Government–Mandated Waste Drives Up Prescription Drug Co$t$

Just Like Food “Expiration” Dates, Drug “Expiration” Dates Are Also Fake… And It’s Co$ting You BIGTIME

Hospitals and pharmacies are required to toss expired drugs, no matter how expensive or vital. Meanwhile the FDA has long known that many remain safe and potent for years longer.

The box of prescription drugs had been forgotten in a back closet of a retail pharmacy for so long that some of the pills predated the 1969 moon landing. Most were 30 to 40 years past their expiration dates – possibly toxic, probably worthless.
But to Lee Cantrell, who helps run the California Poison Control System, the cache was an opportunity to answer an enduring question about the actual shelf life of drugs: Could these drugs from the bell-bottom era still be potent? 

Cantrell called Roy Gerona, a University of California, San Francisco, researcher who specializes in analyzing chemicals. Gerona had grown up in the Philippines, and had seen people recover from sickness by taking expired drugs with no apparent ill effects.

“This was very cool,” Gerona says. “Who gets the chance of analyzing drugs that have been in storage for more than 30 years?” 

Pharmacist and Toxicologist Lee Cantrell tested medicines that had been “expired” for decades. Most of them were still potent enough to be on shelves today. (Lee Huffaker for ProPublica)

The age of the drugs might have been bizarre, but the question the researchers wanted to answer wasn’t. Pharmacies across the country in major medical centers and in neighborhood strip malls routinely toss out tons of scarce and potentially valuable prescription drugs when they hit their expiration dates.

Gerona and Cantrell, a pharmacist and toxicologist, knew that the term “expiration date” was a misnomer. The dates on drug labels are simply

Don’t Get Burned By Prejudice

Nero was the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors and ascended to the Roman throne at age 17 following the death of his great uncle Claudius the emperor. 

Nero, who was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, was the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina, the great-granddaughter of the emperor Augustus. 

After Ahenobarbus died in 48CE, Agrippina married her uncle, the emperor Claudius, and persuaded him to name Nero as his successor rather than his own son, Britannicus, and to offer his daughter, Octavia, as Nero’s wife, which he did two years later.

Claudius’ death in 54CE is widely suspected as poisoning by Agrippina, and thereafter, Nero delivered a eulogy to the Senate in Claudius’ honor, was named Emperor of Rome, and took the name Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.

Agrippina was manipulatively domineering and

Mobile Alabama MD & Medical Practice Settle Medicare, Medicaid & TRICARE Fraud Claims

The Department of Justice, United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District, announced that Mobile, Alabama physician Dr. James Matthew Crumb, MD (AL license number MD.24535, AL Controlled Substances Certificate ACSC.245, National Provider Identifier: 1629079793 ) a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitative physician who currently practices as Mobility Metabolism and Wellness (MMW), and a local neurosurgeon group Coastal Neurological Institute, P.C. (CNI), 3280 Dauphin Street, Suite A, Mobile, AL 36606-4060, (NPI:1740212174), have collectively paid $1.4 million to settle allegations that they violated the False Claims Act (“FCA”) by engaging in fraudulent schemes to maximize payment from the Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE health care programs.

In late December 2015, the United States Attorney’s Office filed a civil lawsuit against Defendants CNI, Crumb, and MMW, on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense, alleging that the Defendants knowingly billed federal health care programs for

How can you know if you’re in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship?

Just because there’s no physical violence, does that mean a relationship isn’t abusive?

No.

The adage, “can’t see the forest for the trees” is particularly true in emotionally abusive relationships, and it’s not uncommon for men and women in them to be unable to identify the relationship as being abusive.

Why is that?

It goes back to 1973 and an unsuccessful bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden in which two perpetrators – both repeat offender prisoners – took four hostages, three women and one man. Over the six days they were held, the hostages began to identify and sympathize with their captors.

Hostages in the Norrmalmstorg Kreditbanken bank vault, Stockholm, Sweden. The 1973 robbery gave rise to the term “Stockholm Syndrome” which characterized a scenario in which captives sympathized with their captors.

As the standoff was ending, police called for the hostages to come out first, but the four captives – who protected their abductors to the very end – refused. One female hostage, 23-year old Kristin Enmark, called out, “No, Jan and Clark go first—you’ll gun them down if we do! We want to leave with the robber!”

When police seized the gunmen, two female hostages cried sympathetically, “Don’t hurt them – they didn’t harm us!”

When interviewed by investigators and others following the crisis’ conclusion, the hostages reported fearing Law Enforcement Officers’ rescue effort attempts, and felt their captors were protecting them from harm. The bonds formed during that stand-off had become so strong that there were reports of one female hostage who had been engaged to be married to one of the kidnappers – which was later discovered to be false, though it is true that one hostage developed a Legal Defense Fund to help pay the perpetrators’ criminal defense costs.

