Today, the Democratic National Committee has released a memo criticizing Mitt Romney and his involvement, which it sent to Politico.  The DNC has deliberately connected the dots to Governor Rick Scott, the unpopular Republican governor who was once called the “Madoff of Medicare” after he was forced to resign as CEO of a company involved in what became the largest Medicare fraud to date.

A newly released book, The Real Romney, written by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, provides more details on how Mitt Romney dealt with the problem and how Democrats made an issue of it in 2002. (Romney’s opponent in the gubernatorial race accused him of lax oversight at Damon Corp.)

Four company executives would be charged with conspiring to defraud Medicare; one received a three-month jail sentence. Prosecutors said a former Damon employee had blown the whistle on the billing practices. And the government

…although some of the fraud occurred during Romney’s time on Damon’s board, he and other board members were never implicated in the case. The Damon case raised a recurring question about corporate governance: how much responsibility does a board member have for what happens at a company he helps oversee? In his comments about Damon, Romney seemed at times to hold two views of the matter, both of them to his benefit. On the one hand, he said he hadn’t know what was going on at Damon; on the other, he said he’d helped to put a stop to practices later found to be fraudulent. One thing that looked good at Damon was the bottom line for Bain. (154-155).

It bears repeating that there is still an ethical question about how much a board member ought to be held accountable for actions undertaken by management, though it seems if Mitt Romney is claiming credit for creating jobs as a board member he ought to also get opprobrium when things go awry at firms on whose board he sits. And unlike the previous Bain attack, which I debunked here, the Medicare fraud at Damon Corp. actually happened.

Hopefully the Romney campaign will have a better response to this questionable practice than it did to the tax releases. Indeed, if Romney were smart, he would use the opportunity to highlight some of the necessary reforms for Medicare and Social Security.

Foreclosure proceedings were commenced against Willey in 2010, but Willey was able to stop the expedited 14-day foreclosure process by filing a fraud suit against her lender, One West Bank. In an exclusive telephone interview with Big Government from her Richmond based home, Willey told me the following:

I applied for a modification back in 2009. My bank was IndyMac, which was the very first bank the feds seized in 2008. Then they turned it around and sold it to George Soros and Larry Dell for a song. So, the two of them–big Obama contributors–they bought that bank.

That got a lot of play in California. There were lots and lots of stories, but it just kind of died. Out of sheer desperation I finally said look, I’ve had it, I need to know something about what’s happening to my home, and I was reading all the horror stories of what they were doing to people and so I told them if you don’t do something to help me and all these other people I’m going to go on television and they laughed at me.

I went on Fox & Friends on October 21, 2010 and someone from One West Bank called into the show and suspended the foreclosure. All of a sudden they were my new best friend. I had my very own modification officer at the bank, but then it just started dragging on again. Finally, I called last February. They were supposed to give me a decision within 30 days to tell me whether or not I even qualify, but they didn’t.

Finally, I called again and I got someone on the phone who said it was looking good and that I shouldn’t have any problem and then I called again and then they turned me down. Then they turned around and they sent me a 2-page self-explanatory letter signed by a person telling me the reasons I’d been turned down, a number of reasons I could have shot bullets through. So, I waited, waited and waited and then it got to December 29 when I got my first letter of fair debt collection, that they were moving in and they put it on fast track and now my home is scheduled to be sold next Thursday, February 2nd.

But there’s more—Willey may have stumbled upon a new form of “robo-signing,” the illegal practice of bank employees signing thousands of documents and affidavits without verifying the information. Right now, the U.S. is in talks with five major banks including Ally Financial Inc., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., and Wells Fargo & Co. about a $19 billion settlement for their participation in robo-signing fraud.

Virginia is a “non-judicial” foreclosure state, which means that the lender does not have to file a lawsuit to start foreclosure proceedings. Instead, the lender sends the borrower a “notice of default” and can then initiate a sale. In Virginia, a homeowner will receive notice and then have only 14-days to vacate their home unless they take legal action to halt the process.

In Willey’s case, she was scheduled for foreclosure in the fall of 2010, but shortly after her Fox & Friends appearance she received a required “substitution of trustee” notice from a lender’s representative telling her they were now handling her account.

Willey immediately noticed something suspicious, on the second page of her notice: a Xerox image of a staple in the upper left hand corner, but no staple image on the first page. That made Willey suspicious that the signature page had been attached to another document prior to her own and that the signature and notarization, which should have been exclusive to her own foreclosure notification was used before and was possibly being recycled, a.k.a. robo-signing.

