Presidential hopeful Ron Paul has publically attacked the Obama administration’s abolishment of due process in a new editorial, calling the move a turning point in American history.

Responding to Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent justification for the extrajudicial killings of three American citizens on foreign soil, Republican Party candidate Ron Paul has penned a scathing op-ed condemning the White House for circumventing the US Constitution. Earlier this month Holder spoke at Chicago’s Northwestern Law School to discuss last year’s execution of alleged terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki and two other US-born clerics in Yemen, a decision he says the White House still defends despite criticism from citizens and lawmakers alike.

Although both US President Barack Obama and the CIA signed off on the airstrike that killed the American citizens, Washington has been relatively quiet on the matter until Holder spoke earlier this month.

After Attorney General Holder justified the assassination of Americans, a congressional inquiry revealed that Robert Mueller, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, wasn’t certain that the same laws could be applied to killing Americans on US soil. With the FBI and Oval Office both hiding behind vague verbiage to allow the assassination of their own citizens, Ron Paul is critiquing what he calls a complete disregard of the Constitution.

“It is particularly bizarre to hear the logic of the administration claiming the right to target its citizens according to some secret selection process, when we justified our attacks against Iraq and Libya because their leaders supposedly were targeting their own citizens,” writes Rep. Paul. “We also now plan a covert war against Syria for the same reason.”

The congressman adds in his explanation that he is all for justice brought on those that threaten America or its people, but that the US Department of Justice has — and should continue — to view these issues on a case-by-case basis. On the contrary, argues Paul, it seems as if the president puts himself above all other branches of the federal government, essentially eliminating the system of checks and balances constructed by America’s forefathers.

Holder, says Paul, “tells us that this is not a violation of the due process requirements of our Constitution because the President himself embodies ‘due process’ as he unilaterally determines who is to be targeted. As Holder said, ‘a careful and thorough executive branch review of the facts in a case amounts to “due process.”’ That means that the administration believes it is the President himself who is to be the judge, jury and executioner.”

“Our civilian court system, with the guarantee of real due process, judicial review, and a fair trial, is our strength, not a weakness,”writes Rep. Paul. “It is not an impediment to be sidestepped in the push for convictions or assassinations, but rather a process that guarantees that fundamental right to be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”

After the CIA ordered and executed a “targeted kill” on Awlaki and alleged al-Qaeda operative Samir Khan last year, Ron Paul responded the same day to condemn the assassinations. “Nobody knows if he ever killed anybody,” Paul said at time. “If the American people accept this blindly and casually…I think that’s sad.”

Now that the US has formally acknowledged that it stands by the killing months later, the congressman seems to be even more concerned with the turn America is taking, describing Holder’s explanation as something “history likely will record as a turning point.”

Source: RT.

It is ironic but perhaps sadly appropriate that Attorney General Eric Holder would choose a law school, Northwestern University, to deliver a speech earlier this month in which he demolished what was left of the rule of law in America.

In what history likely will record as a turning point, Attorney General Holder bluntly explained that this administration believes it has the authority to use lethal force against Americans if the President determines them to be a threat to the nation. He tells us that this is not a violation of the due process requirements of our Constitution because the President himself embodies “due process” as he unilaterally determines who is to be targeted. As Holder said, “a careful and thorough executive branch review of the facts in a case amounts to ‘due process.’” That means that the administration believes it is the President himself who is to be the judge, jury, and executioner.

As George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley wrote of the Holder speech:

“All the Administration has said is that they closely and faithfully follow their own guidelines — even if their decisions are not subject to judicial review. The fact that they say those guidelines are based on notions of due process is meaningless. They are not a constitutional process of review.”

It is particularly bizarre to hear the logic of the administration claiming the right to target its citizens according to some secret selection process, when we justified our attacks against Iraq and Libya because their leaders supposedly were targeting their own citizens! We also now plan a covert war against Syria for the same reason.

