Pennsylania Taxpayers' Latest Investment: Website launches to defend Kathleen Kane from 'false accusations'

2/21/2015

Kathleen Kane makes her acceptance speech at the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel in Scranton, Pa. on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012. Kane, a former prosecutor from Lackawanna County, became the first woman elected to the office — and the first Democrat — since its creation in 1980. She beat Republican David Freed, the Cumberland County District Attorney. Her husband Chris stands at right. ( AP Photo/Philadelphia Inquirer, David Swanson) PHIX OUT; TV OUT; MAGS OUT; NEWARK OUT

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane and her privately retained spin doctors are on a mission to reshape the embattled Democrat's public image.

A new website, www.truthaboutkathleenkane.com, defends her position that investigations against her are personal attacks.

“The purpose of the website,” Kane said in a statement, “is to challenge, finally, all the smears, false accusations and illegal leaks from the grand jury process that has investigated me for eight months on the utterly baseless and false accusations that I illegally leaked grand jury information.”

Levick, a Washington-based communications firm, announced the site Friday. It features statements from her attorney, Lanny Davis, credited photos and cherry-picked quotes from a recent profile in The New York Times, legal filings and links to editorials.

Kane has said the investigations into leaks into her office were initiated because of her pledge to root out corruption and challenge Harrisburg's old-boys network.

Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge William R. Carpenter, supervising judge of a statewide grand jury, acknowledged this week that the grand jury recommended charging Kane with criminal contempt in connection with leaks to the Philadelphia Daily News. In March, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will hear a case regarding Carpenter's appointment of a special prosecutor, Thomas Carluccio, to the case. Kane argues the appointment was done illegally, and the court has put further investigation into the grand jury report on hold.

“This website from now on will allow everyone to see what the facts are, rather than the anonymous illegal leakers which this Republican special prosecutor has chosen to ignore,” Davis said.

Christopher Borick, pollster and political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, said the site is an attempt to clean up “a tarnished brand.” Modern politicians, he said, resort to campaign tactics when pushing for support as elected officials.

“It's Campaign 101,” Borick said. “You try to get your message out directly and hope you can reach people.”

Kane, he said, is an expert campaigner. When she became the state's first elected female attorney general in 2012 — the first statement listed on the website under “Facts” — Kane got 3.1 million votes, more than incumbent President Obama. But at present, the public is either unaware of Kane or sharply divided, Borick said.

The latest Muhlenberg survey on Kane conducted in early February showed a plurality of polled voters — 40 percent — said they weren't sure if Kane deserved re-election. Twenty-seven percent of voters said she did, compared to 33 percent who did not.

Melissa Daniels is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-380-8511 or mdaniels@tribweb.com.

source

Conflict Of Interest: Pa. attorney general Kane claims jurisdiction over Stacy Parks Miller case

2/21/2015

IRONY: Pennsylvania Democrat AG investigating Pennsylvania County Democrat DA...

District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller

NABIL K. MARK — CDT photo 

The Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General has made its position clear on who should investigate forgery and other allegations made against Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller.

The office filed a brief, signed by Chief Deputy Attorney General James Barker, before the state Supreme Court on Thursday asking the court to order that it has sole jurisdiction in the matter.

The Commonwealth Attorneys Act, which established the office in 1981, “vests exclusive jurisdiction” to the office to investigate and prosecute cases referred to it by a district attorney with a conflict of interest, and in the case of Parks Miller, the office is the only law enforcement agency that can investigate without a disqualifying conflict of interest, the document states.

Jurisdiction has been the source of conflict between Parks Miller and the Centre County board of commissioners since the accusation that Parks Miller forged a judge’s signature was made public at a commissioners meeting last month.

Commissioners Steve Dershem, Chris Exarchos and Michael Pipe unanimously voted to investigate the allegations and hire “special counsel” to potentially prosecute Parks Miller in accordance with two statutes in the Pennsylvania County Code regarding district attorneys who have been charged with a crime or accused of negligence while carrying out his or her duties.

Parks Miller, who denies the allegations, said she referred the matter to the Attorney General’s Office before the meeting and maintains that office has sole jurisdiction when investigating and potentially prosecuting district attorneys with a conflict of interest.

Commissioners and county solicitor Louis Glantz argued that there can be shared jurisdiction between the Attorney General’s Office and Bellefonte police, who have jurisdiction in the borough.

