GUN CONTROL NATIONAL WALK-OUT - MARCH 14, 2018, 10:00am (GEN Y)

GUN CONTROL NATIONAL WALK-OUT - MARCH 14, 2018 - 10:00am:

GENERATION Y vs THE NRA - CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE FOR FEDERAL & NATIONWIDE GUN CONTROL LAWS.

I AM SO PROUD OF OUR BRAVE YOUNG PEOPLE FOR PUTTING PRESSURE ON CONGRESS TO TAKE ACTION.

WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT?

SAVING HUMAN LIVES OR CAMPAIGN MONEY FROM NRA LOBBYISTS??


Sources: ABC News, LA Times, Yahoo News, Youtube


***** Everything to know about the National School Walkout on March 14


Students, teachers, parents and administrators across the country are invited to take part in a National School Walkout in a call on Congress to pass tighter gun control laws.

The ENOUGH National School Walkout on March 14 is exactly one month after the mass shooting at a Florida high school that killed 17 people.

The event will be at 10 a.m. across every time zone and last 17 minutes -- one minute for each of the victims gunned down in the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

The walkout is organized by young people working with Women’s March Youth Empower.

Women’s March Youth Coordinator Tabitha St. Bernard Jacobs, one of the few adults helping with the youth-led movement, told ABC News that while the walkout was sparked by the Florida school shooting, the event is about calling out gun violence.

St. Bernard Jacobs said it is a way to shed light on the type of gun violence that exists not just in schools, but everyday gun violence, like shootings that impact minority communities or devastate cities like Chicago, Illinois.

Students across the country have said they will join, as well as groups from schools as far as Ireland, Switzerland and Israel.

How participants spend the 17 minutes of the walkout is up to them. Some people are doing a lie-in, while others are holding rallies, St. Bernard Jacobs said.

This isn't a protest against schools, but a way to encourage school administrators to help students "amplify their voices," she said.

She went on to add, "Some schools are looking to this as an opportunity to really educate their young people about what it means in this moment to be engaged."

Mixed emotions Stoneman Douglas Students return to class: 'School shouldn’t be a war zone'.

The March 14 event is one of many student walkouts erupting throughout the U.S. as a new generation of youth advocates lead a fierce push for gun reform. While many school districts are supportive of the protests, some schools have reportedly threatened to punish students participating in walkouts.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said schools can punish students for missing class for walkouts, but the punishment should only be because students are missing school -- it cannot be a harsher punishment because the students participated in a protest.

Dozens of colleges and universities have said they won't penalize applicants who are peaceful student protesters. Brown University, for example, posted on Twitter, "Applicants to Brown: Expect a socially conscious, intellectually independent campus where freedom of expression is fundamentally important. You can be assured that peaceful, responsible protests against gun violence will not negatively impact decisions on admission to Brown."

"That's very encouraging," St. Bernard Jacobs said of the schools supporting students' decisions to protest gun violence. "This is a moment for youth to find their voice."

Are Democrats Afraid Of REAL Tax Reform? (Sen. Mary Landrieu)

Caucus Unity Still A Problem For Democrats

Keep Manu Raju’s Politico article of Democrats Whining About Obama's Jobs Act in mind the next time you hear that a bit more rhetorical magic would have produced wondrously different legislative results in the 111th Congress:

“Terrible,” Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) told POLITICO when asked about the president’s ideas for how to pay for the $450 billion price tag. “We shouldn’t increase taxes on ordinary income. … There are other ways to get there.”

“That offset is not going to fly, and he should know that,” said Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu from the energy-producing Louisiana, referring to Obama’s elimination of oil and gas subsidies. “Maybe it’s just for his election, which I hope isn’t the case.”

“I think the best jobs bill that can be passed is a comprehensive long-term deficit-reduction plan,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), discussing proposals to slash the debt by $4 trillion by overhauling entitlement programs and raising revenue through tax reforms. “That’s better than everything else the president is talking about — combined.”

A few things to note about this, which speak to the depth of the structural issue here. One is that Delaware is not a conservative state. Nor is it a swing state. The Democratic presidential candidate won there in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008. President Obama got 62 percent of the vote there. And even so, Carper is attacking the president’s jobs agenda from the right.

What’s more, I think the most plausible possible account of this is that Carper genuinely believes that the best jobs bill that can be passed is a comprehensive long-term deficit-reduction plan because if he’s not expressing a sincerely held belief, it’s a bit hard to see the political angle here. Now on to Webb and Landrieu, what strikes me about their remarks is that they’re being mean. Webb isn’t respectfully disagreeing with the administration’s proposed offsets, he’s calling them “terrible.” Landrieu is calling the sincerity of the president’s motives into question.

For me, it’s difficult to imagine parallel behavior on the other side. Conservative states sometimes elect wishy-washy moderate Democratic senators, but when North Dakota or Alabama sends a Republican to Washington, they send a solid conservative. And while your Scott Browns and Olympia Snowes sometimes don’t vote with the party leadership, they rarely attack the leadership in quasi-personal terms. They don’t suggest that Mitch McConnell has “terrible” ideas that he’s pursuing for low political reasons.

In other words, it’s still the case that there are huge barriers to progressive change in Congress that people have to find ways of dealing with.


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Sources: Politico, Think Progress, Youtube, Google Maps

Charlotte Center City Delays $1M Taxpayer Funded Farmers Market

Charlotte Center City Partners Delays Asking $1M For Uptown Farmers Market


Charlotte’s Center City Partners has backed away from asking City Council for up to $1 Million in Tax Dollars for an Uptown Farmer’s Market to be placed in the former location of Reid’s Fine Foods on Seventh Street.

The proposal floated two months ago in a PowerPoint presentation by CEO Michael J. Smith, got a cool reception from local elected officials struggling with tight budgets and impatient Taxpayers.

