justice in El Paso, do it yourself. The legal system here is not going to fight for justice in the names of the poor and disenfranchised.

Brownfield

3 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Sequestration

October 20, 2013

How has sequestration affected the various federal agencies?

Federal News Radio provides the following information on it’s web site based on information available on August 22, 2013:

Agriculture Department.  “Officials at the Agriculture Department now say the agency does not expect furloughs of USDA employees this year”

Commerce Department.  “After initially planning for furloughs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Commerce announced Friday, May 31, that furloughs at the agency would be cancelled.”

Customs and Border Protection.  “The agency said it is now “reevaluating” the need for furloughs and the the planned elimination of administratively uncontrollable overtime, or AUO.”

Defense Department.  “The Department of Defense cut the number of furlough days for its civilian employees from 11 days to six. For most of those DoD employees, their final day took place the first week of August.”

Education Department.  “Education Department employees won’t deal with furloughs this year, according to a staff memo from Education Secretary Arne Duncan obtained by Education Week.”

Environmental Protection Agency.  “Over two phases of furloughs, EPA employees were forced to take a total of 47 hours off. ”

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  ” During Phase I of furloughs (April 22 to July 2) all 2,194 EEOC employees took five required furlough days. However, EEOC canceled round two of furloughs, which would have meant three more unpaid days off for feds at the agency.”

Federal Aviation Administration.  “Congress approved a bill April 26 that allows the agency to use funding originally slated for airport improvement to avert the furlough of air traffic controllers.”

FBI.  “On April 24, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Justice would not need to furlough employees during the current fiscal year. He said the department was able to avoid furloughs thanks to money it received from recently enacted legislation combined with a hiring freeze and cuts to contracting and other costs.”

General Accounting Office.  “Under sequestration, GAO would be forced to forego its hiring plans for a third year in a row.

Government Printing Office.  “GPO plans to implement freezes in a number of areas: hiring, overtime, bonuses, training, travel and nonessential maintenance. Employee furloughs would be a last resort …”

Housing and Urban Development.  “On Aug. 9, the Department of Housing and Urban Developmentcanceled its final two furlough days on Aug. 16 and 30.”

Interior Department.  “After taking three furlough days, the National Park Service announced May 24 that it was canceling the remaining furlough days for U.S. Park Police employees.”

Justice Department.  ” On April 24, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Justice would not need to furlough employees during the current fiscal year. ”

NASA.  “NASA does not plan to resort furloughs in the short term, a NASA spokesman told Federal News Radio. To comply with the budget cuts, NASA has reduced travel and conference attendance and has reviewed spending on education and public-outreach activities.”

You get the idea.

Go to the website to see other government agencies.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Trust me, I thought I was eligible

October 4, 2013

Muckraker’s post about the Times shilling for Obamacare got me curious so I read the article.

Looking for an explanation of what might exempt a person from having to sign up, I built this list from the Times article:

Members of a federally recognized tribe

People who are incarcerated

Those not living legally in the United States (so much for honesty in immigration)

Those facing eviction or foreclosure

Someone who has received a shut-off notice from a utility

Bankruptcy filers in the past six months

Those that have recently experienced domestic violence or the death of a close family member

Left out

The article did not point out that:

Members of congress and their staffs will have their coverage paid for by the feral government

Nor did it point out that even though the IRS was allocated one billion dollars to implement Obamacare they will be unable to verify applications for personal subsidies to buy Obamacare.  If you meet certain requirements the government will give you money to help you buy your insurance.

Verifying applications will be too difficult for the IRS so they will rely on the honor system.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Deliberate?

October 1, 2013

I wonder if the Times publishes what it does out of ignorance or incompetence or to deliberately try to influence public opinion.

Sunday’s article “Affordable Care Act: Marketplace in El Paso,US set to open Tuesday” contained this:

“Though there are exemptions, most people who don’t sign up will receive a penalty referred to as the individual shared responsibility payment.”

To be factual they could have written this:

Though there are exemptions, most people who don’t already have health insurance and who don’t sign up will receive a penalty…”

Or if space for fairness and accuracy is limited in the Times, they might have written this:

Though there are exemptions, most uninsured people who don’t sign up will receive a penalty…”

According to the Times we should hurry to sign up.

Muckraker

3 Comments | El Paso Times, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

Keeping up with the Jones

September 30, 2013

The headline article in the Times today talked about the scheduled sentencing of some more people that have been involved in the public corruption cases here in El Paso.

These three individuals pleaded guilty to illegal activity relating to health insurance for local school district and government employees.  Access HealthSource was administering the health coverage.  Bribes were evidently offered to elected officials in return for their votes to give Access contracts.

This story is another one of those that the Times writes often about.  Maybe it is good for circulation.

More of the story

Below is my opinion:

What the Times failed to mention today is that they played a big part in creating the environment that led to the corruption.

For many years Young Insurance had the contracts to administer health insurance for the major school districts and local governments in town.  Steve Young was the head of the firm.  He administered the health insurance programs with fairness, efficiency and honesty.  The employees were happy.  He stepped in frequently to get to the bottom of problems so that employees were taken care of.  Young Insurance regularly saved the employers money and kept their health costs in line.

Enter a former local big shot (who is now in federal prison) who decided he wanted Young’s business.  Allegations were made about the fact that Young Insurance was not in fact an insurance company.  Other allegations were made that Young was secretly taking money from hospitals even though video coverage at the time showed Young explaining his financial dealings with the hospitals in open city council meetings.

The Times saw a scandal.  Scandals are good for circulation.  They published article after article about the situation.  We see the same behavior with the El Paso Independent School District story and the public corruption story today.

Eventually the pressure on Young and his business became too destructive.  He sold his business to the same Access HealthSource, owned primarily by our federal detainee.  Our former county judge who is also now a  federal prisoner and who coincidently has the same last name as the Access owner then helped to lobby for Access.

The result is the scandal that was covered again in the paper again today.

What about Steve Young?  Charges were never filed.  The investigating agencies never made an accusation.  He never got so much as a reprimand.  I think he lost his business thanks in large part to relentless hounding by the Times.

Steve died penniless a few years ago, but not before the Times printed a below the fold front page article that explained he had done nothing wrong.  Steve was grateful for that.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Times, Federal Government, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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