Posted on 12/29/2004 7:16:22 AM PST by floriduh voter
The Terri Schindler Schiavo Daily Threads are created month to month as we watch local and national news regarding Terri and her family.
Since Terri's supporters are in every time zone, you may see something FIRST. Please share news with us that you don't see here already. Now, why would you want to do that? Terri's Daily Thread for September/October of 2004 was viewed over 15,000 times. Terri's November Daily Thread was viewed over 6,000 times. December's thread is over 3,000 views.
More and more good folks are finding out about Terri and that judicial tyranny would take her life, but for lots and lots of prayer and non-stop lobbying of relatives, friends, clergy, our leaders, the media, a passerby, a cashier - ANYONE who you feel comfortable chatting with.
Folks always want to know how can this be in America or on earth for that matter? Unfortunately, this is really happening to an innocent woman who just celebrated her 41st birthday. She's not the only one but she's the one with devoted parents and siblings who knows what's in Terri's heart. Terri has a strong will to live. That's apparent. It's been 14 years.
Besides, feeding tubes have been around practically since the Civil War. They are not high tech devices. Terri is "not hooked up to machines". Her feeding tube is the diameter of a piece of spaghetti.
Talkin' about Terri is the best way to lobby for her. It is a salespitch to save her life and subsequently, many lives. If you've never sold anything in your life, START NOW. START WITH TERRI.
See Terri's flash movies if you need more information. You can see for yourself that's she's interactive and follows the doctor's instructions.
Visit: http://www.terrisfight.org
NOTE: Terri's December Dailies are noted as a source above. There are lots of important links at the very top of that thread. If you missed Terri's Celebration of Life, you can click on it from there.
look here, FRRFC, your name is so long that I can't remember to ping you. Why don't you phone home, ET?
ACTUAL TITLE: Cities balk at plan to raise ticket fees
The clerk of court's office wants to charge municipalities more to process their parking fines. It could be as high as $10 a ticket.
By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published January 2, 2005
The agency that processes most of Pinellas County's parking fines may double its service charge, an increase that could siphon profits from the cities where the tickets were written.
The Pinellas County Clerk of the Circuit Court's office has not yet decided how much it will raise per-ticket processing costs, and a final decision will likely be left for incoming clerk Ken Burke.
But the office may raise rates as high as $10 per ticket, according to county officials, well above the current rate of about $4.
And at least two Pinellas cities, Clearwater and St. Pete Beach, are already preparing to pull out of the program and collect tickets on their own.
Officials in those cities think the costs have run too high.
The clerk's office said the increase would generate additional revenue for the cash-strapped agency. The office is subsidized by state revenues and does not receive funding from the county for court operations. Except for St. Petersburg, municipalities process their parking tickets through the clerk's office. For years, the office charged a nominal fee, between $1 and $2 per ticket, to offset personnel, summons and data processing costs, said Tracey Bruch, Clearwater's parking operations manager.
But recently, the clerk's office began charging actual processing costs. Each month, municipalities receive a spreadsheet documenting the number of tickets issued and the costs incurred.
In October, Clearwater, which writes the most tickets by far, filed 3,877 tickets for fines totaling $67,021. Of that, the clerk's office kept $15,812.27, or $4.08 for every ticket.
In Safety Harbor, where only two tickets were issued for a total of $40, the clerk's office held back $8.61. In Madeira Beach, the clerk's office charged $4.11 for each of the 603 tickets issued.
Now the clerk's office is considering charging up to $10 per ticket, like it does for other ordinance violations.
Bruch said the increase is too large for Clearwater, which hopes to pull out of the clerk's program and contract a third-party collection service by the middle of next year.
"It would definitely be a high impact," Bruch said. Clearwater's basic parking ticket is $15, and with $5 already allocated to the city's school crossing guard program, a $10 service charge would wipe out any profit for the self-supporting operation, Bruch said.
"We potentially would be running a deficit," she said. "The city feels it would be more cost effective through private sector firms."