Before a public hearing designed to boost interest and solicit ideas for the project, Smith said Center City Partners and backers of the market will first look to private funding, the US Department of Agriculture and corporate sponsors before the group “may return to Council.”

Outgoing County Commissioner Dan Murrey, a backer of the public market, said, “That doesn’t mean there will never be a request.” But first, Murrey said, promoters of the project will figure out what’s possible with private dollars.

Center City Partners has pitched the market as both a small-business incubator for farmers, butchers and chefs as well as a source of fresh local produce for less affluent neighborhoods with no full-service grocery, referred to as “food deserts.”

“What we’re talking about is really small business development,” said Commissioner Murrey. “We’re not talking about a handout here or some kind of downtown bauble.”

But former County Commissioner Dan Bishop ridiculed the idea of a “food desert” - as he put it - “downstairs from a $3 million condo.”

Center City Partners plans to incorporate the market as a separate entity and provide back-office support for the market to pursue grants and private funding.

Smith says Carolina’s Health Care Systems has signed on as a “founding sponsor” and pledged to support the market financially for five years, but Smith said the amount of the pledge is “not public.”

The City Council’s Economic Development Committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow but Smith says any request for city funds will be postponed while backers “listen and learn” and secure new funding.





Historic South End Sends $500K To Center City Partners, But What's It Getting?


Two of Charlotte’s oldest, richest and most historic neighborhoods are engaged in a kind of behind-the-scenes, tug-of-war over tax dollars generated by special municipal tax districts.

The dispute arose after the Historic South End merged with uptown’s Center City Partners. Now some South End property owners complain their tax dollars are going to promote uptown rather than their own neighborhood.

“Their priorities are uptown,” said Wayne Powers, who ran a tea shop in the South End called “Tea Rex.” “They took us on as a poor cousin. Oh yeah, you can be in the club but sit in the balcony.”

Powers accuses Center City Partners of merging with the South End “…to expand their power base; It’s not where their commitment lies.”

The special “municipal service districts” were created more than 30 years ago by state lawmakers to allow main street businesses to tax themselves to boost development. Charlotte has five of the districts – three overlapping in uptown, one in the South End and one in the University City area.

The South End will generate more than $560,000 in special taxes from its service district this fiscal year, according to the city’s Department of Neighborhoods and Special Services. But according to documents provided by Center City Partners in the last year the group spent less than half that amount, or about $273,000, directly on the South End.

The remainder goes to administrative costs at Center City Partners, which in turn raises a quarter million dollars in private grants and sponsorships, a portion of which goes to the South End.

Administrative employees spend a portion of their time working on South End projects but do not report their time by district.

When Center City Partners began lobbying for a million dollars in local taxpayer funding for a public market uptown at the site of the former Reid’s Fine Foods, some South End property owners took it as a slap in the face. South End already hosts a fledgling public market in Atherton Mill without taxpayer funding.

“If these uptown financial wizards want an uptown lobbying group, let ‘em do it with their own money,” said Powers.

But Michael J. Smith, the CEO of Center City Partners, says his organization provides a valuable service for the South End.

“We have a unique program of work for uptown and a unique program of work for South End,” said Smith. “Those dollars by statute have to be invested in that district.”

Smith says Center City Partners can promote public markets in both uptown and the South End at the same time.

“We do represent Atherton Market. We're big fans of the market. We promote the market,” said Smith, adding that the proposed uptown public market is “something different.”

“You know what?” counters Powers. “If I were making $350,000, I’d come up with that kind of story too.”

Powers is referring to Smith’s salary, $88,000 bonus and benefits totaling $347,000 this year, recently reported by WCNC’s news partners at the Charlotte Observer.

Some South End property owners complain that inequities were built into the structure of the merger. The Historic South End contributes about 18 percent of the property taxes which support Center City Partners but gets only 8 percent of the votes on CCCP’s board of directors, holding only two of 25 voting seats.

Tony Pressley, a developer who led the way in turning Charlotte’s oldest industrial district into a distinct neighborhood of condos and design centers.

“Two board positions; that’s not adequate,” said Pressley.

Pressley says it’s time for his neighbors to re-evaluate the merger.


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Sources: WCNC, Charlotte Center City Partners, Google Maps

Charlotte Center City: South End Taxes vs Uptown Lobbying

Historic South End Sends $500K To Center City Partners, But What's It Getting?


Two of Charlotte’s oldest, richest and most historic neighborhoods are engaged in a kind of behind-the-scenes, tug-of-war over tax dollars generated by special municipal tax districts.

The dispute arose after the Historic South End merged with uptown’s Center City Partners. Now some South End property owners complain their tax dollars are going to promote uptown rather than their own neighborhood.

“Their priorities are uptown,” said Wayne Powers, who ran a tea shop in the South End called “Tea Rex.” “They took us on as a poor cousin. Oh yeah, you can be in the club but sit in the balcony.”

Powers accuses Center City Partners of merging with the South End “…to expand their power base; It’s not where their commitment lies.”

The special “municipal service districts” were created more than 30 years ago by state lawmakers to allow main street businesses to tax themselves to boost development. Charlotte has five of the districts – three overlapping in uptown, one in the South End and one in the University City area.

The South End will generate more than $560,000 in special taxes from its service district this fiscal year, according to the city’s Department of Neighborhoods and Special Services. But according to documents provided by Center City Partners in the last year the group spent less than half that amount, or about $273,000, directly on the South End.

The remainder goes to administrative costs at Center City Partners, which in turn raises a quarter million dollars in private grants and sponsorships, a portion of which goes to the South End.

Administrative employees spend a portion of their time working on South End projects but do not report their time by district.