I should make it perfectly clear that I believe any individual who is engaging in violence against this country or its citizens should be brought to justice. But as Attorney General Holder himself points out in the same speech, our civilian courts have a very good track record of trying and convicting individuals involved with terrorism against the United States. Our civilian court system, with the guarantee of real due process, judicial review, and a fair trial, is our strength, not a weakness. It is not an impediment to be sidestepped in the push for convictions or assassinations, but rather a process that guarantees that fundamental right to be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

I am encouraged, however that there appears to be the beginning of a backlash against the administration’s authoritarian claims. Just recently I did an interview with conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham who expressed grave concern over using these sorts of tactics against Americans using the supposed war on terror as justification. Sadly, many conservative leaders were silent when Republican President George W. Bush laid the groundwork for this administration’s lawlessness with the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention without trial, and other violations. Similarly, as Professor Turley points out, “Democrats previously demanded the ‘torture memos’ of the Bush administration that revealed poor legal analysis by Judge Jay Bybee and Professor John Yoo to justify torture. Now, however, Democrats are largely silent in the face of a president claiming the right to unilaterally kill citizens.” The misuse of and disregard for our Constitution for partisan political gain is likely one reason the American public holds Congress in such low esteem. Now the stakes are much higher. Congress and the people should finally wake up!

Read more Ron Paul articles at his Congressional website.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Unlike Rick Santorum, I love gay people. Hell, I have a lot of gay friends. In fact, I get pretty perturbed when someone attacks them just for being themselves. You see, despite all the dramatic and bigoted bullshit, most gay people are very forgiving with the hateful rhetoric, as they can see the forest for the trees and recognize a hate-mongering piece of shit for what it is. They can take the heat and have for decades, if not centuries and I respect that. A punk ass bitch like Santorum, well, he can’t handle any sort of heat because he is a soggy-bottomed thin-skinned piss midget that bitches, whines and cries when things don’t go his way. Well this is one of those times when that shit pigeon is going to have to sniffle like the sensitive little Tina that he is because I’m not going to be all that kind to him or to the fucking morons who casted votes in his favor. I mean seriously people, if you voted for Rick Santorum, I don’t care who you are, you are a goddamned scumbag and lower than a piece of dried up shit smeared across the belly of a cockroach crawling through a grease trap! There is a special place in Hell for all of you but realistically, Hell probably doesn’t exist so you’re going to get a free pass most likely.

Getting back to Ricky Baby, I have to mention that the nasty Bible-fucking bastard followed up three big wins on Super Tuesday with some big wins in the Deep South. Truthfully, the people of that region just proved that they are as dumb as the rest of the country thinks that they are. We would all probably benefit from a great flood in that region. I mean, spare the children, the dogs and the house cats but please wipe the rest of these people off of the face of the Earth, especially if they have a Santorum sign in front of their podunk rusty trailer. The planet would be so much better if the rest of the world didn’t have to live their lives affected by the decisions of these moronic rednecks and evangelical fear turtles. Rick Santorum’s success is proof that Americans are a mad breed of people. No, not mad as in angry but mad as in insane and ravenous! Like starving hyenas eating their own faces off because the lions have continually beaten them to the kill. To be fair, not all Americans are insane but a very big portion of them are, simply because of the fact that this guy is riding high in second place in this ridiculous Republican primary.

Now, I’ve written about this closeted cock-smuggler before but I’ve refrained from revealing the real evil stuff. I mean, this pompous pontificating pansy has done some really weird and dark shit and fuck it, I refuse to pull punches at this point because the people deserve to see the layers peeled back on this guy. Sure, the media has mentioned these things before but not at a mainstream level, except where it was to bash one of their own for putting one of these stories out there. The reason why they don’t bring this up is pretty obvious. First, the media lies and only reports on what they feel will help shape their agenda. With that being said, CNN and MSNBC don’t want this stuff out there because they would rather have a weakling cockpuppet like Santorum go against their messiah – Barack Obama in November. Fox News doesn’t want this stuff out there because they believe that Rick Santorum is actually a viable candidate and they have to protect him going into November, that is if you even remotely entertain the idea that this douche can win – unfortunately, this is still possible and nothing would surprise me at this point. Truth is, the man is sick and twisted and so is the mainstream media who have been incredibly irresponsible in not covering these horrific tales.

The first of these insane true stories may make your skin crawl, as it had a very disturbing effect on mine. Now Fox News’ own Alan Colmes reported on this and received a ton of heat from it by his colleagues and then, as quickly as this news surfaced, it was buried and shelved away. What I am referring to is an incident where Rick Santorum’s child died shortly after birth and he and his wife felt it was necessary to bring their corpse of a newborn home to show their living children. On one hand, this sounds insane, on the other hand, many people may be pissed at the mere mention of this, as they probably believe that people should be able to grieve and raise their kids in their own way. I get that argument, I do, but considering that Rick Santorum sees it necessary for the government to be in our bedrooms and in our lives, why should any of us respect his family’s privacy? Sure, this may seem like I am taking the low road but the fact of the matter is that this did indeed happen and it should be known, as this guy is running for the highest office in the land and as bewildering as it is to me, he could magically win the election – and I only say this because somehow he has gotten this far. Now I understand that the loss of a child is horrific and I’m not trying to make fun of the Santorum family or downplay the situation but these actions are strange and a little unsettling, if you can’t see why, you may need a mental examination.