“It was just another example of all the tricks they pull,” Willey said of the mortgage industry. “I’m not saying they don’t have a valid point. I have to make my payments, but they’re supposed to do everything right by law, and they didn’t.”

As a result of Willey’s lawsuit, her bank cancelled the original October 21, 2010 foreclosure that included the allegedly defective substitution of trustee notice. For the moment, Willey was victorious.

Subsequently, in February 2011, the lender executed a new appointment document, which mooted the original point of whether the first document was valid.

This time, the substitution of trustee notice did not appear to be invalid.

Willey’s house is scheduled to be sold on her local courthouse steps on February 2nd and she is currently exploring alternative ways to halt the sale. Still, she feels determined to keep speaking out about corrupt foreclosure practices taking place within the banking industry.

“I have every single thing documented,” she said. “They just try to wear you down and wear you out. A lot of people in this country have been hurt by what they do.”

Mr. Slaughter originally told me about his positive dealings with Gingrich about a year ago, when he both spoke at a press conference at CPAC about the Pigford settlement. Before Pigford became a vast fraud scheme benefiting attorneys and the political class, it began as a legitimate effort by a small group of black farmers to fight discrimination at the hands of the federal government. The issue for the farmers was that the statute of limitations was very short and because the civil rights office of the USDA had been shut down, there had been no real way to report any discrimination for close to 15 years. In order for the bona fide black farmers like Mr. Slaughter to file suit, they would need an extension of the statute limitations.

The black farmers approachedNewt Gingrich to get support. Now, according to the Juan Williams school of thought, Speaker Gingrich was Republican and therefore a presumed racist. Mr. Slaughter told a very different story however. When asked directly about in my interview he said, “I feel that he was more sincere than most in Washington DC.” And “I think he was more fair than most people running for office, from what know about him personally.”

How does Mr. Slaughter view Gingrich’s views about food stamps versus employment? It’s a view that I think is actually held by many African-Americans, however not many that the mainstream media shows you. In fact, forget the African-American distinction; I believe that Mr. Slaughters views here are the ones held by many Americans. He said;

I don’t want to be reduced to where I’m dependent on food stamps or dependent on the government to take care of me. I like to be out there working for myself. This is supposed to be a  country that if you work hard then you will receive the reward of your labor. But to sit around and wait for somebody give me something, I don’t like that idea. I think when you start giving people something without having them work for it, they lay there and look for you to give them everything so they don’t have to go to work.

And when asked about how he views Juan Williams perception of race in the country, Mr. Slaughter was typically honest.

When you’re talking about Juan Williams; most blacks always want to claim that anyone disagrees with them is racist, you know? Sometimes people can have a legitimate disagreement, “This is the way I see the issue and this is the way you see it.” How come they always find racism in Republicans, when I see more racism in most Democrats?”

Eddie Slaughter is a great embodiment of the American motto of E Pluribus Unum As Well as the values of hard work and optimistic faith in the future. Is my personal hope is we continue to pursue the Pigford story in the coming year, we are able to offer Mr. Slaughter and the other bona fide black farmers some vindication for their brave exposure of one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the American people by its federal government.

When asked one-on-one why they were going for Santorum when they knew he had no money, no organization, and stood not a ghost of a chance to win the nomination, the truth came out:

“If we unify behind Santorum, it will force Romney to pick him as his running mate – for he’ll know that’s the only way to get our support in the general (election in November).” That’s the slimy deal behind this. They’ll go for Romney if he goes for Santorum on his ticket. Should we call them Judas Conservatives?

It’s now being alleged that a number of evangelicals not supporting Santorum left after the second ballot without realizing there was to be another vote. It’s also being reported that there were incidents of ballot stuffing in support of Santorum. Santorum ultimately received the endorsement on the third ballot.

Activists say pro-Santorum vote was rigged

A civil war is breaking out among evangelical leaders over allegations of a rigged election and ballot stuffing at a Saturday gathering of religious and social conservatives.

At the meeting about 150 religious conservative activists at the Benham, Texas, ranch of Nancy and Paul Pressler, Rick Santorum supporters claimed the former Pennsylvania senator was chosen on the third ballot as the consensus candidate to try to stop Mitt Romney’s march to the Republican presidential nomination.

