Maggie's Farm

Last April I wrote about the coming explosion of Qui Tam lawsuits against medical providers, due to relaxed standards for bringing such suits making it a happy hunting ground for litigators fishing for financial payoffs.

As if the US didn’t already have enough lawsuits, and as if excess litigation isn’t one of the prime drivers of medical costs, and as if the Democrats didn’t garner 90% of tort lawyers’ contributions, ObamaCare will create a new boom in lawsuits.

At this week’s Healthcare Financial Management Association the healthcare law expert warned of a coming “storm” of lawsuits and quipped, “You'll need to look around your organization and see who looks best in orange [prison clothing color] and pick that person.”

Judge predicted an explosion of new whistle-blower lawsuits because the new law relaxes the requirements for filing such lawsuits under the federal False Claims Act. For example, the new law effectively eliminates the requirement that a plaintiff have direct knowledge of the alleged fraud in order to file suit.
The new law also converts accidental Medicare overpayments to providers into potential false claims, Judge said. She said the law considers an overpayment as fraud if the overpayment isn't identified by the provider and returned to the government within 60 days. Judge said that will require providers to beef up their internal billing systems to detect an overpayment as soon as possible and then send Medicare back its money.

Wonder why litigation reform was excluded from ObamaCare and why tort attorneys eager to make money regardless of increased medical inflation and excess CYA tests are one of Democrats’ largest donor groups?

President Obama chose General Stanley McChrystal as commander in Afghanistan. There can be little doubt that Obama knew that McChrystal voted for him.

Now, McChrystal and staff let the cat out of the bag, that everyone watching knew already: President Obama, VP Joe Biden, National Security Council head Jim Jones, Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan  Richard Holbrooke, have been actively undermining the war effort through timidity, illusions and interfering with McChrystal, the only proven warrior and COIN expert in the bunch and the only one respected by the Afghanis.

General David Petraeus will now fill in, downgrading Petraeus from chief at CENTCOM with wider responsibilities for the tinderboxes in the Middle East and South Asia. That is a big hole to fill in dangerous times.  Petraeus is not holding it against Obama that Obama joined in the liberal Democrats’ defeatism in Iraq when Petraeus then proceeded with President Bush’s firm and brave support to save the bacon. Petraeus is, after all, a bigger and real man.

And, once again Obama has chosen his personal agenda and ego above military effectiveness. Obama just appointed a new Commandant for the Marine Corps, seemingly largely based on the appointee’s agreement with gays openly serving, over the true proven warrior in the missions faced, General James Mattis, who with Petraeus co-authored military COIN doctrine.

General Mattis could have been chosen to replace McChrystal.  But, he wasn’t. There’s no doubt that Petraeus will do an excellent job, but Mattis would also, and wouldn't have left a gaping hole at CENTCOM. However, Mattis is also known as a no nonsense commander, who is famous for saying in Iraq that Marines will kill if attacked (though the Left ignores that Mattis is also an advocate of “soft-power” COIN so that is less necessary).

Straight talk is not to be had when Obama’s ignorant ideology and thin ego are exposed to challenge by straight talk. Petraeus is less likely to be as blunt to Obama and the US public, whose sons and daughters’ lives are at stake on the front lines.

At least three senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have it straight:

The resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal should lead the Obama administration to re-evaluate their civilian Afghanistan team as well, three members of the Armed Services Committee said Wednesday.

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said the controversy surrounding the Rolling Stone profile of McChrystal revealed problems beyond the comments of McChrystal and his team.

"The civilian side, in my view, is completely dysfunctional," said Graham.

Indeed.

One can hope against experience with Obama that this fracas will lead him to get more firmly behind the – at his insistence undermanned vs the military’s recommendation – troops, and make clear that there is no deadline on our commitment. The New York Times' headline, however, reports "Obama Says Afghan Policy Won't Change."

Or, one can hope against experience that Obama will feel so boxed in and revealed by his own fecklessness, especially in expectation of the drubbing coming in November, that he will straighten up, himself and his ideological coterie who are undermining the Afghanis and Americans. I have a bridge to sell you if you believe that.

Or, one can hope that even without a worthwhile Commander in Chief that General Petraeus can perform miracles.