However, it gets even weirder. Karen Santorum came out and talked about this incident and while I feel horrible about their loss, the next reveal really put the cherry on top of this insane sundae. She admitted that after showing the deceased infant to their living children, that she and her husband slept with it! I’m sorry, while the grieving process is hard and the loss of a child is by far one of the hardest things anyone could ever go through, this is just morbid and disturbing on so many levels. The most disturbing thing however, is how this family has often times told the story of their deceased child and their other child who has severe health issues in an effort to drum up sympathy and compassion from the voting public. They certainly don’t parade around the fact that they brought their dead child home, showed it to their children and slept with it but they do pull on the sympathy strings by continually mentioning their dead son and their daughter who nearly died and has continually had life-threatening medical problems.

Rick Santorum’s strange kid stories don’t stop there. He served on the board of directors of Universal Health Services, Inc., which is a hospital chain that was plagued with dozens of allegations of abuse during Santorum’s time on the board. These allegations include rape, neglect, patient suicides over bad care as well as murder. While all of those ghastly things are revolting and unacceptable, nothing may be more disturbing than the fact that one of these hospitals performed an exorcism on a boy suffering from autism! Hell, here is what the Huffington Post had to say about it:

Over the years, states have barred children from attending UHS facilities over safety concerns and the feds have put UHS on their radar. Department of Justice lawyers have filed two lawsuits accusing the chain of fraudulent activities. One lawsuit settled for $27.5 million. Another suit still pending in federal court in Virginia centers on a facility called Keystone Marion Youth Center.

The facility, located in Marion, Va., is a residential treatment center for troubled boys with mental-health issues. The majority of patients come from states’ child-welfare and juvenile-justice systems. The center promises stability, schooling, and clinically-approved therapies. It was also approved to accept Medicaid patients.

It did not have approval to perform an “exorcism.”

But that is what appeared to be happening in an empty room at Marion in May 2007, according to a facility teacher who passed by the room, which was occupied by at least one nurse, a supervisor, a janitor and a boy with autism. Several in the room appeared to be hovering over the boy and praying, according to the teacher, who recounted the incident shortly after to Barbara Jones, the center’s director of education at the time.

The severity of the boy’s autism left him hardly able to speak and unable to walk on his own, Jones says.

“‘They were trying to exorcise him. That’s why he had the autism, he had a demon in him,’” Jones recounted what the teacher told her to The Huffington Post. “The cleaning lady was trying to cast out the demons.”

Santorum was one of the overseers of UHS when this happened. In fact, he’d still be there sitting high if he didn’t leave to focus on his campaign. Maybe this is an extreme example but with NDAA passed and the indefinite detention of American citizens now being a reality, who is to say that this self-righteous Jesus freak won’t round up those causing dissent in an attempt to exorcise them of their anti-Santorum “demons”. This article alone might make me a prime candidate for Mr. Santorum’s special brand of theocratic cleansing. The man is mad!

With UHS’s horrific track record, I’m sure that this isn’t just an isolated incident. Considering that children have been barred from their hospitals by those more competent than UHS’s medical staff, one has to wonder if every atrocity has made it to the light of day. I’m sure if one were to dig deeper, they would find much more. Besides, you can’t tell me that Rick Santorum wasn’t aware of all of this? Why hasn’t he come forward and condemned it? Is it because he sees nothing wrong with the actions of this vile institution that he helped manage at the highest level? Is he hoping that this story won’t see the light of day? Well, the conservative media won’t run it and maybe the liberal media is just holding off on pushing this story until the time comes for them to use it more effectively – like if Ricky Baby were to actually win the nomination.

In every sense of the word, the man is sick and if you are in denial about that, you are probably just as big of a wicked bastard. I don’t feel bad about sharing this, as he has no qualms about making our privacy transparent and outlawing certain activities that many of us do in our own homes behind closed doors. When he points the finger at everyone that doesn’t share his arcane beliefs and says that he intends to force us into his box, well it’s only fair for those of us he’s speaking to to point back at him and let him know that he’s a sick fuck in his own way and he is not holier than thou. Besides, he is running for office and under a microscope – that was his choice by choosing to ride this train. Think what you will about any of this. Sure, I interjected my opinion throughout this piece but the fact that many will find it offensive, either because of Santorum’s actions or because of my reveal on things in his personal life, has proven that it is relevant and that it is necessary to see the light of day, even though you can argue against that point until you are blue in the face. The fact is, the American public has a right to know all of this and to think otherwise is ignorant and careless.