Additionally, Reuters reported that the endorsement is not anticipated to have much impact on church goers. The brewing controversy around the endorsement isn’t likely to help that cause.

Last year, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Congressman Bishop gave “privately-funded scholarships to his stepdaughter and his wife’s niece,” through the Black Congressional Caucus Scholarship Foundation fund, and according to sources, a co-worker—Joanne Flantroy–witnessed Vivian Bishop deposit at least one of those checks into her own bank account.

Some of that evidence along with copies of 19 municipal checks will be presented today at 10 a.m. EST during a hearing in Muscogee Superior Court by Flantroy, whom Vivian Bishop is now seeking a protective order against.

Flantroy will allegedly produce copies of the fraudulent checks as part of her defense against Bishop’s petition for a protective order.

“Basically, Joanne has copies of 19 checks that dating all the way back to 2004 that have been written out of the Municipal Clerk’s Office,” says Andrew O’Shea, an Atlanta based resident who ran a competing congressional campaign against Congressman Sanford Bishop in 2010.

“They’re using that bank account to write themselves checks like the check cashing business–if you need a quick loan, you just write yourself a check and pay it back–except in this case, it’s not getting paid back. At least two of those checks were written for $500 by Vivian Bishop for Vivian Bishop, and I believe those checks bounced. Those will be two of the nineteen and those will all be presented in court tomorrow.”

According to O’Shea, Bishop sought the protective order against Flantroy as part of a first step preemptive strike “to make Joanne look crazy.”

“These scholarships were all going to employees in Vivian’s office at the time,” O’Shea said. “All of these scholarships were being doled out to her daughter, Sanford Bishop’s niece, and even distant cousins.”

O’Shea says that the scholarship checks were issued to people who were not legitimately in school or going to school.

Update: Sources tell BigGovernment that the court date has been delayed until February 20th.

On January 3, Media Matters for America (MMfA) linked, among others, a Big Government item by J. Christian Adams to support its mischaracterization of a Fox News segment on South Carolina’s contested voter ID law.

MMfA cherry-picked a small portion of Adams’s post, while ignoring the bulk of Adams’s argument solidly refuting MMfA’s own weak defense of Attorney General Eric Holder, thereby obscuring his criticism from their readers.

Emphasis via MMfA:

In a January 3 segment on Fox News’ Fox & Friends, correspondent Jim Angle promoted a number of falsehoods and misleading claims about voter ID laws and the Department of Justice’s action preventing one such law from being implemented in South Carolina.

Even Vote Fraudster J. Christian Adams Calls The Analogy “Silly And Constitutionally Incorrect”

Adams: Arguments “Flimsy” Since “The 15^th Amendment Is In Play When It Comes To Voting.”In a BigGovernment.com piece attacking the DOJ’s letter, J. Christian Adams wrote:

What Adams did was provide several solid arguments as to why Holder’s DOJ appears to be contesting the South Carolina law based largely upon misperceptions and fuzzy math for political reasons. Media Matters neglects to point out that Holder’s DOJ used out-dated data, grossly inflating any potential problem in South Carolina. They also repeatedly highlighted a 20% number already exposed as a math gimmick aimed at making the issue appear to be far more significant than it may actually be.

Likewise, the DOJ also turned its nose up at the late breaking development that the data were wrong. The state of South Carolina discovered that the election commission had provided data that probably included tens of thousands of people on the voter rolls who moved out of state. That explains why they had no driver’s licenses but were still on the voter rolls. Instead of waiting to review the new data, DOJ rushed its objection out the door. A credible operation, not interested in scoring political points, would have waited to review the correct data.

More on that issue here:

Apparently South Carolina thought that the numbers seemed off, too. According to this eye-opening interview with South Carolina’s Attorney General Wilson, the state did an audit and found that that group of 239,000 included 37,000 people who were deceased, 96,000 who had moved to other states, and other discrepancies.

Wilson claims that the actual number of people without DMV-issued ID is actually about 27,000.  (It should be mentioned here as an aside that South Carolina has made extensive provisions for those people who don’t have ID, including being able to obtain the ID free and even offering free rides to the offices issuing ID).

Even with exaggerated, out-dated data, the reported differences between minority (10%) and non-minority (8.6%) voters without photo ID are miniscule: a 1.4% difference. (Another way of putting it would have been to say that 90% of minority voters have the required ID, and 91.4% of non-minority voters do.) By manipulating these proportions, DOJ, with the help of the media and MMfA, spun that into a 20% difference.