On Jan. 24, Bellefonte police executed a warrant to search Parks Miller’s office and seized a laptop, flash drive, tablet and cellphone citing an investigation into allegations of forgery, tampering with public records or information and theft of services.

The items were turned over to the Attorney General’s Office and returned to the District Attorney’sOffice earlier this month, according to a letter from Bruce Castor Jr., Parks Miller’s attorney, to the Centre County court administrator’s office. The Attorney General’s Office did not confirm the return of the items, but Bellefonte police have subsequently ceased their investigation, according to Thursday’s filing. Bellefonte Police Chief Shawn Weaver could not be reached for comment.

In the filing, the Attorney General’s Office maintains that the Commonwealth Attorneys Act supersedes the statutes in the county code and the commissioners and solicitor don’t have the authority to participate in a criminal investigation.

Even if the county code provisions were not superseded, the filing argues, the Attorney General’s Office still would have sole jurisdiction because Parks Miller is the chief law enforcement officer in the county. Therefore, local law enforcement conducting an investigation of its own district attorney would create a conflict of interest, the filing states.

John Abom, the special counsel hired by the county and attorney for Dershem and Exarchos, declined to comment.

Michelle Shutt, a former paralegal in District Attorney’s Office signed an affidavit Dec. 30 alleging that Parks Miller had instructed her to study orders written by Judge Pamela A. Ruest and prepare an order that looked similar to one Ruest would have written.

According to the affidavit, Shutt witnessed Parks Miller sign the judge’s name on the order and was instructed by the district attorney to file it with the Prothonotary’s Office.

Read more here: http://www.centredaily.com/2015/02/19/4611397_pa-attorney-general-claims-jurisdiction.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

source

Legal expert says U.S. Sen Tammy Baldwin is in full ‘damage control’

2/21/2015

AP file photo

UNDER FIRE: U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, is under fire for not immediately demanding an investigation into a Veterans Affairs Medical Center when allegations of wrongdoing first came to light

By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON, Wis. — Despite being dogged by a growing scandal over the firing of a top staffer, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has in recent weeks aggressively responded to allegations of criminal wrongdoing at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The Wisconsin Democrat most recently called on the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an immediate investigation into the facility amid reports that staff overprescribed opiate-based medications at deadly levels.

Baldwin is sending out a lot of news releases on Tomah these days.

“What should she have done when she first got that document (inspection report) is exactly what she’s doing now. If she had, maybe people wouldn’t be dead,” said Cheri Cannon, partner at Arlington, Va.-based Tully Rinckey PLLC.

Cannon, who has more than two decades of experience in the federal government, including extensive experience as a senior attorney and member of the Senior Executive Service, joined the law firm’s nationally recognized federal labor and employment practice group a little over a year ago.

Youtube

WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTOR: Legal expert Cheri Cannon says U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s attempted confidentiality agreement with a fired employee is nothing unusual in the federal government culture.

She knows her stuff, and she can see that Baldwin is “clearly in damage control.”

On Thursday, the Republican Party of Wisconsin filed an ethics complaintasking the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate Baldwin’s firing last month of Marquette Baylor, who headed up the senator’s Milwaukee office.

Baylor was let go after investigative reports broke in early January about the Tomah VA medical center’s pain-killer prescribing practices, now alleged to have led to the deaths of three veterans.

Baldwin’s office, according to reports, did nothing with an inspector general’s report last year detailing the concerns, and refused to act when a whistleblower reportedly begged Baldwin’s office to do something.

Baldwin has said nothing about Baylor’s termination, nor the hefty severance package — with a confidentiality clause — offered to the aide. As Wisconsin Reporter first reported earlier this week, Baylor refused the payout and has enlisted the help of attorneys.

The senator’s surrogates have blamed Baylor for botched handling of the reports.

“As part of a massive cover-up, Tammy Baldwin wrongly appropriated taxpayer funds to compensate a Senate employee who would not have performed official government duties while also fraudulently offering a contract to silence a former employee in order save Baldwin’s own political career,” alleges the complaint, signed by Republican Party of Wisconsin Executive Director Joe Fadness.

Baldwin has brought in Democrat political fixer Mark Elias to deal with the messy situation for a first-term senator — the first openly gay member of the U.S. Senate — who has had relatively easy sledding in the media up until now.

In 2011, Politico named Elias to its list of 50 politicos to watch. The publication described the attorney as “quick-talking, Twitter-savvy.” Elias has represented a “veritable who’s who of Democratic power players, from Sens. Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to a trio of new outside groups with close ties to party leaders that are angling to spend tens of millions of dollars on ads attacking Republicans in the 2012 elections — Majority PAC, House Majority PAC and American Bridge,” Politico wrote.