When Center City Partners began lobbying for a million dollars in local taxpayer funding for a public market uptown at the site of the former Reid’s Fine Foods, some South End property owners took it as a slap in the face. South End already hosts a fledgling public market in Atherton Mill without taxpayer funding.

“If these uptown financial wizards want an uptown lobbying group, let ‘em do it with their own money,” said Powers.

But Michael J. Smith, the CEO of Center City Partners, says his organization provides a valuable service for the South End.

“We have a unique program of work for uptown and a unique program of work for South End,” said Smith. “Those dollars by statute have to be invested in that district.”

Smith says Center City Partners can promote public markets in both uptown and the South End at the same time.

“We do represent Atherton Market. We're big fans of the market. We promote the market,” said Smith, adding that the proposed uptown public market is “something different.”

“You know what?” counters Powers. “If I were making $350,000, I’d come up with that kind of story too.”

Powers is referring to Smith’s salary, $88,000 bonus and benefits totaling $347,000 this year, recently reported by WCNC’s news partners at the Charlotte Observer.

Some South End property owners complain that inequities were built into the structure of the merger. The Historic South End contributes about 18 percent of the property taxes which support Center City Partners but gets only 8 percent of the votes on CCCP’s board of directors, holding only two of 25 voting seats.

Tony Pressley, a developer who led the way in turning Charlotte’s oldest industrial district into a distinct neighborhood of condos and design centers.

“Two board positions; that’s not adequate,” said Pressley.

Pressley says it’s time for his neighbors to re-evaluate the merger.


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Sources: WCNC, Charlotte Center City Partners, Google Maps

Cunningham vs Marshall's Debate (Videos): Elaine Accepted Money From Lobbyists She Regulates

N.C. Democratic U.S. Senate Candidates Debate



N.C. Democratic U.S. Senate hopefuls Elaine Marshall and Cal Cunningham clashed Thursday night over Social Security and campaign donations, in a televised debate that reflected the increasingly negative tone of the runoff.

The two Senate candidates, appearing on a 28-minute debate on WRAL-TV, agreed on the major issues, from opposition to offshore drilling to the need for government to take more steps to stimulate jobs.

But with the June 22 runoff just 12 days away, they continued to pick away at each other in front of the TV cameras, just as their campaigns have been doing in postal mail, e-mail and phone calls.

Cunningham, a former state senator from Lexington, most often played the role of the aggressor.

He questioned whether Marshall wanted to raise the retirement age for Social Security above 67. And he questioned her taking contributions from lobbyists even though she regulated them as secretary of state.

"It could disproportionately hurt a whole of people," Cunningham said of raising the Social Security retirement age.

"That is not what I said," Marshall replied. "I never said I would support raising it. My mother is living on it."

After the debate, Marshall told reporters that her comment in an Associated Press interview this spring about raising the Social Security age was meant only as one of a number of options that Congress might consider to fix the program, not something she would support.

Marshall went after Cunningham's ties to Washington. He was recruited into the race by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and has received contributions and help from Democratic senators; he received a call of encouragement from President Barack Obama.

"You indicated you wanted to be a fresh voice in Washington, and yet you have received over $150,000 of Washington insider money," Marshall said. "How are you going to stand up to them?"

Voting his conscience

"I will exercise the independence that a United States senator representing North Carolina should exercise, the same sort of independence that I exercised in the state Senate voting my conscience, what my district wanted," Cunningham replied.

The Marshall campaign later said that Cunningham had received $108,000 from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $40,000 from political committees associated with various Democratic senators.

When questioned after the debate, Marshall would not rule out accepting contributions from Democratic senators if she were the party's nominee.

"I would hope the other senators would be interested in me somewhat," she said.

Marshall was questioned about receiving $2,500 in donations from five North Carolina lobbyists even though she regulated lobbyists.

'A very small amount'

"It's a very small amount of money," Marshall said. "It is less than one-half of 1 percent [of her total contributions]. These are from good friends." She said she had taken on lobbyists in pushing through reforms to require them to disclose more information about how much they spend trying to influence legislation.

Cunningham said he saw no similarities between his taking money from Washington interests and Marshall's accepting donation from lobbyists.

"There is a real difference," Cunningham said. "I don't regulate anybody."

During the debate, the candidates were asked whether they could show independence from the Democratic leadership in Washington.

Marshall noted that she opposed Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan and that she was more likely to press for preserving state's rights in matters of regulation.

Cunningham said he would be more likely to challenge the Democratic majority on spending and on running up deficits.


More On The Debate


Meet The Candidates

Early voting has begun for the June 22 runoff. The winner takes on Republican incumbent Richard Burr in November.

The following stations will offer the debate at a later date and time:

* WSOC will air it Sunday at 12:30 p.m.
* WRAZ will air it Sunday at 3:30 p.m.


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Sources: McClatchy Newspaper, WRAL, Google Maps

Obama May Lose His Financial Reform Fight To Lobbyists

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

No One Marching For The Banks


Two days before President Barack Obama called on Wall Street titans to ask their lobbyists to stand down in the fight over financial regulation reforms, JP Morgan mobilized its entire New York workforce to join the battle.

On Tuesday, it dispatched an e-mail on the reform package the Senate is considering to 30,000 employees, noting sections it liked and those it didn’t, including a tough proposal to overhaul the way banks handle derivatives.

More than 530,000 New Yorkers who work in the financial services industry could be adversely affected by the provision, the e-mail warned, according to a person familiar with it. JPMorgan workers were asked to e-mail to Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand urging her to stand up for them.

But it’s unlikely that rallying cry will spark much of a popular uprising against the financial regulation reform legislation. If anything, it underscores the inability of the Big Banks and their allies to latch onto a phrase or argument that could resonate with the public and provide the industry’s Republican defenders with the leverage to reverse the momentum in the regulation fight.