The point is, this man must not be allowed to get the Republican nomination and certainly not the chair in the Oval Office. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are both bastards in their own right but Rick Santorum is a Bible-carrying beast that wants to breed a culture of big government religio-fascism the likes of which we’ve never seen before in this country. The blood is on all of our hands if he succeeds.

Court hearing scheduled for next week in ongoing effort by privacy group to expose details of working relationship.

The Department of Justice will ask a federal court to uphold the secrecy that surrounds the working relationship between Google and the National Security Agency in a hearing that is scheduled for next week.

Privacy watchdog group The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is returning to court once again in an effort to disclose more information regarding the widely publicized partnership between the spy agency and the search engine giant.

EPIC is suing to obtain documents that detail the relationship, and will appeal against the NSA’s so-called “Glomar” response, claiming it “could neither confirm nor deny” the existence of any information about its relations with Google, because “such a response would reveal information about NSA’s functions and activities.”

The NSA’s response stated that the agency “works with a broad range of commercial partners and research associations” in order to oversee the security of important information systems, but did not provide any further detail.

The issue rose to prominencein January 2010 following a highly sophisticated and targeted cyber attack on the corporate infrastructure of Google and some twenty other large US companies.

The attack was blamed on the Chinese government, prompting Google to embrace a collaborationwith the federal agency in charge of global electronic surveillance.

Anonymous sources informed The Washington Post at the time that “the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information”, adding that the agreement will not allow the NSA access to users’ search details or e-mails.

The DOJ is backing NSA’s Glomar response, as The Legal Times reports:

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Steve Watson.

Yet more evidence of voter fraud has emerged, this time in the wake of Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, where it was reported that at least 953 votes had been cast by people who were listed as dead.

The Associated Press reports that South Carolina’s attorney general, Alan Wilson, has notified the U.S. Justice Department of potential voter fraud in the Palmetto State this weekend.

“In a letter dated Thursday, Wilson says the analysis found 953 ballots cast by voters listed as dead. In 71 percent of those cases, ballots were cast between two months and 76 months after the people died. That means they ‘voted’ up to 6 1/3 years after their death.”

Wilson has asked the State Law Enforcement Division to investigate the situation.

In addition to stories that have emerged from both Iowa and New Hampshire in the past few days, the revelations once again suggest that voter fraud has become a common occurrence throughout the country.

The same situation occurred last week in New Hampshire, where the State attorney general also raised questions over possible voter fraud.

The Union Leader reported that activists obtained ballots as dead people because they weren’t ID’ed.

One activist posted video of himself walking into New Hampshire Polling locations during the Presidential Primaries, and asking for the ballots of deceased residents. The man had obtained the names from local obituaries.

“The names of the deceased were both Registered Republican and Democrats And in almost every case, saying a dead person’s name, we were handed a ballot to cast a vote.” wrote the activist on his Youtube channel.

None of the allegedly fraudulently obtained ballots was actually cast.

Watch the video:

Associate Attorney General Richard Head confirmed his office had learned about the possible fraud on election day and immediately began investigating. “That investigation is ongoing,” he said. “Based on the information received on Election Day and the information on the video, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of voting procedures with the Secretary of State,” the report states.

In Iowa, the results of the January 3rd Caucus have been completely glossed over, despite major questions arising from the vote.

Following the declaration of Mitt Romney as the winner, GOP officials in Iowa recounted the votes and changed the decision, naming Rick Santorum as the victor. However, votes from at least two precincts were lost in the process, and the tallying wasn’t even properly certified.

Both Mitt Romney’s and Rick Santorum’s vote tallies were altered, but no mention was made whatsoever of Ron Paul’s total, despite the fact that he finished a close third, in what was essentially a three way tie.

During the caucus, multiple accounts emerged from voters in different precincts suggesting that the number of votes did not correspond to the number of Iowans they had counted at the polling station. In addition, for the first time ever, the Iowa GOP decided to change the final vote count to a “Secret location”, citing non specific security concerns.

