For those who understands how government works, stories like this are no big surprise:

Erroneous and fraudulent Medicare payments for medical equipment could make up almost a third of the number of disbursements by the program, according to a draft report from the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general.

…According to an executive summary of the draft report obtained by Congressional Quarterly, Medicare officials massively underestimated the payment error rate in the durable medical equipment program, or DME, which reimburses Medicare beneficiaries for items like wheelchairs and oxygen tanks.

The draft report summary says that in 2006, 31.5 percent of the payments made under the program were in error. That is much higher than the 7.5 percent error rate that the CMS had originally reported through its own fraud-finding Comprehensive Error Rate Testing program (CERT).

This kind of failure would be completely unacceptable in a free market. Government is a different story. Most likely this will be swept under the rug. If some pretense of corrective action is attempted, it will likely result in an even bigger and more incompetent government program.

The longest serving Republican Senator in history has been indicted by a federal grand jury.

In a press conference, acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said that according to the indictment, Stevens is being charged with seven felony counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. The indictment alleges that Stevens did not, as he is required to do, report gifts he received from Veco Corp., which included $250,000 of materials and labor related to the renovation of his home in Girdwood.

Ted Stevens is well known for his love of bacon and ability to direct it toward his home state of Alaska.  Even the imminent threat of a corruption investigation couldn’t slow down his rampant porking.

“He’s at the head of the pack,” Ellis said. “His ability to bring home the bacon to Alaska is legendary and he doesn’t make any bones about doing that.”

Stevens gets his buying power from his staying power. With nearly four decades in the Senate, now at age 83, he’s the longest-serving Republican senator in history.

Less than three months after the FBI searched his Alaska home in a bribery and public corruption probe, Stevens proved he hasn’t lost an ounce of clout. He added an incredible $215 million in earmarks to the defense bill - more than any other senator.

Ted Stevens epitomized the failures of the republican party to govern responsibly.  Let’s hope his eventual replacement brings with him more respect for the taxpayer.

There’s a lesson to be learned here. Several, in fact. See if you can spot them (I’ll help).

Tom Coburn took to the Senate floor yesterday to discuss government waste. The $360 billion he talked about is just the tip of the iceberg, however, because he considered only those items in which governmental failure was so massive that even government could see it. In other words, there are numerous other programs which are accomplishing little to nothing, or shouldn’t be the business of government in the first place, which account for who knows how many more hundreds of billions. Here’s some of what he had to say:

…One of the things I hope to do tomorrow is to outline for the American public and this body everything I found in the last 3 years in terms of waste on an annualized basis. I want my colleagues to hear that again. Everything I have found in terms of waste where we do not do it right, where we are wasting taxpayers’ dollars every year, and I can conservatively, just on what I found and I can fully document–I want you to understand that, Mr. President; it is not Tom Coburn’s opinion, it is the opinion of the GAO, the CBO, oversight committees, and other committees of Congress that are documenting what I am about to share.

What I am going to share tomorrow is how we fail because we are talking about a budget today–I told Kent Conrad, I am not out to game his budget. It will spend more money. That is not a whole lot different from what we have been doing. But how dare we spend another penny when I can document, and none of my colleagues can refute, $366 billion a year of waste or fraud, $366 billion a year. Let me explain what that means to the average consumer.

…The interesting thing is that not since 1995 has the Congress done any rescission spending. Let me explain what that is. That is the Congress looks at our budget and says: Are there any areas where we can save money, where we are not doing well, where we can be more efficient, where we can improve things? We haven’t had a rescission package since 1995. That is 13 years that we have not had a rescission package. There are lots of reasons for that, none of them good. It does not matter which party is in control. There has not been a rescission package for 13 years. So it is not about parties. It is not about gaming somebody because somebody is a Democrat or somebody is a Republican. Our problems in our Nation today are much more serious than partisanship. They are much greater than the beneficial effects of winning an election based on how you can make somebody else look lousy.

…So as we come to a budget for the United States and we pass one–which we will, probably–we do it absent the light of looking at $360 billion-plus that is wasted every year–$360 billion. People might say: What is that? It is pretty easy. How about Medicare fraud, $80 billion a year. How about Medicare improper payments? We pay people when they do not deserve to be paid–not fraud, just incompetency–$10 billion a year. There is $90 billion in one program…

…What we are going to do is outline thoroughly what just one office, just one Senate office, has found over 3 years, and it is all going to be fully documented, with footnotes, so you can see exactly where it came from. It is going to be indisputable.