During the health care debate, GOP opponents withstood accusations of becoming the ‘Party of No’ and charges that they were denying coverage to children because they could see palpable support for their position in the screaming protesters at town hall meetings and the tanking poll numbers of Obama and health-care supporters.

Now, the shouting is on the Democrats’ side. Labor leaders next week are organizing marches on Wells Fargo and Bank of America, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is expected to lead about 10,000 workers in a march down Wall Street in support of the reforms.

Change to Win Chair Anna Burger said it is “pretty outrageous” for the big banks to draw their workers into the fight. “They’re making their staff lobby against consumer protections,” she said.

“These are the same people who they forced to push bad products that put workers into debt. And now they’re using them to stop Wall Street reform,” she added.

Muscling amendments past labor’s supporters in the Senate might be an achievable goal if polls didn’t provide ample evidence that it’s not just union members who are still outraged at the financial industry.

A recent Pew study found that 61 percent of Americans say it is “a good idea for the government to more strictly regulate the way major financial companies do business.” Even the tea party activists can’t provide much cover. The Wall Street bailouts of 2008 were one of the galvanizing causes of the movement.



That’s not to say that the banks’ allies didn’t try to change the legislation’s trajectory, and Democrats for months feared that the legislation would indeed be defeated by a filibuster. Although some Republicans had hinted they might support the legislation, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rallied his caucus in opposition to it.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sunk $3 million into an ad campaign and an effort to gin up grassroots opposition. And congressional Republicans settled on attacking the bill as a “bail-out,” though opened themselves to Democratic charges that they were singing from a song book prepared by pollster Frank Luntz.

Neither of those efforts got very far, and both were overshadowed by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s announcement that it was filing a civil lawsuit against Goldman Sachs accusing it of selling investments that were rigged to lose money. The case exploded in the headlines and reminded the public of all the banking shenanigans that made them angry in the first place.

Those dynamics help explain why McConnell, who had been using GOP opposition to the bill as a way to lure Wall Street campaign donations, this week freed his members to engage in negotiations on a bipartisan bill.

Of course, the fight isn’t over yet and the banks aren’t flinching even as the odds against them grow steeper.

JP Morgan, which declined to comment for this story, is opposed to a provision passed on Wednesday that would regulate the $450 trillion derivatives market for the first time. Under it, most trades would go through exchanges and clearinghouses, which would make them more transparent. Some analysts say that is key to avoiding a meltdown similar to that of 2008.

JPMorgan and USAA, a financial services company that serves military families, are worried that the so-called Volcker Rule, which is designed to prevent federally insured banks from trading on their assets, would essentially break them up.

Like JPMorgan, USAA also sent an email urging more than five million members and 22,000 workers to take their case to Capitol Hill. USAA argues that because it is primarily an insurance company, it should be exempt from the Volcker Rule. Its affiliated banks took none of the risks, and received none of the bailouts, of the bank being targeted.

“We have no problem with these limits on banks. Bring it on,” said USAA spokesman Roger Wildermuth. USAA’s problem is with language that targets banks affiliated with it. “Our members shouldn’t be penalized because we provide integrated solutions by having an affiliated bank.”

In an email sent early Friday morning, President Josue Robles urged customers to contact their senators and press for a USAA carve out. It was the first time in more than 25 years that the organization solicited its members to lobby on a federal issue, Wildermuth said.

“The current Senate bill would disproportionally impact USAA because we are a unique and fully integrated association. USAA is not like the banks and other companies that helped bring down our economy, and we never took a penny of TARP funds. We do not engage in the harmful practices this legislation seeks to resolve,” Robles wrote.

A similar email went to USAA’s employees. Wildermuth would not disclose how many members and employees have contacted their senators so far, saying only the organization is “thrilled” with their response.

Meanwhile, local bankers, who still can wield considerable influence on lawmakers, are coming to the aid of the big banks on some portions of the legislation.

The American Bankers Association last year generated 300,000 contacts on Capitol Hill and its keeping up the pressure. In March, it held a Washington summit that drew more than 1,000 local bankers, who spent part of their time meeting with their senators and congressmen.

“There is a mischaracterization about a lot of this legislation as being aimed just at the largest institutions,” said John Hall, an ABA spokesman. “Community banks, who had nothing to do with this economic crisis, are going to be greatly affected by the outcome.”

But Burger predicts the more intense lobbying efforts will backfire, only further infuriating Americans already angry at Wall Street. And Eddie Vale, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO, said a central message in the upcoming protests will be: “Make Wall Street pay.”


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Sources: Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Meet The Press, MSNBC, Politico, Whitehouse.gov, Youtube, Google Maps

Lanier Cansler Accepts Cash For No-Bid Medicaid Contracts?..NC Corruption

Lanier Cansler Gets Lobbying Firm Cash To Award No-Bid Contracts


The NC State Secretary for Health and Human Services has continued to receive checks of about $3,000 a month from his former lobbying firm even as the firm helped land $30 million in No-Bid contracts from the agency.

Lanier Cansler, a former Republican legislator from Asheville, says he stepped away from any role in awarding the contracts to avoid a conflict of interest.

He said that before he returned to government service, he sold his stake in Cansler Fuquay Solutions, the lobbying firm he helped found in 2005. Cansler said the monthly checks are payments and interest for his share of the company, which he sold to his partner.

In a complaint filed with the NC State Ethics Commission this week, Richard Morgan, the former co-speaker of the state House, said that the continued payments violate a state law that forbids government officials from enriching themselves through their duties.

"The money travels in a circle," said Morgan, a Moore County Republican now campaigning for the state Senate. "Delegating to someone you hire and control isn't a recusal - it's a dodge. It's like Mike Easley appointing the trustees of N.C. State University, telling them to hire his wife, then saying they made the decision."