The city of St. Pete Beach has signed a contract to run its collection service through Citation Management, a Wisconsin company that operates parking collections in several cities, including Milwaukee.
Phil Thorn, the administrative services supervisor with the St. Pete Beach Police Department, said the city hopes to divorce itself from the clerk's office in February.
Citation Management will charge $3.36 per ticket as part of the deal, a significant cost savings, Thorn said. "The county has been somewhat inching up their costs," Thorn said. "We needed to look at other options."
St. Pete Beach writes about 8,000 parking tickets each year, Thorn said, most of them are for $20 each. Together with Clearwater, the two municipalities comprise about 75 percent of all parking tickets the clerk's office processes.
Heath, court services division director for the clerk's office, said the pull outs would not cripple the office. "It would not be a loss," she said.
Burke said he will not fight to keep municipalities in the program. He expects processing costs to rise in 2005, but not as high as $10 per ticket.
"The important thing is if the clerk does it, we recover our costs," Burke said. "It's not suppose to be a profit center and we don't want to be.
"If each city wants to do it themselves, that's fine with me."
Aaron Sharockman can be reached at 727 445-4160 or
asharockman@sptimes.com
FV SAYS: The profit center is run UNDER THE TABLE. If they are cash strapped in their public portofolio, may be they should take funds from Terri's Betting Pool funds alleged to be at the clerk and court system to get back in the black.
I'm glad that the Pinellas (Puppet) County Clerk's Office and Court system is FINALLY BEING EXPOSED BY the local newspapers. It backs up what we have been saying for a number of years now about incompetence at every turn.
I'VE ALSO HEARD THAT MORALE IS POOR AT the Pinellas Clerk's Office. The employees are starting to see that they don't belong there and that it has been mismanaged. Clerk Office employees are starting to see that Terri has been WRONGED. If they have to lay people off because retiring DeBlaker blew the budget and had over twenty years to run it into the ground and ALSO the Clerk's Office failed to protect the Wards of the State, I hope some disgruntled employees SING LIKE BIRDS.
Please visit www.terrisfight.org or get on the email list at: fight4terri@aol.com. JOIN NOW. Get the latest. Help us fight corruption and incompetence this month. Terri may only have until mid-January!
RED STATES, PLEASE CALL YOUR U.S. SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN OR WOMEN... What's more pro-life than giving Terri her life back???
Terri can breathe on her own and is alert and aware of her surroundings. She understands jokes for goodness sake! She is not in misery.
She only suffers if they starve and dehydrate her to death.
Is Janet Rehnquist, Chief Justice Rehnquist's daughter, STILL IN A TOP JOB AT HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES? I see a conflict of interest if she is.
JANET REHNQUIST RESIGNED but she may be from Tampa bay. I still smell a conflict of interest because she was with HHS while Terri was twice starved.
Do you know if it is possible to write to the members of our Supreme Court in DC?
God Bless Terri, her family and all of you, ALL OF YOU who work to release this precious human from her bondage. If we cannot work to defend this human...who are we really?
I fail to remember to pray for Terri as much as I should be praying. Today, this changes for me. And I am asking our Father to join my petitions for Terri with yours, as we work with our Father to move this mountain.
We are going to save this woman and we are going to make sure that FLorida sunshine falls upon her face once more.
We are going to return this abused and neglected human being into the arms of those who LOVE HER.
We have the mightiest force of all within and without us...our Father. Let him hear from all of us as we work to spread the knowledge we have of what Terri has undergone to those who hold the power on earth to impact her right to live.
And always remember that MS's and his hellacious attorney's claim of right to privacy for Terri is NOTHING MORE than a means to close her off from all that is wondrous, alive and meaningful. They have to shut her off from this....because to do otherwise would expose WHO Terri is, WHAT she is capable of, HOW she has been neglected and perchance, WHY she is is the state she is in to begin with...
Neglected animals are treated better.
JANET REHNQUIST, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL AT U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES, JOINS VENABLE
Ms. Rehnquist will co-chair Washington health care practice and take major role in litigation and pharmaceutical matters
WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 8, 2003) – Longtime senior government attorney Janet Rehnquist has joined Venable LLP in Washington where she will co-chair the firm’s Washington health care practice.