The lives of our troops, and of civilians here in the US, depends upon one man, and that man is not President Obama.

P.S.: Henry Kissinger says of Obama's course, "Neither the premise nor the deadline is realistic," in saying "America needs an Afghan strategy, not an alibi." Read it all.

P.P.S.: As usual with Bing West, BINGO!

I'll take a dozen, or more.

Bob Dylan, The Neighborhood Bully, lyrics below

Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man
His enemies say he's on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully he just lives to survive
He's criticized and condemned for being alive
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He's wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He's always on trial for just being born
He's the neighborhood bully.

Here’s the CBS report by chief legal expert Jan Crawford:

In an unusually harsh ruling, a federal judge this afternoon blocked the Obama administration's six-month ban on deepwater off shore drilling, slamming the government for relying on "incomprehensible" studies and making "factually incorrect" arguments that abused "reason (and) common sense." The hard-hitting, 22-page opinion by Federal District Court Judge Martin Feldman said the government failed to show that the BP oil spill meant all other rigs were also in danger of failing. As such, he said, the moratorium simply went too far. Feldman also skewered the administration for mischaracterizing the views of engineering experts in order to justify the moratorium.

Read the rest, below the fold:

(I read the entire pdf of the ruling, but haven't found a url to link yet. When I do, I'll add the link to the actual ruling. Here's the ruling's full text. See Obama sliced and diced. -- More, please, before Obama slices and dices any more of America.)

The old conundrum of how many angels fit on the head of a pin is now surpassed by how many Obama-Pals can be tossed under the bus before the bus falls over.

There’s soon departing White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who has pissed off everybody and is entangled in the former Illinois governor’s corruption trial, and White House Director of the Office of Management and Budgets Peter Orszag, who has run up $trillions of deep debts with the “stimulus” and ObamaCare.

Now, maybe to go is the Commanding General in Afghanistan Stanley McChrystal, who voted for Obama, agreed to Obama’s trimmed and late arriving mini-surge, imposed US life-threatening rules-of-engagement, and now exposes the crippling inanity of the Obama national security team meddlers.

As Jackson Diehl writes at the Washington Post:

McChrystal may be at fault for expressing his frustrations to Rolling Stone. He is not at fault for the lack of coherence in the Afghan campaign or the continued feuding over strategy. That is Obama’s responsibility.

As is the other messes that Obama has created.

It is getting crowded under the bus where Obama tries to hide his blunders. How long until the bus falls over?

Senator John McCain says,

“If McChrystal goes, McCain reiterated, "we need to have a look at the functioning of the whole team."

Fish stink from the head. That's for 2012. 2010 is for emptying Obama's smelly fish tank in Congress.

The invite link is here.

Stand for Israel, Stand for the West

The Friends of Israel have joined together in a new international initiative on the basis of the following convictions:

1. Israel is a Western country. With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.

2. Israel´s right to exist should not be questioned. In the face of a uniquely campaign of deligitimation, we remind all people of goodwill of the true historical context in which the State of Israel was re-established following United Nations Resolution 181 in 1947. We state emphatically that that decision to recognize the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination was not merely a gesture of compassion following the horrors that had befallen the Jewish people during the Holocaust. It was, above all, a recognition of the right of the Jewish people to establish a sovereign state on land in which they have had an enduring presence and to which they have had a historical claim for thousands of years.

3. Israel, as a sovereign country, has the right to self-defense. Israel is indeed a normal Western country, but it is one which faces unique threats and challenges. Israel is the only state in the world forced to fight one war after another to secure its very existence. Confronting some of the most violent and well equipped terrorist groups in the world it is also the only country whose right to self-defense is consistently and widely questioned. Today, Israel has been forced to fight on two fronts: one to defend its borders and another to defend its legitimacy. We stand with Israel, and demand that it be accorded the same legitimacy and the same right to defend itself as any other Western country. Human rights statutes designed to defend the dignity of people everywhere, laws on universal jurisdiction intended to be used against criminals and tyrants and international bodies established to secure justice, have been subverted, their guiding principles stood on their head, to wage war against Israeli democracy. The campaign against Israel is corroding the international system from within.