On Thursday, Elias’ job was to say the Wisconsin GOP is full of it, that its complaint was nothing more than a “political stunt.”

“This is a frivolous allegation wholly without merit,” he said in an email statement to Politico. “It is unfortunate that the Republican Party has made the choice to play partisan politics with the serious and tragic issues facing the VA and our veterans.”

Cannon, who represents federal agency players in troubled legal situations, said the GOP is barking up the wrong tree. If there was no payout, if Baylor didn’t take the severance deal, then there’s no taxpayer money at stake.

The attorney said confidentiality agreements in severance packages are certainly not a rarity between government employees and a government managers trying to protect themselves.

But Baylor didn’t take the deal, and that could spell trouble for Baldwin eventually.

“This woman either didn’t tell Baldwin anything and did a terrible job or (the senator) knows this woman knew Baldwin knew about the problems and did nothing. It’s all going to come out in the wash,” Cannon said.

While Elias earlier this week claimed Baylor had a record of performance problems during her tenure with Baldwin, the veteran political aide’s resume would suggest otherwise.

Before taking the position as Baldwin’s deputy state director, Baylor served on former Wisconsin Democrat U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl’s staff for more than a decade.

“You don’t work for that guy for a decade and have employment performance problems. If you do, you get fired,” Cannon said.

Surrounding the firing scandal are reports that Baylor may have felt discriminated against as one of the few high-ranking heterosexuals on Baldwin’s staff.

Baldwin would definitely want to make that claim go away, Cannon said.

The attorney represents employees seeking whistleblower protection, including those retaliated against in what Cannon describes as the VA “fiefdom.”

She said the Veterans Affairs system is by design too enamored with its doctors, in large part because it is so difficult to recruit physicians to work in the public sector for much less money than they’d make in the private sector. Some are altruistic and good at what they do. Others are not, and have nowhere else to go.

Cannon said the Tomah story is just an example of a national health care system for veterans that is anything but accountable.

“Doctors are like gods. What they say goes,” she said. “Even if someone has concerns about a doctor overprescribing drugs, no one is going to question him.”

Whistleblowers at the Tomah VA facility, described as “Candy Land,” said retaliation was a common practice.

“For the most part, employees who work at VA hospitals don’t have any kind of appeal rights if they get fired. They’re not standard civil servants. If they get fired they don’t have an appeal channel outside the VA,” Cannon said.

“These people are like captives in this system. They don’t complain. They don’t whistleblow. When they do, you see what happens. It creates a culture where whistleblowing is not tolerated and reprisals are part of it because (the administrators) always get away with it.”

source

EPA regulations could cost Wisconsin 20,000 manufacturing jobs

2/21/2015

AP file photo

HIT HARD: Wisconsin is expected to lose more than 20,000 manufacturing jobs in the next several years because of proposed carbon emission guidelines that critics say won’t have the desired impact.

By Adam Tobias | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin is poised to lose more than 20,000 manufacturing jobs by 2023 because of the Obama administration’s proposed regulations on cutting carbon emissions that critics say will have minimal environmental effects.

The 4.19 percent reduction in manufacturing jobs puts Wisconsin at the fifth highest drop in the country, according to a study released this week by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank based in Washington, D.C.

The only other states that would experience a higher percentage of job losses are New Hampshire, Idaho, South Dakota and Nebraska.

Nationwide, the proposed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines championed by President Barack Obama would eliminate more than 1 million jobs, with close to half coming from the manufacturing industry, the report says.

The suggested rules would also decrease the gross domestic product by $2.5 trillion over 15 years, according to the study.

“This is going to have a tremendously devastating effect on the economy, and for no environmental benefits,” Heritage Foundation fellow Nick Loris, who co-authored the report, told Wisconsin Reporter.

The Clean Power Plan, proposed by the EPA last year as part of Obama’s centerpiece strategy on climate change, calls for a 30 percent cut in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The proposal establishes different target emission rates for each state due to regional variations in general mix and electricity consumption.

But some have argued the restrictions will have little, if any, influence on global temperatures or climate.

Eric Bott, director of environmental and energy policy for Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, said the manufacturing sector is only responsible for roughly 4 percent of global manmade greenhouse gases. A 30 percent reduction would equate to approximately 555 million metric tons in 2030 or just 1.3 percent of projected emissions in that year.