Cansler said that he has done nothing wrong and that Morgan has a beef against him going back more than a decade, when the two served together in the state House.

"I've been completely open about all of this," Cansler said Thursday. "I've complied with every ethical requirement under state law. I'm confident there are no ethical violations."

The issue revolves around two no-bid contracts awarded to the Carolinas Center for Medical Excellence, a firm the state hired to help determine whether Medicaid recipients are qualified to receive in-home nursing care or specialized outpatient therapy.

The programs are expensive, and Cansler has made it a priority to save the state money by making sure services go only to those entitled to them.

Cansler Fuquay Solutions is the lobbyist for CCME.

On state ethics forms filed in February 2009, Cansler disclosed that Cansler Fuquay owes him money from the sale of his share of the business and that the debt would be paid over time. He did not disclose on the form the amount of his regular payments from Cansler Fuquay. He said Thursday that amount totals about $36,000 a year.

A certified public accountant, Cansler said he was not required to disclose the repayment arrangement at all, but did so only out of an "abundance of caution."

The ethics form requires officials to disclose income. The repayment of principal from a debt is not income, Cansler said, only the interest earned on the note is. He said his former firm pays him 6 percent interest on the debt.

Governor Bev Perdue was aware

Chrissy Pearson, a spokeswoman for Gov. Beverly Perdue, said the governor knew about Cansler's arrangement with his former lobbying firm before appointing him.

"The governor was aware of the secretary's prior business arrangement, as was everyone else because he disclosed them freely from day one," Pearson said. "A plan was in place before he even began work to recuse himself as was appropriate. As far as the governor knows, he has done just that."

Cansler's lobbying ties were raised as a potential ethical issue almost from the moment Perdue, a Democrat, announced his appointment in January 2009.

In addition to his relationship with CCME, Cansler also worked for Value Options and Computer Services Corp. , companies that have DHHS contracts valued in the hundreds of millions.

Stacey A. Phipps, an attorney for the Ethics Commission, wrote to Cansler in a Dec. 30, 2009, letter that the payment of the debt presents "the potential for a conflict of interest."

As long as Cansler recused himself from decisions involving current and past clients of his former firm, Phipps advised, he would not violate ethics rules.

Cansler says he did right

Cansler said Thursday that he has recused himself in every case, including the no-bid contracts to CCME. A deputy secretary handled the negotiations, and they were given final approval by the state Department of Administration.

"I had nothing to do with any part of the process," Cansler said. "I didn't even know they had done them until they were pretty much done."

Morgan said that argument doesn't hold up. He is making the issue a focus of his campaign for the state Senate.

Morgan is running for the Moore and Harnett county state Senate seat held by GOP Sen. Harris Blake. Morgan has created a television ad that accuses Cansler of participating in a "pay to play" scheme.

"You are supposed to divest yourself of those types of potential conflicts," Morgan said. "It's an embarrassment to Bev. The timing on it is right in the middle of when she's talking about more transparency and cleaning up government and stopping corruption, and Bev, now's the time to do something about it, with all due respect, governor."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

No-Bid Deals Draw Criticism


NC State officials say the motivation behind a no-bid contract to provide diabetes supplies for people on Medicaid was the need to cut costs in difficult budget times.

But critics - from Government watchdogs to health educators - say North Carolina may have been too quick to embrace such contracts after awarding the diabetes contract to a company whose owners have a troubled business history.

They also question whether the use of such contracts provides the sort of Transparency in government that Gov. Bev Perdue promised.

The NC State Medicaid office has signed Charlotte-based Prodigy Diabetes Care to a two-year contract to provide supplies for about 50,000 people on Medicaid who have diabetes.

Prodigy is run by two brothers, Ramzi Abulhaj and Rick Admani, who have been involved in a string of legal battles involving companies they started in Florida, including a Bankruptcy and Lawsuits Alleging Patent Piracy.

The state signed a contract with the little-known company in October, two months after Prodigy was founded. Until word leaked about the no-bid contract, competitors, retailers and diabetes educators were unaware that state officials had been talking to Prodigy's parent company for months. People with diabetes on the government health insurance program did not know they would need to get new meters to monitor their blood glucose levels.

"We weren't given all the information up front," said Andy Ingram, owner of Home Assist Medical Equipment in Laurinburg.

"We were given information in bits and pieces," said Ingram, a retailer who will distribute the Prodigy equipment to patients. "We're finding things out after they actually occurred."

The Prodigy contract is one of several no-bid deals the state Department of Health and Human Services has signed in the last few months, using special powers granted last summer by the state legislature. Legislators hoped the state agency would save money by eliminating time needed to request and evaluate bids.

Bob Phillips, Executive Director of Common Cause North Carolina, said no-bid contracting practices should be reviewed and made consistent, and the reasons for eliminating competition made narrower and more clearly defined.

"I think it sends a bad signal to the public at a time when there is already a lot of suspicion about how open things are in state government," Phillips said. "I think the governor has made great strides. There still remain questions, and this just adds to that."

DHHS Secretary Lanier Cansler has said the department is pushed to squeeze savings out of the fast-growing Medicaid program. The contract with Prodigy is estimated to save the state $4.4million over two years.

"This contract is short term and allows savings of millions of dollars," Chrissy Pearson, a spokeswoman for Perdue, said in a written statement. "The secretary has confirmed with the governor that his department is monitoring closely the quality and accessibility of this product while protecting the quality of patient care."

Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, said no-bid contracts should be exceptions and that agencies have an obligation in those cases to make sure the state is getting quality services at competitive prices.

In circumstances where agencies want to move quickly, it may be a good idea to seek informal bids from several companies to find the best deal, Berger said.