In total, eight different precincts in Iowa showed signs of fraud that included missing votes and stories that changed every time someone challenged them. Writer Jeffrey Phelps points out that the official caucus website in Iowa publicly states that the caucus results can never be officially certified.

Returning to South Carolina, another story emerged over the weekend that has potential vote fraud implications.

As South Carolina reporter Brandon Turbeville reports, Sevier Precinct President Christopher S. Lawton “noticed a series of situations that were either in direct opposition to State voting laws, or, at the very least, highly questionable.”

Lawton arrived at the Pickens County elections office to witness the vote certification in person, as per State law, but was told he could only witness the tabulation on a projector in the council chambers, not in the room where the actual counting was taking place.

“[They were] very unfriendly and appeared agitated at my presence. When I got my wits I went back and declared State law allowed me to witness all aspects of this process. I was told there was little space and [to] stand out of the way and not be talking on the phone.” Lawton stated.

When Lawton noticed that hundreds of votes had already been added to candidates names before official counting had started, he was told that the votes had been brought in early in the morning, when no one was watching.

Eventually, after witnessing several more anomalies, confusing situations concerning voting machines, and drawing attention to broken security seals on ballot boxes and Mr. Lawton was asked to leave the secured counting room.

Read the full account here.

——————————————————————

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Source: Prison Planet.

Following a wildly successful protest against SOPA and PIPA internet censorship legislation on Wednesday, the Department of Justice “conducted a major action” on Thursday and shuttered MegaUpload, a popular file-sharing site accused of trading in copyrighted movies and televisions shows.

Following action by a grand jury, the feds arrested four people and executed more than 20 search warrants in the United States and eight foreign countries. They seized 18 domain names and around $10 million in assets, including a number of servers.

The grand jury indictment accuses Megaupload of causing $500 million in damages to copyright owners and of making $175 million through selling ads and premium subscriptions, according to theNew York Times.

The conspicuously timed raid “on Megaupload Thursday proved that the feds don’t need SOPA or its sister legislation, PIPA, in order to pose a blow to the Web,” writes the AnonOps Communicationsblog.

As if to underscore the government’s determination to close down domains with or without legislation, the DOJ and the FBI released a statement Thursday characterizing the charges as “among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime.”

The technology site Gigaom has posted details of the indictment against Megaupload.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lXau4TDt7M

Fifteen minutes after Megaupload disappeared from the internet, the hacker group Anonymous launched denial of service attack on websites run by Universal Music, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Copyright Office, the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America.

“Megaupload was taken down w/out SOPA being law. Now imagine what will happen if it passes. The Internet as we know it will end. FIGHT BACK,” Anonymous said in a tweet.

The Twitter account under the name @YourAnonNews identifies itself as the hacker collective and states: “We are Anonymous, We are legion, We never forgive, We never forget, Expect us.”

1. Hacker group Anonymous performs ‘vigilante’ attack on online child porn hub
2. Police arrest five over Anonymous WikiLeaks attacks
3. Denmark Police Propose Ban On Anonymous Internet Use
4. Rand Paul Vows To Block Internet Censorship Bills
5. Feds Ignore Due Process, First Amendment, Shut Down Thousands of Blogs
6. ‘Anonymous threat’ plot to undermine Wall Street protest?
7. Will the Justice Department Be Authorized to Shut Down Internet Sites?
8. Pentagon probes ‘Anonymous’ hacker threat
9. Anonymous Running Attacks on Anti-Wikileaks Sites with Low Orbit Ion Cannon
10. ‘Leaked’ FBI document calls Anonymous a national security threat
11. ‘Anonymous’ to Release Docs Proving Bank of America Fraud
12. Issa: Piracy bill would give Holder ‘broad new powers to police the Internet’

Source: Infowars. Written by Kurt Nimmo.

The Department of Justice offered a defense Thursday for President Obama’s controversial decision to make several recess appointments while Congress was holding pro forma sessions.

In a memo, Justice argued the pro forma sessions held every third day in the Senate do not constitute a functioning body that can render advice and consent on the president’s nominees. It said the president acted consistently under the law by making the appointments.

“Although the Senate will have held pro forma sessions regularly from January 3 to January 23, in our judgment, those sessions do not interrupt the intrasession recess in a manner that would preclude the president from determining that the Senate remains unavailable throughout to ‘receive communications from the president or participate as a body in making appointments,’” Virginia Seitz, assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in the memo dated Jan. 6.

The Office of Legal Counsel concluded the president has authority to make recess appointments during a recess and that Congress can only prevent the president from making such appointments “by remaining continuously in session and available to receive and act on nominations,” not by holding pro forma sessions.