“These regulations aren’t about reducing hazardous, toxic pollutants,” Loris said. “It’s all about climate change emissions and the reality is, whether you believe climate change is a catastrophic problem or not, these regulations won’t do anything to mitigate global temperatures, and the cost will be significant.”

Wisconsin and its leading manufacturing industries would be among those hardest hit.

More than 458,000 Wisconsin workers have manufacturing jobs, which amounts to 16 percent of the state’s total employment, or twice the national average, according to data compiled by Todd Stuart, executive director of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group.

But 20,421 of those jobs would be eliminated by 2023 due to the Clean Power Plan, according to the Heritage Foundation study.

Wisconsin Public Service Commissioner Ellen Nowak estimates the added costs to residents and businesses will be in the range of $3 billion to $13 billion. That total for the entire country would be $284 billion in 2020, according to a November study by Energy Ventures Analysis.

The same report also states the average Wisconsin household would see an annual utility bill increase of $485 by 2020, a 28 percent hike. The average national increase would be $680 a year.

“These regulations, in essence, act like a huge tax on, not just American families and businesses, but obviously the energy-intensive ones,” Loris told Wisconsin Reporter.

Some manufacturing companies in the state have seven-figure energy bills every month and would have a tough time surviving a large increase, Bott said.

Loris believes some businesses would be able to “swallow the higher costs,” but that likely would lead to less investments in new equipment and infrastructure, layoffs and higher prices for consumers.

“A big part of the problem with these regulations is that families aren’t just hit when their energy bill comes in the mail,” Loris said. “They are hit again and again through all the goods and services we pay for because energy is in just about everything we make and create. It will have a tremendous ripple effect through the economy.”

Bott also has concerns over the portion of the Clean Power Plan that allows states to have different emission rate guidelines. He says that provision is punishing states that have already been working on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by giving them stricter requirements.

That could force some firms to move out of Wisconsin, Bott said.

“There’s a real inequity in terms of compliance costs created between states and that opens the doorway for large companies that operate in local states to ship production in order to avoid those huge cost increases,” Bott told Wisconsin Reporter.

The EPA has delayed finalizing the Clean Power Plan until this summer, a move some say was made to stave off legal challenges.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said in his State of the State Address in January he plans to work with Attorney General Brad Schimel to prepare a lawsuit against the federal government over the carbon emission regulations.

Bott also indicated it’s likely Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce will engage in litigation on the proposed rules.

source

North Dakota House Republicans reject Ash Wednesday invocation by Muslim leader

2/21/2015

By Rob Port | Watchdog.org North Dakota Bureau

Photo via Screencap of ND Senate Video

INVOCATION CONTROVERSY: Nadim Koleilat, top left, from the Bismarck Muslim Community Center, delivers an Ash Wednesday invocation to the North Dakota State Senate. He was to have delivered the invocation to the state House, but switched to the Senate after some House members protested.

BISMARCK, N.D. — A group of Republican lawmakers in North Dakota’s state House of Representatives were upset that a Muslim leader was chosen to deliver an invocation at the beginning of their floor session on Ash Wednesday, a Christian holy day.

As a result, Nadim Koleilat from the Bismarck Muslim Community Center delivered an invocation to the state Senate instead.

Among the lawmakers critical of the invocation was Rep. Dwight Kiefert, a Republican representing District 24 near Valley City. “It’s Ash Wednesday,” Kiefert told Watchdog in a phone interview. “It just wasn’t appropriate.”

He said Christians shouldn’t be “forced” to listen to someone who “worships another god” during “one of the holiest days of the year.”

“In Egypt, Christians are being slaughtered and beheaded,” he said, referring to the murder of a group of Egyptians in Libya by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

“We’re for free speech and free religion,” Kiefert said. “We’re against forcing people to participate in something they disagree with.”

Objections to Koleilat’s invocation were also posted on the Facebook page for the District 24 Republicans.

The posting, which has since been taken down, read in part:

“I respect people of other religious backgrounds but given the current situation in world affairs I view this as political correctness at it’s worst. Lets face it, the country has been at war with since september 11th 2001 uses the words of the Koran and the example of their founding prophet Muhammad as justification for the slaughter of infidels, christians, anybody not muslim the world over. Does this amount to the worst form of political correctness?”

Photo via ND.gov

BAD TIMING: Rep. Dwight Kiefert, a Republican from Valley City, says it wasn’t appropriate for a Muslim to deliver the invocation to the House on a Christian holy day.