"We're talking about taxpayers' dollars," he said. "The obligation is to be very careful with that money."

Sen. William Purcell, a Laurinburg Democrat who helps write the budget for DHHS, has fielded complaints about Prodigy and has heard that the state might face a lawsuit from those who don't like the no-bid contract.

Legislators told DHHS to wring out savings in a time when more people are signing up for Medicaid but the state budget is shrinking.

"It's hard to tell them to save money, then say we don't like what you're doing," Purcell said.

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North Carolina No-Bid DHHS Contracts Questioned


NC Health Care Advocates are questioning contracts the NC State Department of Health and Human Services awarded in recent months without competitive bidding.

Lawmakers allowed the no-bid contracts so DHHS could save time and money during a difficult budget year. Department officials maintain that the contracts are with companies with proven track records and can provide better value.

Still, some people question the fairness of the deals and the potential for conflicts of interest.

"No-bid contracts are bad government," said Adam Searing, director of the North Carolina Health Access Coalition, a group that advocates health care reform to benefit uninsured people.

Searing notes that DHHS Secretary Lanier Cansler was a lobbyist before Gov. Beverly Perdue picked him in January to run the state's largest agency. Three of the five no-bid contracts awarded in recent months have gone to clients of his former lobbying firm: two to the Carolinas Center for Medical Excellence and one to SAS Institute.

CCME's contracts, valued at $29 million total, are to review personal care services and outpatient therapies for determination of clinical necessity. DHHS officials estimate they will save the state at least $24 million.

SAS has an $800,000 subcontract on a $229 million Medicaid information systems contract that was awarded through a competitive bidding process in 2008.

DHHS spokesman Brad Deen said Cansler "has taken deliberate actions to abstain himself from dealings and negotiations involving former clients." He cited a June 9 memo Cansler issued to Deputy Secretary Allen Feezor in which Feezor and other officials were instructed to handle any contract decisions involving Cansler's former clients.

"I don't think, from what I've seen, anything untoward is going on from (Cansler's) perspective, but it gives the appearance of favoritism. That's the problem with these no-bid contracts," Searing said.

Another of the no-bid contracts went to Charlotte-based Prodigy Diabetes Care LLC, which makes diabetes testing equipment. Officials estimate the two-year, $27 million contract will save taxpayers $4.5 million.

Raleigh pharmacist Mike James said he never heard of Prodigy before its blood glucose meters started showing up on his shelves in recent months. Now, the company's monitoring products are the only ones that his customers on Medicaid can buy.

"It is concerning to me. We haven't seen any history on this product," James said.

Federal records show the owners of Prodigy previously ran a company called Vitalcare that filed for bankruptcy after getting sued for patent infringement. The FDA also issued safety warnings for Vitalcare's manufacturing plant in China.

Charlotte used incentives to convince Prodigy's parent company, Diagnostic Devices Inc., to move its headquarters and manufacturing to the Queen City. With the new state contract and tax incentives, the company has promised to add space and jobs.

James said the lack of a track history for Prodigy raises questions for him.

"Is the product going to be in the pharmacies as people need them because of the toughness in supply?" he said. "Is the product going to work efficiently?"

The fifth no-bid contract went to MedSolutions to reduce redundancies and inefficiencies in radiological imaging. The two-year, $230 million deal is expected to save the state $77 million, DHHS officials said.


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Sources: MSNBC, WRAL, McClatchy Newspapers, NC DHHS, Youtube, Google Maps

Trial Lawyers Lobby, Warn Obama: Don't Touch Tort Reform!

Trial Lawyers To Obama: Don’t Deal On Tort Reform In Health Care Neogtiations


President Barack Obama wants a bipartisan deal on health reform, but trial lawyers don’t want him to deal on a top Republican priority: tort reform.

Trial lawyers defeated President George W. Bush’s push for medical liability reform and successfully lobbied to water down tort reform provisions in healthcare reform bills this Congress. But the battle is far from over.

And in an odd twist, a longtime ally of the trial lawyers could be the one to resurrect the idea -- President Barack Obama.

“I would hope this would be an area we just don’t go,” said Linda Lipsen, vice president for public affairs at the American Association for Justice, the trade group for trial attorneys.

Lipsen said. “The last thing Congress should be doing is eliminating people’s rights when the real issue is safety in hospitals.”

Obama’s hints that he is willing to make a deal with Republicans on medical malpractice reform has got physicians and trial lawyers scratching their heads.

As recently as Tuesday, Obama floated the possibility of offering an olive branch to Republicans on malpractice reform as a gesture of bipartisanship. “I've said from the beginning of this debate I'd be willing to work on that,” Obama remarked during a press briefing.

Retiring Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) has recently indicated he is open to a healthcare compromise, stressing the need for malpractice reform to be included.

The White House announced on Friday that it will post a detailed health reform proposal online before the Feb. 25 bipartisan health summit, which Gregg was not invited to. It is unclear if that plan will be Obama’s own proposal or a merged version of the House and Senate-passed bills.

In an interview on Federal News Radio on Friday, Democratic strategist Bob Weiner said Obama should strike a deal on tort reform. He noted that Gail Wilensky, head of the Medicare and Medicaid agency in the first Bush administration, recently said Democrats could have gotten Republican votes if they had compromised on medical liability.

Weiner, who worked in the Clinton White House, said, “Why don’t we give a little on that and put some limit on [caps] and then get all of this national health insurance coverage for people and protect them with it? It’s not that much of a price. That’s part of the sausage-making that I think we could done that actually might have made a difference.”

Although Obama has repeatedly cited medical malpractice reform as a possible area of compromise with the GOP, he has not explained where he sees the middle ground and, indeed, has rejected Republicans’ top priority in this area: the hard-dollar caps on lawsuit awards in malpractice cases long sought by the physician and business lobbies.