Republicans, who had set up the pro forma sessions to prevent Obama from making the appointments, are expected to challenge them in court.
Obama used his recess-appointment powers to place Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He also named three people to the National Labor Relations Board.

Seitz offered several points in defense of Obama’s actions.

The memo noted that pro forma sessions typically last only a few seconds and require the presence of only one senator.

CONTINUED at The Hill.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) has become a top-tier candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in recent weeks by appealing to evangelical voters as a man steeped in family values and his Christian faith. From 2007 to 2011, however, Santorum served on the board of directors of Universal Health Services Inc., a large hospital chain which racked up dozens of allegations of abuse during that time — including everything fromrape to suicide attempts allowed by neglect tomurder.

Over the years, states have barred children from attending UHS facilities over safety concerns and the feds have put UHS on their radar. Department of Justice lawyers have filed two lawsuits accusing the chain of fraudulent activities. One lawsuit settled for $27.5 million. Another suit still pending in federal court in Virginia centers on a facility called Keystone Marion Youth Center.

The facility, located in Marion, Va., is a residential treatment center for troubled boys with mental-health issues. The majority of patients come from states’ child-welfare and juvenile-justice systems. The center promises stability, schooling, and clinically-approved therapies. It was also approved to accept Medicaid patients.

It did not have approval to perform an “exorcism.”

But that is what appeared to be happening in an empty room at Marion in May 2007, according to a facility teacher who passed by the room, which was occupied by at least one nurse, a supervisor, a janitor and a boy with autism. Several in the room appeared to be hovering over the boy and praying, according to the teacher, who recounted the incident shortly after to Barbara Jones, the center’s director of education at the time.

The severity of the boy’s autism left him hardly able to speak and unable to walk on his own, Jones says.

“‘They were trying to exorcise him. That’s why he had the autism, he had a demon in him,’” Jones recounted what the teacher told her to The Huffington Post. “The cleaning lady was trying to cast out the demons.”

The Marion Center repeatedly fell into trouble with authorities before and during the time Santorum served on the board. He resigned this past June to focus on his campaign. UHS facilities across the country – from the former senator’s home state of Pennsylvania to Illinois to Tennessee to Texas and Kansas — have come under fire as well. Authorities have thrown around words like “systemic failure” to describe the UHS treatment centers and have sued them for millions in court settlements.

Santorum served on the UHS board’s compensation committee and the nominating/corporate governance committee, which appear to play no direct role in overseeing hospital operations. But the board — like any corporate board — is responsible for maintaining oversight and making sure facilities are safe and do not violate the law. Bloomberg has reported that Santorum has made close to $400,000 off his relationship with UHS.

Santorum’s campaign declined to comment, referring inquiries to UHS. But in an interview with Yahoo News this week, Santorum said that as a member of the board, he cooperated with the DOJ’s Medicaid fraud investigation.

“Any investigation, you obviously engage and fully cooperate with it, and that’s what we did. You try to get to the bottom of it. There’s always accusations that take place and that’s part of the responsibility of directors to make sure that we investigate that and get to the bottom of it,” Santorum said. “I don’t have any stock options. I did, but I exercised them and they’re gone.”

UHS issued a statement to The Huffington Post concerning the Marion Youth Center.

“There are hundreds of adolescents who have received high quality, successful care and treatment at Marion Youth Center,” the company wrote in an email, “and have had their lives dramatically improved as a result of the efforts of the dedicated individuals that work at Marion.”

The hospital chain responded directly to the exorcism charge, calling the allegations “absolutely false, libelous and knowingly untruthful.”

A state report counters this claim and appears to back up Jones’ recollections of the incident as relayed to her at the time, and its subsequent fallout. According to the report, state investigators noted that the Marion Youth Center initiated an internal investigation into the matter as well. An administrator with the facility reported to state investigators that staff had been caught “praying over” a boy. “Provider determined the youth did not give consent for the event to occur,” the state investigation found. “One regulation violation was determined.”

The most shocking thing about the incident, however, was that it didn’t shock. As Jones says, “It didn’t surprise me.”

But when she arrived, Jones says there was no school to run. She found teachers would convert a group room into a makeshift classroom. There were no chairs. There were no books. She found boys either playing video games or sleeping on the floor.

“There was a couple broken down chairs,” Jones remembers. “The walls were dirty. The floor was dirty. It was chaos. That was the best word. The teachers obviously didn’t like it but that’s what they were told to do.”

