Day: March 16, 2015

Follow the money from 1983 on………

Mainly because I bet the double dealing between SRHS insiders and its pension trust dates back all the way to its inception. Looks like Anita and the commenting community here are on the right track:

Risky business? SRHS retirement plan invested in high-risk, high-fee funds, expert says ~ Anita Lee

And I have this blurb from yesterday’s Sun Herald Op-Ed:

That would end the habit SRHS officials have of treating employees like children, telling them only what they think they should know and deciding when they should know it.

When it comes to transparency in government down here on the coast, the governments that do not treat their taxpayers like children would be the exception rather than the rule:

SUN HERALD | Editorial: Trustees of SRHS demonstrate need for transparency

Meantime last week Kingfish had the Mississippi Hospital Association’s 990 last week while Wayne Weidie opines that the SRHS Cancer of Disgrace has spread from Jackson County to Jackson and the Capitol.

Jim Brown: E-Mail Scandals – Clinton and Jindal

Thursday, March 12th, l2015
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

E-MAIL SCANDALS-CLINTON AND JINDAL?

It’s going to take a lot more than old emails to derail Hillary Clinton’s grasp of the Democratic presidential nomination next year. Few voters really care how she communicated with her staff while serving as Secretary of State. Republicans think they are circling the wagons in major attack mode. But if they look in their own backyard, a number of GOP presidential wannabes, including Louisiana’s fair haired quixotic candidate Bobby Jindal, have the same problem of not following the law when it comes to producing emails.

Clinton took office in 2009, when state department regulations affirmed that: “It is the Department’s general policy that normal day-to-day operations be conducted on an authorized Automated Information System.” However, the internal rules list numerous exceptions, and the agency has stated that it had “no prohibition” on the use of private email for work purposes. The only specific requirement for all employees was that any e-mail sent or received from a personal account had to be kept and maintained so as to be included in the State Department’s personal records.

A number of Republican presidential candidates have maintained private e-mail accounts to carry on public business. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush maintained his own server and released numerous emails he felt were required under state law. But just like Clinton, how he determined what was “public” was left up to him. Texas governor Rick Perry agrees that his emails on state business should be public, so but he simply wipes them out every thirty days. So much for maintaining pubic records.

Minnesota Governor Scott Walker and his staff used private email accounts to carry on public business mingled with political campaigning that led to the conviction of several of his appointees. And New Jersey governor Chris Christie is presently entangled in a number of lawsuits for ignoring his state’s public records law.

At one time, Louisiana had the strongest public records law in America. I know a little about this as I was the author of Louisiana’s first public records act along with the state’s first open meetings law back in 1976 when I was in the State Senate. But little by little, the intent of public transparency has been undermined. Continue Reading…………

Other Voices | Wednesdays Wars: Netanyahu: Again and Again and Again

Each time it’s pretty much the same.

We’re an ancient people; we’re always threatened; Iran is bad; the US should attack them; never again.

Is the Prime Minister totally unaware of the universal truism: familiarity breeds contempt?

Sometimes a new wrinkle finds its way into a Netanyahu speech.

At his first address to a Joint Meeting of Congress, Netanyahu talked about the generous financial support Israel received from the United States. He went on to volunteer that Israel was on its way to “achieve economic independence” and “total self-reliance”.

That was 1996. He’s still in our pocket for about four billion dollars per year.

So much for self-reliance. So much for independence. So much for credibility.

In his March 3, 2015 speech, his third before a Joint Meeting of Congress, it was the same paint by the numbers formula, but with extra emphasis on blowing up President Obama’s efforts to reach an acceptable deal with Iran that would give that country relief from sanctions in return for keeping their existing nuclear capacity well short of the level necessary to make a bomb.

The fact that Netanyahu got to deliver a speech undermining the President of the United States in the Chamber of the United States House of Representatives is totally unprecedented and, for lack of a better word, creepy.

That’s history. The damage is done. Let me focus on one line in Netanyahu’s speech that hasn’t received attention from commentators. About two-thirds of the way through his presentation, Netanyahu makes the following statement: Continue Reading………..