For the past two years, Ms. Rehnquist has served as the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the chief enforcement position at that department.
Ms. Rehnquist bore primary responsibility for the oversight of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, along with over 300 other HHS programs in 12 different agencies and with a combined annual budget of over $400 billion.
Ms. Rehnquist, 46, returns to private practice after 10 years in the federal government which began with positions as Counsel to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and Associate Counsel to the first President Bush, followed by nearly seven years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney where she prosecuted civil enforcement actions in health care fraud, often leading to multi-million dollar resolutions.
In all, she has spent 10 years in health care litigation and enforcement. She has served as a trial attorney, senior government enforcer and spokesperson on national health care policy issues.
“Janet is an outstanding addition to our health care and pharmaceutical practices,” said Robert Zinkham, a health care lawyer who chairs Venable’s Business Division. “Her breadth of experience as a White House advisor, federal prosecutor and Inspector General uniquely position her as a valuable resource for our health care and pharmaceutical clients facing significant regulatory challenges.”
In her role as Inspector General for HHS’s massive array of programs, Ms. Rehnquist managed a staff of over 1,600 auditors, investigators, lawyers, and evaluators who worked out of more than 80 cities nationwide. She reported directly to HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson and Congress, and frequently was called on to brief other high-level Department and Administration officials as well as members of Congress and their staffs. She also testified regularly before Congressional committees, particularly on Medicare and Medicaid.
“Janet takes an aggressive and pragmatic approach to her job that produces strong results,” said Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary of Health & Human Services. “She deftly tackled the complexities of the health care system and strengthened protections for health-care consumers. Janet is a smart, tough and fair-minded person, who develops common-sense solutions to challenging problems. She is a tremendous asset to any organization.”
Thomas A. Scully, Administrator of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said, “I have known Janet for more than 20 years. She is a tremendously talented and hard working lawyer who did a great job as the Inspector General at HHS, and I’m sure she will be a great fit at Venable. I look forward to working with her in her new role.”
Ms. Rehnquist’s move follows the addition to Venable’s Health Care group of Ted Ramirez, who represents multi-hospital systems and health care providers in their operations, governance issues and business transactions. Mr. Ramirez and Ms. Rehnquist will co-chair Venable’s Washington health care practice. Venable has over 40 attorneys practicing nationally in the related areas of health care, pharmaceuticals, food & drug, and bioscience.
“It was important for me to come to a Washington-based law firm that already had established health care and pharma practices and a strong base in litigation,” said Ms. Rehnquist. “I also wanted to be at a firm that has shown a lot of forward movement. I did a gut check, and decided that Venable is the place I want to be.”
Ms. Rehnquist sees significant change on the horizon for the entire health care industry: “We are in the midst of a sea change in health care, with the Medicare reform bill high on the Congressional agenda and an unprecedented amount of public debate on issues such as drug pricing, marketing, access and re-importation of medicines from Canada, Mexico and other countries,” she said.
She noted that issues surrounding pharmaceutical companies are front and center in public consciousness largely because prescription drugs are becoming even more successful and life-changing for large segments of the population, particularly seniors. Consequently, the public is demanding that the government ensures their access to these drugs and that costs are kept down.
The Wall Street Journal reported that in just the last three fiscal years, the government has collected $4.21 billion in fines, settlements and restitution payments from its health-care investigations, far greater than the $3.29 billion it had collected in the previous ten years combined. Aggressive policing of alleged fraud and other violations will be a continuing trend, says Ms. Rehnquist, as the government makes unprecedented forays into health care and the public continues to ratchet up spending on pharmaceuticals.
“The side-effect of increased government involvement in the economic and business aspects of the pharmaceutical industry is greater government scrutiny, which in turn engenders greater enforcement,” said Ms. Rehnquist. “I look forward to helping Venable’s pharma clients successfully meet both the government’s and the public’s high expectations.”