Jones says she had to beg the center’s management to make classrooms. She insisted that children were not meeting the contracted education requirements known as Individualized Education Programs. “They were saying they didn’t have enough staff to be in the classroom,” Jones explains. “It was about money and coverage. I had to pull out their educational plans … to pull out the child’s IEP — a legal document.”

The boys of Marion didn’t just miss out on school. They were missing basics like proper clothing, Jones found. Many kids didn’t have socks or shoes. A 17-year-old kid sent from West Virginia walked around in shower slippers and pants an inch or two too short.

“He didn’t remember anyone buying him clothes,” Jones says. “He hadn’t been out of the building for a year.”

The kids, she said, only had thin blankets on their beds. The facility had them sell Christmas cards to raise money for new blankets. “The kids designed them, and then I went out and sold them,” Jones says.

As for treatment, the head psychiatrist rarely made appearances. Therapy was sometimes conducted in hallways. “It was called ‘drive-by therapy,’” Jones says. “They would walk with the kid to the cafeteria and the kid would get their food. It would be written up that [the] therapist had seen the kid.”

If a boy mouthed off or provided the slightest provocation, Jones says, sometimes the staff response was “brutal force.” Virginia records obtained through a public records request show the state investigated assaults, AWOL’s and inappropriate encounters between staff and patients at Marion during the time Santorum served on the UHS board, from 2007 to 2011.

In January 2009, Leslie Anderson, the then-director of Virginia’s Office of Licensing for Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services, emailed her superiors a scathing review of Marion.

“They just got cited for systemic abuse for letting several youth beat and pick on one resident repeatedly and not intervening,” Anderson wrote. “They do not have a clinical director and their psychiatrists are very part time. They are barely functioning as a [residential treatment center].”

Incident investigation records bear out Anderson’s assessment:

*On August 1, 2007, Virginia records show, “a youth alleged to a staff person that another staff ‘slammed’ his face onto the floor when restraining him” in late July. The Department of Social Services determined the staffer had been abusive.

*In March 2008, a staffer held down a resident while another kicked the resident in the knee. Records show one employee resigned the day of the assault. When interviewed, the staffer that held the boy explained: “I didn’t realize that he kicked him that hard.”

*In August 2008, a staff member admitted being the getaway driver for two boys who had gone AWOL. “One resident was transported to his home,” the state investigation noted in a report written a month later. “Where the other resident was transported is not yet known.” The report went on to state that the staffer had been cited for boundary issues with the patients. Two weeks before the escape, one of the boys said he had a “love letter” from the staffer.

*In May 2009, a mother reported that while her son was home for a few days during the previous month, he had numerous phone calls with a center therapist. During one call, records show, which was on speaker phone, she alleged that she heard the therapist promise her son a blow job if he didn’t run away. During the conversation, the therapist suggested that she had already performed oral sex on the boy. The boy refused to cooperate with investigators.

*In August 2009, a nurse was found to have sexually abused a boy on two occasions. A staff member reported witnessing one incident. Another staffer reported that the nurse had explained that she had to take the boy’s blood pressure. They were left alone for one hour. After that incident, the boy asked an employee “if he smelled like a girl.”

Other incidents, Virginia records show, included a part-time staffer “diverting” ADHD meds, and criminal background checks not conducted for new employees.

Investigators also found that therapy goals were vague to the point of meaninglessness. Plans for patient care were not reviewed, and medications were managed without being documented. In one 2010 incident, a program director threatened jail if boys didn’t “straighten up.’”

Jones alleges that managers only cared about keeping those beds filled. In July 2010, she filed afederal civil suit against UHS over the goings on at Marion, saying she was forced out for raising the Medicaid fraud issue with management.

During meetings, managers repeatedly emphasized slowing down the process for a soon-to-be exiting child. There were kids that could have gone home but didn’t. “The kids that were warded to the state, those were easy prey for them,” Jones says. State social workers were overworked and never seemed to make the trip out to the center. The kids were simply out of sight, out of mind.

“I used to call them ‘The Lost Boys’ because no one was really advocating for them,” Jones explains. When staff couldn’t justify keeping them, the boy would suddenly have an outburst over the weekend. It would be characterized as “anxiety about being released.” The boy would earn an extended stay.

Jones’s allegations echo those in the DOJ’s 2007 lawsuit against the Marion Center. The charges in that case include drive-by therapy sessions in the center’s hallway, doctoring records, billing for undocumented services, billing for 50-minute group therapy sessions that lasted half that time, and provoking residents into outbursts to justify a delay in their release.