The posting was signed with the initials “DJ.” It’s not clear at this point who was responsible for the posting. Kiefert told Watchdog a number of local party activists have access to publish to the page.

Koleilat, a urologist who lives in Bismarck, didn’t respond to messages requesting comment left at his place of business.

Speaker of the House Wesley Belter, a Republican from Fargo, said Koleilat will be invited back to the House to deliver an invocation on another day.

“It was just purely a Christian event, and so there were a number of members that thought it was appropriate to have someone from the Christian faith on that day,” Belter said to the Fargo Forum. “But he will be invited back.”

Both the House and Senate chambers begin floor sessions with invocations delivered by religious leaders from around the state. During past sessions these have included a variety of Christian, Jewish and Native American spiritual leaders. It was not clear at the time of publication if an Islamic leader had ever delivered an invocation to lawmakers previously.

North Dakota is home to the first mosque constructed in the United States. It was built by Syrian-Lebanese immigrants near the City of Ross in the western region of the state.

This was Koleilat’s invocation delivered to the Senate as transcribed from a video recording of the floor session.

“Peace be upon you. In the name of God, the most merciful, the most benefactor, praise be to God, the cherisher and sustainer of the words, most gracious, most merciful, master of the day of judgment. You alone we worship, and you alone we ask for help. Show us the straight way, the way of those on whom you have bestowed your grace, not the way of those who earned your anger nor those who went astray. Oh God, guide us with those whom you have guided, and preserve us with those whom you have preserved. Take us to your care, with those whom you have taken to your care. Bless us in what you have given us. Protect us from the evil you have ordained. Surely you command and are not commanded. And none whom you have befriended shall be humiliated. And none whom you have taken as an enemy shall taste glory. You are blessed, our Lord, and exalted.”

source

ODD NEWS: 37 Undocumented Immigrants from Cuba, Africa and India Detained in Colombia

2/21/2015

No motives given...

BOGOTA – Colombian police detained 37 undocumented immigrants from Cuba, Somalia, Ghana and India in Nariño province on the border with Ecuador, officials said Friday.

The immigrants, who had entered the country over the border, were detained in two groups, the first at a police checkpoint on the Pan-American Highway, and the second at a bus terminal in Pasto, the provincial capital, according to a communique issued by Colombia Migration.

Among the 37 detained were 13 Cubans, 9 Ghanaians, 8 Somalis and 7 Indians, all of whom received food and medical care.

After their detention, all were deported across the Rumichaca International Bridge between Colombia and Ecuador.

So far this year, a total of 176 foreigners who had entered the country illegally have been detained by the Nariño delegation of Colombia’s immigration authority.

source

Brazil Prosecutors Seeking $1.6 Billion from Firms Accused in Petrobras Scandal

2/21/2015

SAO PAULO – Brazilian prosecutors on Friday filed civil lawsuits against six construction companies accused of forming a cartel to artificially drive up the price of their contracts with state-controlled oil giant Petrobras, saying they should pay roughly $1.6 billion in penalties.

That amount includes losses by the Brazilian Treasury, fines and punitive damages, while the construction firms named in the suits are Camargo Correa, Sanko-Sider, Mendes Junior, OAS, Engevix and Galvao Engenharia, the federal prosecutor’s office in the southern state of Parana said.

That civil action is parallel to a criminal investigation into alleged kickbacks paid to former Petrobras executives that is headed by federal Judge Sergio Moro, based in the southern city of Curitiba.

The civil lawsuits are based on testimony by jailed former Petrobras downstream director Paulo Roberto Costa, who reached a plea deal, the prosecutor’s office said.

Erstwhile Petrobras directors and former top executives of seven construction companies are among those who have already been formally charged in connection with the scandal.

Corrupt Petrobras executives received kickbacks equivalent to between 1 percent and 3 percent of the inflated contracts, according to prosecutors, which said the cartel of construction companies ran the scheme from between 2004 and 2014.

The scandal, in which money also was funneled to politicians, has led to the Feb. 4 resignation of Maria das Graças Silva Foster, who was replaced as Petrobras’ CEO by Aldemir Bendine, former chief executive of state-run bank Banco do Brasil.

The criminal probe, meanwhile, continues under strict judicial secrecy and the Attorney General’s Office is expected to present formal charges in the coming weeks, publicly identifying the politicians allegedly implicated.

Brazilian media say scores of politicians will face charges, most of them from parties aligned with President Dilma Rousseff.

source