But officials from pro- and anti-malpractice reform camps agree that, beyond the modest measures already in the healthcare reform bills that passed Congress and some demonstration projects under way at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Obama has not give a clear indication of what sort of offer he is willing to make.

Asked whether they were aware of any new malpractice reform proposals from the Obama administration, these officials professed they were aware of none.

“I haven’t heard anything like that,” Lipsen said.

“Not that I know of,” said Lisa Rickard, president of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, a proponent of limits on malpractice lawsuit awards.

“We haven’t seen any substantial proposal that supports his rhetoric,” said Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has been a critic of the Obama administration’s stance on malpractice reform. “We have been waiting for his follow through and that’s what we have yet to see,” Bardella said.

Based on Obama’s oft-stated views on federal policy governing malpractice lawsuits, the trial lawyers likely have little to worry about. “I don’t think he’ll shock the world and come out and embrace caps,” Rickard said.

Obama indicated he could embrace malpractice proposals that “make my party a little bit uncomfortable.” Unlikely though it is that Obama would reverse positions on malpractice lawsuit caps or other proposals, it would not mark the first time he aggravated his liberal allies during the healthcare reform debate.

Despite campaigning against taxation of employer-sponsored health insurance, Obama put himself at odds with unions by endorsing a Senate-passed excise tax on high-cost insurance plans that organized labor and most House Democrats passed. The White House also struck a controversial deal to win the support of the pharmaceutical industry for healthcare reform, frustrating liberals who think Obama went too light on their long-time nemesis.

The House and Senate bills each contain provisions aiming to improve patient safety and offering grants to states that develop alternate ways to resolve disputes over medical errors. Proponents of broader malpractice reforms dismiss these proposals as inadequate while trial lawyers have rejected another possible compromise, the creation of special “health courts” that would hear cases and medical errors and malpractice.

Moving toward the middle on medical malpractice reform is no guarantee of winning GOP support, however. Any concession that Republicans would view as meaningful would prompt an outcry from Democratic lawmakers and the trial bar, a close ally of the party.

“I don’t see that as a credible place to go if the object is to pass the bill,” said Lipsen, noting that legislation to enact malpractice award caps could even not advance through the Republican-controlled Senate several times in the last decade.

Moreover, Republicans have stood so strongly opposed to the Democratic health care bills that even full capitulation on medical malpractice reform would not produce instant bipartisanship, Rickard noted. “There are so many issues that are in dispute in this bill,” she said, “that malpractice reform in and of itself isn’t going to overcome them.”

Sources: The Hill

Obama Angry, Dems Frantic Over SCOTUS Campaign Finance Law Decision

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Obama Lashes Out At Campaign Finance Ruling


President Barack Obama on Saturday sharply criticized a Supreme Court decision easing limits on campaign spending by corporations and labor unions, saying he couldn't "think of anything more devastating to the public interest." He also suggested the ruling could jeopardize his domestic agenda.

In its 5-4 decision this week, the high court overturned two decisions and threw out parts of a 63-year-old law that said companies and unions can be prohibited from using their own money to produce and run campaign ads that urge the election or defeat of particular candidates by name.

Portraying himself as aligned with the people and not special interests, Obama said the decision was unacceptable.

"This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy," the president said in his weekly radio and Internet message. "It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way — or to punish those who don't."

Obama said that means public servants who stand up to Wall Street banks, oil companies, health insurers and other powerful interests could find themselves under attack when election time rolls around.

"I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest," he said. "The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections."

The court issued its ruling just as crucial midterm election campaigns are getting under way and as Obama's Democratic Party feels the pressure from a string of losses in New Jersey, Virginia and in Massachusetts, where this week Republican Scott Brown came from behind to win a Senate seat Democrats had held for decades.

Obama said the decision will make it harder to enact financial reforms, close tax loopholes, promote energy independence and protect patients from insurance company abuses — key elements of his domestic agenda.

"We don't need to give any more voice to the powerful interests that already drown out the voices of everyday Americans," Obama said. "And we don't intend to."

He said he has instructed his administration to work with Congress to "fight for the American people" and develop a "forceful bipartisan response" to the decision.

"It will be a priority for us until we repair the damage that has been done," Obama said.


Sources: MSNBC, U.S. Supreme Court, Wikipedia

Chinese Lobbyists Yield Influence In Congress...They Own U.S.

China's Lobbying Efforts Yield New Influence, Openness On Capitol Hill


Ten years ago, U.S. lawmakers publicly accused the China Ocean Shipping Co. of being a front for espionage and blocked plans to expand its Long Beach, Calif., port terminal over fears that Chinese spies would use it to snoop on the United States.

By last year, Congress was seeing the state-owned Chinese behemoth in a far kinder light. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) authored a resolution applauding the company for employing thousands of Americans and helping keep the waters of Alaska clean. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-Mass.) hailed the firm on the House floor, calling its chief executive "a people's ambassador" to the United States after it rescued Boston's port -- and thousands of jobs -- when a European shipping line moved out.

The congressional about-face illustrates a dramatic increase in China's influence on Capitol Hill, where for years its lobbying muscle never matched its ballooning importance in world affairs. Members of Congress, lobbyists and other observers said China's new prominence is largely the result of Beijing's increasingly sophisticated efforts to influence events at the center of U.S. power -- and a growing realization among U.S. lawmakers that China has become a critical economic player across America.

Although many Americans still view China with deep suspicion because of its communist system and human rights record, the results of Beijing's image-and-influence campaign are clear. Members of Congress "are starting to understand that the Chinese are not communist but that the Chinese are Chinese," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). China is Oregon's biggest export market after Canada.