In the 2010 amended complaint, DOJ lawyers argue that the center “was operated as a juvenile detention facility, not as a residential treatment facility, in violation of state and federal law.”

The three plaintiffs in the DOJ complaint all worked as therapists employed by the Marion Center. All three raised the issue of the Medicaid fraud. All were fired in 2006. But both the DOJ’s case and Jones’ lawsuit contend that a pattern of fraud and whistleblower retaliation extended beyond that time, into the period when Santorum served on the UHS board.

In the statement sent to HuffPost in July, UHS initially denied the allegations brought by Jones and the DOJ. “We are defending these cases vigorously to demonstrate that Marion Youth Center did not engage in any fraudulent practices as alleged,” the statement reads. The cases are ongoing, however, and the company declined to comment further.

But court records show that the company is close to finalizing a settlement with the government.

The Marion Center is closing. Its lease has run out and could not be renewed, UHS told HuffPost in an email. The last day for employees is Friday, UHS said. But hundreds of other UHS facilitiesremain open.

“For too many years, UHS has been given a free pass,” says Susan Lawrence, a parent and advocate in Virginia whose adopted child had resided in a UHS facility. “And they’re not being held accountable by the government agencies.”

Lawrence is especially angry with board members like Santorum. “I’m also tired of board members pleading ignorance and getting a free pass when their corporations break laws,” she says. “The board should have known. It was their responsibility to know.”

“If Santorum cannot be responsible for knowledgeable leadership of a corporation as a board member,” she says, “he could never lead the greatest country in the world.”

This is the third in a series of stories on UHS facilities during Santorum’s tenure on the hospital chain’s board. The other stories can be found here and here.

Source: The Huffington Post.

Congressional officials said President Obama has used his recess appointment powers Wednesday to name a head for the controversial newConsumer Financial Protection Bureau in a move Republican lawmakers said amounted to an unconstitutional power grab.

Mr. Obama made the appointment of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray even though theSenate, which has the power to confirm nominees, considers itself still in session.

But the White House argues Republican senators stonewalled the nominee for so long that Mr. Obama had no choice but to circumvent them.

In making the appointment, Mr. Obama rejected the precedent set by former President Clinton and the precedent Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats set under President George W. Bush in 2007 and 2008.

“Although the Senate is not in recess, President Obama, in an unprecedented move, has arrogantly circumvented the American people,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican.

GOP House Speaker John A. Boehner called the move “an extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab by President Obama that defies centuries of practice and the legal advice of his own Justice Department.”
“The precedent that would be set by this cavalier action would have a devastating effect on the checks and balances that are enshrined in our Constitution,” the Ohio Republican said in a statement.
Administration officials told the Associated Press they anticipate the move may be challenged in court.

The president is expected to introduce Mr. Cordray during a trip to Ohio Wednesday, and in prepared remarks the AP reported Mr. Obama will callSenate Republicans’ ongoing blockade of his nomination “inexcusable.”

CONTINUED at the Washington Times.

Appearing on the Alex Jones Show today, Texas Rep. and presidential candidate Ron Paul said Attorney General Eric Holder should be fired immediately and Congress should investigate his role in the Fast and Furious operation run by the ATF and the Justice Department.

“He should be immediately fired,” Paul told Alex Jones, “and then there should be an investigation and find out if charges should be made.” He specifically criticized the government for continuously engaging in politically motivated and criminal behavior he characterized as false flag operations.

Documents released by CBS News reveal Fast and Furious was exploited to demonize the Second Amendment.

“Emails obtained by the network show ATF agents discussing how they could tie guns involved in Mexican violence to gun dealers based in the U.S. to justify the implementation of Demand Letter 3, a regulation that would require U.S. gun stores to report the sale of multiple rifles,” Paul Joseph Watsonwrote on December 7.

Paul said the government “constantly” engages in such criminal behavior. He cited the example of an allegation made in October by the United States that Iran was involved in an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador. Paul characterized the incident as a “propaganda stunt.”

Following the arrest of a suspect it was discovered the plot was concocted by the FBI. An undercover DEA informant had “strongly pushed” the assassination idea on Mansour J. Arbabsiar, an Iranian-American used-car salesman who was “perennially disheveled” and “hopelessly disorganized,” according to news reports.

Source: Prison Planet. Written by Kurt Nimmo.