Researcher Ian K.Mackenzie wrote
in “Journal For Police Crisis Negotiations”
that Stockholm Syndrome consisted of:
“strong emotional ties that develop between two persons
where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.”

Psychological researchers utilizing the FBI’s Hostage Barricade Database System (HOBAS) – the only entity that compiles national statistics on crisis incidents (hostage, barricade, and/or suicide) which are used in research and decision making – found that

Made In Alabama: Politics Like A Shakespearean Drama Thanks To #ALpolitics @GovernorBentley!

Lies & deception have an expiration date.
The truth lives forever.

New pictures emerge of Alabama Governor Bentley and his “Political Advisor” cum mistress, Rebekah Mason. Pun intended.

Rethinking Addiction

Perhaps you’ve studied the 12-Step program, or perhaps you’ve practiced it. I have done both. Practicing it was not as a matter of addiction, or any such thing for myself, but instead, was a part of my personal spiritual growth and development.

Over the years, I’ve heard commentary, or news features which interviewed people with divergent perspectives on 12-Step programs, most notably which were skeptical of them, and were thoughtfully seeking answers themselves for the “whys and wherefores” of substance abuse, whether it’s long-term or temporary, and whether it is a genetic fault, or if it is a personality or character flaw in response to external or internal stressors. In other words, it’s the classic “Heredity vs Environment” argument.

As I have come to view it, there is validity for both sides, but I think the stronger case is made for a combination of environment and character flaw, instead of genetic defect.

—/—

“In his recent book, The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry, Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor from Harvard Medical School, looked at Alcoholics Anonymous’s retention rates along with studies on sobriety and rates of active involvement (attending meetings regularly and working the program) among AA members. Based on these data, he put AA’s actual success rate somewhere between 5 and 8 percent. That is just a rough estimate, but it’s the most precise one I’ve been able to find.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/

The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous
By Gabrielle Glaser, April 2015 Issue
Its faith-based 12-step program dominates treatment in the United States. But researchers have debunked central tenets of AA doctrine and found

“Too Big To Fail” Banks Get Bailout, Gave Customers The Shaft

Chalk One Up for the Working Man

By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on December 18, 2016
Used with permission

On Thursday, I tried a case for a close friend on mine in the Jefferson County, Alabama District Court in Bessemer, Alabama. My friend is a hard working Bessemer resident and family man whose world was turned upside down when Citibank sold his credit card account to San Diego-based junk debt buyer, Midland Funding, LLC. He is one of millions of bank credit card customers each year whose accounts are bundled in loan pools and then sold to junk debt buyers without the customer’s knowledge.

Midland Funding is one of several mega junk debt buyers in America. This group of financial sharks buys unsecured bank debt for pennies on a dollar and then strong arms debtors who miss one or more of their monthly payments. Midland is part of a multi-billion industry of shady financial predators.

In my friend’s case, Citibank sold his account to Midland Funding. The balance on the account was $6,800. My friend paid his credit card monthly on a regular basis, but had an unexpected hiccup in his monthly cash flow a couple of years after he opened the account. As a result he failed to make a couple of his payments on time. When this occurred Citibank sold my friend’s account to Midland, and Midland eventually sued my friend. This is how my friend became my client.

Remember, Citibank had a similar hiccup during the Great Recession of 2008. The bank requested and received a total of $181.6 billion in federal bailout assistance to keep from collapsing. In fact, Citibank led the banking industry’s “welfare queens” by receiving more financial bailout assistance than any big bank in the U.S.

Citibank’s “Thank You” to the taxpayers like my client, whose tax dollars made the financial bailout possible for these big banks, was the low-down act of selling his credit card account to a shark like Midland Funding. The big banks were quick to take taxpayer-sponsored financial assistance, but slow to give taxpayers similar financial assistance in return.

[Editor’s Note: Alamerica Bank, which is

Hillary & Trump: Two Deeply Flawed Candidates

By many accounts, the 2016 Presidential Election year is a complete campaign in the ass. Two deeply flawed candidates manipulated and exposed deeply flawed processes in both major political parties, not the least of which is for the GOP, how to vet their candidates more thoroughly, and have the ability to remove them from official party candidacy, and for the Democrats, how to maintain candidate neutrality, and prevent party officials from influencing candidates of the top officials’ choosing toward nomination. I predict many much-needed changes on the horizon for both parties… following the November General Election.

—/—

by Gary Cosby, Jr.
Used with permission

WARNING:  This is a long post. It is also my final political post before the election.