"China is an overarching backdrop to almost everything that I am involved with," said the seven-term congressman, adding that on matters as diverse as the U.S. economy, climate change and energy policy, "China is something that no one can ignore."

For years, as China steadily rose to global economic and political heights, it all but ignored the U.S. Congress, with outreach to American lawmakers left to friends in the business community. But now China has launched a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort so effective that it is challenging the heralded efforts of nemesis Taiwan.

A decade ago, U.S. politicians of all stripes routinely subjected China to attacks. Now acts of benevolence are more likely -- such as a resolution commemorating the 2,560th birthday of Chinese philosopher Confucius, which the House overwhelmingly approved in October.

"There was originally this kind of anti-communist view of China," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who in 1979 became the first U.S. mayor to visit China when she ran San Francisco. "That's changing. . . . China is a socialist country but one that is increasingly becoming capitalistic."

The new openness toward China is often subtle and not shared by all. But an undeniable evolution is taking place, congressional staffers and analysts said, as members of Congress, many with increasing numbers of large and small businesses in their districts that depend on trade with China, are now far more likely to kill or water down measures opposed by Beijing.

While China maintains a huge trade surplus with the United States, U.S. exports to China have surged in recent years. In 2008, according to the U.S.-China Business Council, exports to China grew in 85 percent of congressional districts. China is now the third-biggest market for U.S. goods, after Canada and Mexico.

"People in Congress are not stupid," said Minxin Pei, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. "A few years ago, China-bashing was costless. Now they will get phone calls from worried CEOs. China is creating jobs in their congressional districts."

Zhou Wenzhong, China's avuncular ambassador, has visited about 100 senators and representatives in their districts during his four-year-old tenure in Washington. But he said it wasn't simply lobbying and shoe-leather efforts that have helped China's image in Congress.

"It's because of our common interests that more and more members have seen the importance of this relationship," he said. "I think their understanding of China is much deeper."

An Evolving Outreach

Until the late 1990s, the Chinese Embassy employed only one diplomat focused on congressional affairs. It was a dead-end job for functionaries who rarely left the embassy, then located in a dour former hotel on Connecticut Avenue.

China counted on U.S. business groups, such as the American Chamber of Commerce, to lobby on its behalf. But with China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, those U.S. groups became reluctant to work on behalf of an increasingly potent competitor.

That spurred China to up its game on Capitol Hill, as did other events.

In the mid-1990s, Taiwan's success in lobbying for a visa for then-President Lee Teng-hui to attend a reunion at Cornell University and give a speech infuriated China and helped precipitate a crisis in the Taiwan Strait.

Then, in 2005, the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. tried to buy the U.S. oil conglomerate Unocal but ran into a lobbying operation backed by the American giant Chevron, which had the competing bid. The Chinese spent $4 million on lobbying. But it lost to Chevron as Congress passed a resolution opposing the Chinese-led takeover on security grounds.
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Last year, China opened a $200 million citadel of an embassy overlooking Van Ness Street -- showcasing its rising fortunes and its focus on Washington. There, the beefed-up congressional affairs office now numbers at least 10 diplomats, most of whom have studied in U.S. universities, speak perfect English and are familiar with American ways.

"The Chinese have for years been wielding a lot of influence," said Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), who heads the Congressional China Caucus, which has taken a tough line on Beijing. "They've liked to do it under the radar. But as there's been more light shed on it, they've had to change their ways."

China's handling of troublesome U.S. politicians has evolved, too. When Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) proposed legislation in 2005 that would slap a 27.5 percent tariff on Chinese goods unless China revalued its currency, Beijing took a new tack. Instead of denouncing the pair on the front page of the People's Daily, as it might have in the past, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing welcomed them on a visit to China. At the end of his trip, Schumer told reporters that he was no longer sure he would push for a vote on the bill and that he was "more optimistic that this can be worked out than we were in the past."

From 2005 to 2009, China for the first time hosted more U.S. politicians and congressional staff members than Taiwan, according to LegiStorm.com, a congressional watchdog. China has also tripled the amount it spends on lobbying firms, including such powerhouses as Patton Boggs and Hogan & Hartson, since 2006 -- although it continues to be outspent by Taiwan.

Feinstein said the views of her colleagues have become more sophisticated with time. They know that China holds a massive amount of U.S. debt and that it imports a lot of goods -- $11 billion worth from her state alone last year. "I have never seen a country change as fast in 30 years as China has done," she said.

Neutralizing Taiwan

Washington used to be home to two types of "China people," known to insiders as the Red team, which supported China, and the Blue team, which backed Taiwan. These days China's rising influence has succeeded in bolstering the Reds.

In 1991, Rep. Nancy Pelosi traveled to China and unfurled a banner on Tiananmen Square in remembrance of those who died during the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. Last year, as speaker of the House, Pelosi returned to China, and although she continued to raise human rights issues, she focused far more on climate change and, as a congressional staffer said, "minded her P's and Q's."

Some legislators who used to be considered firmly in Taiwan's camp now lean toward China.

Del. Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, a nonvoting, 11-term member from American Samoa, is the influential chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment and for years was considered a solid backer of Taiwan. But over the past year, the Democrat has watered down or killed pro-Taiwan legislation and resolutions.

Faleomavaega partly credited China's improved lobbying for the shift. "Our friendliest allies -- Germany, Great Britain, France and Japan -- know how to work the system," he said. "China is just trying to catch up."

China's strongest backers in Congress are also becoming more vocal, especially the 60-member U.S.-China Working Group, led by Reps. Rick Larsen (D-Wa.) and Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), who represent districts that do considerable trade with China.

"We bought China when it was low," Larsen quipped. "There was nowhere for it to go but up."



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Sources: Washington Post, Politico, MSNBC