“Janet has a remarkable combination of credentials in public sector law,” said Venable Chairman Benjamin R. Civiletti, himself a former U.S. Attorney General. “She has experience that is of tremendous value to our clients in litigation, compliance, investigations and regulatory matters. And she is part of a new generation of leaders in Washington. We welcome her enthusiastically.”
Ms. Rehnquist is a 1985 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law.
FV SAYS: MEDICAID??? PROSECUTED HEALTH CARE FRAUD? OOPS! She missed Terri's health care fraud while at HHS.
Isn't TERRI SCHINDLER SCHIAVO ON MEDICAID since her rehab monies were taken from her??? To be in Hospice, Terri has to be re-certified every six months that she's terminally ill which she is not.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST with Wm Rehnquist getting to decide if Terri's Law is accepted or turned down??? His daughter MISSED PROSECUTING TERRI'S MEDICAID FRAUD CASE. Clearly, there is one.
Please read my post about Wm Rehnquist's daughter. If she had done her job, Terri wouldn't be in this mess right now. THIS NEEDS TO BE EXPOSED. REHNQUIST should have to recuse himself from deciding the fate of Terri's Law. Rehnquist would like reject Terri's Law because he's one of those rule of law more important than huma life types. You know, ARROGANT, SUPERIORITY COMPLEX. This new information is a potential gold mine.
Ms. Rehnquist bore primary responsibility for the oversight of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, along with over 300 other HHS programs in 12 different agencies and with a combined annual budget of over $400 billion.
To bad.
I am aware of such briefs....and believe that this group right here on FR could write a fantastic 'friend of the court' brief.
Wish, how I wish, I knew someone who had the ear of some of our Supreme Court members.
Felos may be savvy, but goodness and mercy are not on his side, rather greed and heartlessness rule his life. May he be exposed so fully that our nation is shocked into knowledge of what the culture of death is doing to us.
I never knew that Terri had to be recertified as terminally ill EVERY SIX MONTHS in order for her to be held prisoner at Hospice in FL.
On its face-that is SICK!
Never, EVER has someone fought through more horrific odds to keep her own life intact.
We need to be Terri's human weapons on earth.....searing the lies and untruths spread about her condition via felos and MS and exposing the horrific punishment felos and MS have laid upon this tender human being so at the mercy of genuine monsters.
If the head of HHS Tommy Thompson had ordered an investigation of Terri's STATE SPONSORED MURDER AFTER A ROBBERY, she wouldn't be looking at a mid-January death sentence.
William Rehnquist would probably reject Terri's Law IMO at the Supreme Court unless he had to recuse himself.
The truth is being revealed ping. Good morning. Please call or email your US Congressmen and US Senators. Send them to www.terrisfight.org to see Terri's videos.
No, sorry. I just see Hitler. Good morning FRRFC.
The major problem is there are so many involved in the coverup, we need a complete housecleaning. To the the bureaucrats & judges, it would simply be easier to just get rid of Terri. READ THIS...
http://oig.hhs.gov/testimony/docs/2002/020305fin.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/06/politics/06HEAL.html?ex=1104814800&en=a087ed5ed5ca667f&ei=5070
Say you tried to get in to the boards to vote for her.
THIS WORKS - EMAIL FOR WND: mbmonitor@worldnetdaily.com
From NYT with photo in link provided above. FV says: NOT TOUGH ENOUGH ON FRAUD.
Calling or writing to Rosalyn Carter is a complete waste of time.
Find someone to call or write who actually gives a rip...
...who actually cares about Terri's situation, her life and her family. The only thing Rosalyn Carter cares about is building up po' ole Jimma's pitiful legacy.
With liberal democrats it is all about symbolism minus any substance whatsoever. Please advise Cheryl not to waste her time on Rosalyn, Jimma, Bill and Hitlery as well.
Would it help if she had a legal team with more juice?
I still want to know why Terri Schindler-Schiavo is in a Hospice and she doesn't have a terminal illness.
Will someone please explain this?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.