I am not an editorial writer but today I am going to play one on Facebook. First, let me say, everyone is welcome to comment; however, if your comment uses foul language or is abusive to anyone else, your comment will be deleted. One of the great problems we have today is our lack of ability to disagree and still have civil discourse; therefore, we will practice it or be censured. Keep in mind, this is my opinion and you do not have to agree with it. Thank your First Amendment rights for that.

By now, we all know this presidential election cycle has presented us with the two poorest candidates in memory, perhaps in all of American history. Certainly there have been poor candidates running for one party or the other throughout our history but not facing one another in the same election.

They have turned the presidential debates into bad Saturday Night Live skits. In fact, I doubt the writers of SNL would have been able to dream up anything this hideous. The American political scene will never be the same and

Your Tax Dollars At Work: Taxpayers Subsidize CEO Pay, Here’s How #BonusLoophole

Executive Excess 2016: The Wall Street CEO Bonus Loophole

This 23rd annual report reveals how taxpayers are subsidizing financial crisis windfalls.

By Sarah Anderson and Sam Pizzigati, August 31, 2016

This report is the first to calculate how much taxpayers have been subsidizing executive bonuses at the nation’s largest banks.

The study focuses on a 1993 Clinton administration reform that was intended to rein in runaway CEO pay by capping the tax deductibility of executive compensation at $1 million. But the new rule included a huge loophole for stock options and other “performance” pay. As a result, the more corporations hand out in executive bonuses, the lower their tax bill. This perverse incentive for excessive compensation has been a major factor in the explosion of CEO pay.

The financial bailout program closed this loophole for recipients, but only until

Why @HillaryClinton’s @StateDept Quid Pro Quo Pay-To-Play Is A Corrupt Practice

Accountability is what remains once responsibility has fled. The citizens of the United States must demand higher standards from their public servants, and officials, and severely punish violations of the same.

—/—

Bill and Hillary Clinton, Meet Jozette Berry, Alisha Cole and Lashonda Smaw

By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on August 28, 2016
Used with permission.

Former Jefferson County, Alabama revenue clerks Lashonda Smaw, Alisha Cole, and Gazette Berry (pictured from left to right). They engaged in the same unethical conduct that is involved in the Hillary Clinton “cash for prioritized access” scandal. Each woman was investigated, criminally charged with felony ethics violations, and convicted in court. Their total take in gratuities was $120. The total gratuities involved in the Clinton scandal is $156 million, and nobody is under a criminal investigation.

In 2013, Jozette Berry, Alisha Cole and Lashonda Smaw were Jefferson County, Alabama revenue clerks who worked in the downtown County Courthouse and the Center Point Satellite Courthouse. These low-level public servants accepted cash gratuities for cutting people to the front of the 4-hour long, slow moving, car tag line. Cole was caught accepting $20 on two occasions in August 2013. Berry and Smaw were caught accepting $40 on a single occasion in April 2013.

After a local Fox TV news team publicly exposed this criminal conduct, there was immediate and widespread condemnation of the women’s actions. It made national news. This was declared an ethics violation on the part of each woman.

In December 2013, a Jefferson County grand jury indicted Berry, Cole, and Smaw for using their public office for personal gain, which is a felony in Alabama and an ethics violation as well. Each woman faced 2 to 20 years in prison, if convicted.

These women did not have friends in high places. They were not connected to the Obama White House, or the U.S. Attorney General, or the Director of the FBI. They did not hold any political office. They did not have New York spin-doctors or high-powered lawyers to argue that they had done nothing wrong. In short, they had no one who could “fix” their criminal case, or make it go away.

Jozette Berry and Lashonda Smaw, who are black, eventually pled guilty. Alisha Cole, who faced two felony counts of ethics violations, went to trial and was convicted. Berry received a sentence of 12 months of hard labor in the county jail. Imposition of Berry’s sentence was later suspended and she was placed on 2 years of unsupervised probation. After her conviction, Cole received a three-year suspended sentence and two years of unsupervised probation. Smaw’s sentence for her ethics violation is unknown at this time.

The guilty pleas for Berry and Smaw and guilty verdict for Cole ended a multi-year joint criminal investigation by the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Public Corruption and White Collar Crimes Unit, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, and the Birmingham Police Department. After the criminal cases ended in May 2015, the local DA proudly released the following statement: “We are grateful to have partners in law enforcement who are

The @JusticeDept Readies Its Case: 10 Questions About United States v #ALpolitics @GovernorBentley, @rebmason, et al

USA v. Robert J. Bentley, Rebekah Caldwell Mason, and Other Co-Conspirators

By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on April 19, 2016
Used with permission

Alabama Governor Robert J. Bentley, 73, and political consultant Rebekah Caldwell Mason, 40, are expected to be charged by the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) for using Bentley’s position as governor to execute a wide ranging racketeering conspiracy involving wire and mail fraud, tax fraud, bribery, money laundering, the unauthorized use of the federal National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and the Law Enforcement Tactical System (LETS) databases, and related criminal charges.