DOJ: South Carolina’s Data Indicate Minority Registered Voters “Nearly 20% More Likely To Lack DMV-Issued ID Than White Registered Voters.”

In other words, according to the state’s data, which compare the available data in the state’s voter registration database with the available data in the state’s DMV database, minority registered voters were nearly 20% more likely to lack DMV-issued ID than white registered voters, and thus to be effectively disenfranchised by Act R54’s new requirements.

The Media Matters attack on Fox is based upon little more than data manipulation, selective quotation, and incomplete facts deployed in defense of the hapless Eric Holder and his politicized DOJ.

Think about three seemingly unconnected news stories, all examples of costly or dangerously indictable fraud machines…

• The economic collapse of 2008 was caused in part by relaxed mortgage rules that allowed borrowers to get a home loan without a down payment or even proof of income in some cases.
• In the Pigford settlement, claimants were able to get $50,000 checks by asserting without proof that they had “attempted to farm.”
• In a move strongly supported by the NAACP and other liberal advocacy groups, the Obama Department of Justice just stopped South Carolina’s plan to put in place some minimal ID requirements for voting. Currently voters in a number of states don’t need to show any photo ID or other identity checks in order to cast a ballot.

All three stories are examples of systems that have been intentionally set up with such low standards that they invite fraud. But ingeniously, they have also been set up in a such a way that makes them almost critic-proof because the lack of standards makes detection of fraud nearly impossible. When the system is questioned, the defenders, creators and beneficiaries then point to the lack of “proof” of fraud as a reason to keep the status. Thus, a self-perpetuating fraud scheme is kept alive as long as possible.

Make no mistake, these scams are costly….

• In the mortgage crisis, politicians got to claim they were helping the poor become homeowners, thus helping to shore up their voter base. Meanwhile the politicians made insider trading profits and eventually bailed out the too-big-to-fail financial institutions. The cost of this one is almost too large to calculate; it helped trash the entire economy.
• In Pigford, politicians (mostly Democrats and the Congressional Black Caucus but some Republicans as well) got to claim they were helping black farmers in order to help them win elections. The USDA was able to claim victory without ever solving the underlying problems of racism. Attorneys made tens of millions of dollars.  Taxpayers shelled out billions in fraudulent claims
• In the voter ID clashes, both sides seem to agree that having lax voter ID laws favors the Democrats. Ironically, though, the law that allows the Obama Department of Justice to stop South Carolina voter ID law was forced through by a Republican who wanted to keep gerrymandering to protect GOP seats.

I first recognized the existence of the fraud machine while working on the Pigford story. Defenders of the Pigford settlement would sometimes ask for proof of the fraud, as though I were going to pull out a long list of names with red circles around them and say, “See! Bill Johnson committed fraud! Here’s right here on the list!”

No such proof exists, and I quickly realized the scam; it can’t exist. The system is set up so that almost nobody gets caught. The whole purpose is for nobody to get caught. In the case of Pigford, $50,000 checks were given out to people who claimed that they went to USDA and were sent home with no paperwork. There’s no possible way to prove or disprove such a claim but in Pigford, that’s enough to get you a nice fat check and to get your lawyer a nice fat cut of that check. Who set up the system? The lawyers and politicians who benefit the most from it, that’s who.

Defenders of the system weasel out of arguments by claiming “there is no proof” while ignoring the fact that the very nature of the systems don’t allow for any proof. Sometimes, the proof comes later after the entire system has collapsed (as in the mortgage crisis) or when large disparities are shown in collected data (such as the fact that there are three times more Pigford claimants than there were black farmers) that are impossible to for rational people ignore.

But we’re not dealing with disinterested rational people. We’re dealing with multi-billion dollar scams that keep the establishment firmly in place.

Any system with no reasonable checks is indefensible on its face. The actual incidents of fraud aren’t what need to be proven in order for the system to be criticized.  A system that clearly invites lying, cheating and stealing will probably prove to have plenty once they are exposed but the regular folks falling prey to the temptations of a corrupt systems shouldn’t be the main focus of inquiry. It’s the people who built the indefectible fraud machines who need to be exposed and prosecuted. The small time fraudsters are the grease that keeps the Political Class’s money engine pumping. It’s time for citizens to throw wrenches in these scam systems once and for all.