We look forward to seeing the full list of waste that Senator Coburn is going to release.

Grading House members according to their votes on 50 amendments offered to strike down various pieces of earmarks and pork, the Club For Growth has released a 2007 Congressional RePORK Card.

Some interesting numbers to consider:

* Sixteen congressmen scored a perfect 100%, voting for all 50 anti-pork amendments. They are all Republicans.

* The average Republican score was 43%. The average Democratic score was 2%.

* The average score for appropriators was 4%. The average score for non-appropriators was 25%.

* Kudos to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) who scored an admirable 98%-the only Democrat to score above 20%.

* Rep. David Obey (D-WI) did not vote for his own amendment to strike all earmarks in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. Rep. Obey scored an embarrassing 0% overall.

* 105 congressmen scored an embarrassing 0%, voting against every single amendment. The Pork Hall of Shame includes 81 Democrats and 24 Republicans.

* The Democratic Freshmen scored an abysmal average score of 2%. Their Republican counterparts scored an average score of 78%.

Check the list to see how your Congressman did. Andrew Roth also provided a nice breakdown of the average scores by caucus. Note the significant difference between the conservative Republican Study Committee and the “moderate” Republican Main Street Partnership (which includes John McCain in its membership). This is the same Republican Main Street Partnership that moronically tried to blame the loss of the House to Democrats on conservatives, rather than on themselves where it properly belonged. Unfortunately, they haven’t learned their lesson.

Despite the best efforts of the likes of Barney Frank, a CNN poll shows Americans aren’t yet ready to dance to the Democrats newest version of the tax and spend.

Nearly half of all Americans are worried about the collapse of a bridge somewhere in the United States, yet nearly two-thirds reject higher taxes to inspect and fix them, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp.

In the poll, 52 percent were either “very worried” or “somewhat worried” about a bridge collapsing. Forty-seven percent were either “not too worried” or “not worried at all.” One percent had no opinion.

. . . Despite the concerns, only one-third of those polled favor increasing the tax on gas to pay for bridge inspections and repairs. The federal program to inspect and repair bridges is funded mostly by the federal tax on gasoline. Sixty-five percent of those questioned were against raising that tax.

Several members of the House Transportation Committee are calling for the tax hike in the wake of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis last week. Congressman James Oberstar, D-Minnesota, on Wednesday said he would introduce legislation for bridge repair funding and increased inspections. He says a 5-cent increase in the gas tax would pay for the proposed three-year program by generating $8.5 billion a year.

Every time government screws up because of its massive incompetence, the solution for Democrats is always more taxes. They argue more money is needed, but there’s little evidence that funds are lacking (see: pork from 2006 transportation appropriations bill).

The real issue is one of incentives, not funds. Politicians get no electoral benefits for fixing bridges because nobody notices (”unless one collapses, but how often does that happen?” the thinking no doubt went). Why spend money reinforcing and repairing structures that no one is likely to ever realize need fixing in the first place, especially when that money can be spent buying votes? And so here we are, with governments persistent failures (though it doesn’t serve the anti-Bush crowd to say so, this includes state government; or are they somehow not to be concerned about the quality of transportation that runs through their state?) exposed for all to see. And the very first thing liberals do - other than try to blame global warming - is to call for a raise in taxes. More money won’t change the nature of government and thus simply cannot fix problems that are symptomatic of that nature.

Democrats show us what “supporting the troops” really means.

Apparently it means $24 million for sugar beats, or $20 million for insect infestation reimbursements, or $1.5 billion for livestock production losses. On and on it goes. Welcome to the most clean Congress, EVER.

Hat tip: Right Wing News

Applying these considerations to the language used in the monologue as broadcast by respondent, the Commission concluded that certain words depicted sexual and excretory activities in a patently offensive manner, noted that they “were broadcast at a time when children were undoubtedly in the audience (i. e., in the early afternoon),” and that the prerecorded language, with these offensive words “repeated over and over,” was “deliberately broadcast.” Id., at 99. In summary, the Commission stated: “We therefore hold that the language as broadcast was indecent and prohibited by 18 U.S.C. [] 1464.” 6 Ibid.

Do these words look familiar to any of you?

They should. This is what I believe to be the central deciding paragraph of Federal Communications Commission vs. Pacifica Foundation (et al), often cited as the landmark modern decision of broadcasting censorship in America.

To try and shorten a very long story, George Carlin’s list of ‘Seven Dirty Words‘ was reproduced and broadcast over the air. A father was driving with his young son, when the radio station began the broadcast. Horrified at what was being played, the father complained directly to the FCC. The commission reviewed it and decided to admit the complaint, and filed a non-binding sanction on the Pacifica Foundation, saying essentially that the company would face charges and injunctions if it were complained about again.

This decision (made by a vote of 5-4) has become the precedent by which most forms of censorship are maintained in television and radio. As you can see in the blood-chilling paragraph at the beginning of this post, the Commission, a group of officials entrenched in the bureaucracy of American government and almost entirely unassailable by public opinion, decided that the language was ‘in manner patently offensive by its community’s contemporary standards.’

I have not read any part of the Constitution, nor the Bill of Rights, which states any American citizen’s Right Not To Be Offended. What need then for a nanny-system of checks on what you may or may not say in public? In fact - and you knew it was coming - the only part of either document I can see which in any way suggests itself to be relevant is the First Amendment, that which grants Americans the right to freely speak without the imposition of government controls.

As if it were not enough that the decision flies in the face of a core tenet of American values, they then ruled that the nature of the broadcast thereby made it subject to a law that made illegal such disseminations of ‘indecency.’

Government has no right nor reason to impose any sort of sanctions or penalties on voluntary things like radio and television, where convenient knobs exist which cause the offensive broadcasts to cease. The father and son in question were not being forced to listen to this broadcast. The hazy line, if it exists at all, is public, in-person displays, such as public nudity, where there is no lawful way to force an offensive thing to cease.

‘When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you may not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.’ - R. A. Heinlein

Government power should be as limited as is necessary to prevent the unlawful use of force between citizens or from outside threats, and to provide a forum by which civil and legal crimes can be redressed. Media censorship is never in the best interest of the public.

The argument used by democrats in favor of a minimum wage increase is that it’s a benefit to workers. We, of course, know this to be false. Nevertheless, they insist it is the truth. One would think that, in believing the minimum wage increase to be a good thing for workers and the economy, it would be imperative for democrats to see that it applies to all such workers.

So, when we hear news that democrats have exempted American Samoa from their minimum wage increase, it can only mean one of two things. Either they think it would harm Samoa, in which case the entire premise to their argument is washed away, or they don’t care about the people of Samoa. Neither speaks well of them. And the fact that 75% of Samoans are employed by Star Kist tuna, which headquarters in Speaker Pelosi’s district? Surely that’s just coincidence.

Not satisfied with 10 figure annual govermment subsidies, the agriculture industry is now demanding that taxpayers subsidize their payroll by immediately making citizens of 1.5 million illegal immigrants.

A bipartisan group of senators has introduced legislation that will put 1.5 million illegal immigrant farm workers and their relatives on a path to United States citizenship by granting them immediate legal residency.

Claiming that they must help provide a labor pool for the country?s multi billion-dollar agriculture industry, the lawmakers proposed a bill that will grant a so-called ?blue card? to illegal immigrants (and their relatives) who have worked in agriculture for 150 days in the past two years.

. . .A large and powerful agriculture trade association called the Western Growers, applauded the ally senators, saying that the industry has been hurt by a growing labor shortage crisis brought about by an unworkable immigration policy. Providing legal status for farm workers, however, would provide a long term solution to the problem.

And what problem, exactly, is it that we are attempting to solve? Employers may consider it a problem that they can’t hire people at the wage they want to hire them at, but that doesn’t make it a problem for society. They just need to suck it up and pay the wages that the market demands, rather than try to fix the deck by radically and unnecessarily flooding the labor market in an attempt to decrease wages.

If they can’t afford to pay the market rate, it means there is something wrong with their business model. We don’t need to keep them afloat with yet another massive subsidy. We have the greatest and most powerful food production system in the world. We’re not going to starve if a few bad business models are forced out. Agriculture needs to learn to stand on its own two feet and stop demanding government handouts. If these people want to become citizens, they should get in line and follow the legal process like everyone else.