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley and paramour-cum-Senior Political Advisor Rebekah Caldwell Mason

As we announced exclusively on April 9, 2016, federal prosecutors in Washington have decided to expedite the initiation of public corruption charges against Robert Bentley and Rebekah Mason. This article takes you deep inside the criminal case against the governor and his married lover.

Mason, a mother of three young children, is trying to stay out of jail by cooperating with the federal probe. She does not have the financial resources to mount a spirited or sustained defense to the expected criminal charges.

Bentley, whose criminal defense attorneys are paid from campaign funds and personal savings, is helping Rebekah Mason fund her criminal defense by keeping Jonathan Mason, her husband, on the state payroll as the director of Serve Alabama at an annual salary of $94,000. This financial assistance, however, is woefully inadequate considering the tidal wave of legal trouble Rebekah Mason faces.

Robert Bentley, Rebekah Mason and other co-conspirators are staring down the barrel of a criminal indictment that is expected to exceed ninety felony charges once the case has been presented to a federal grand jury. Bentley will be named as the “ringleader” of the racketeering conspiracy.

The commonly asked questions about the governor’s criminal conduct and

Alabama #ALpolitics @GovernorBentley Abused Office As Evidenced By Aircraft Use

—UPDATED 13 April 2016 to add helicopter/wallet detail.—

Alabama Governor Bentley used numerous state aircraft several hundreds – perhaps even thousands – of times, including ones registered to, or leased by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, and Alabama Department of Transportation – not just the governor’s “official” craft, and used state money to pay for even more charters with numerous other private firms.

 

In fact, since the day of his initial inauguration, he and former wife Dianne flew 749 times – more than TWICE as much as former Governor Fob James.

 

The number of aircraft flights taken by former Alabama First Lady Dianne Bentley, and paramour Rebeka Caldwell Mason are telling.

The destinations and purposes for many, if not most, of the trips – including ones he made for campaigning – were purposely vaguely listed to

Even With #ALpolitics @ALGOP & @GovernorBentley’s Iron-Fisted Control, Alabama STILL Thanks God for Mississippi

Fraud, waste, and abuse are rampant in Sweet Home, and it’s KILLING the state.

Cronyism and corruption remains alive and well, despite claims to the contrary as asserted by the GOP, which now rules Alabama with an Iron Fist.

If it could be said that states have personalities, Alabama’s would be bipolar, and schizophrenic. Reeling from fear – though they deny it – they continue to perpetuate and indeed, cultivate the very worst of the very worst in human behavior.

It’s not that Alabama or its people are bad, it’s that fear rules their hearts, and fearing that want and poverty will overtake them (ALERT! It already has.), they continue to elect those who pander to their fears. As a result, they get what they deserve.

It’s HIGH TIME – as was said in the Star Trek television series – “to BOLDLY go where no man has gone before!”

No one praises cowards, or cowardice. And yet, so many praise Alabama’s politicians, who are veritable Cowardly Lions.

Alabama has had – and continues to have

#ALpolitics Robert @GovernorBentley Update

Robert Bentley Update

by Donald V. Watkins
Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Our report for the U.S. Department of Justice on Alabama Governor Robert Bentley’s criminal conduct in office has been written and vetted by our editors and attorneys. The report, which grew out of our

Criminal Conduct Update: #ALpolitics Robert @GovernorBentley

Robert Bentley Update

by Donald Watkins, Monday, 16 November 2015 8:30PM CST

Alabama Governor, Robert Bentley – (R)

Our report for the U.S. Department of Justice on Alabama Governor Robert Bentley’s criminal conduct in office has been written. The report, which grew out of our Facebook news team’s special series of investigative articles titled “Forbidden Love” and “Executive Betrayal“, is undergoing a review by our editors and legal team. The report is tentatively scheduled to be delivered to the Justice Department on

#ALpolitics @GovernorBentley Hoodwinks @YHN & @ALdotcom

Bentley Hoodwinks Yellowhammer News and AL.com

Alabama Governor Bentley with paramour/ Rebekah Caldwell Mason, Communications Director cum Senior Political Advisor

by Donald V. Watkins
Published via Facebook Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Used with permission

Once again, Governor Robert Bentley has hoodwinked Yellowhammer News and AL.com. This time, Bentley has deceived these two news organizations by providing them with a handful of sanitized text messages between Rebekah Caldwell Mason and himself in response to their separate Open Records requests for emails and text messages between the two lovers.

Like former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Bentley withheld the more embarrassing text messages about his illicit love affair with Rebekah from public disclosure. Of particular significance are the text messages where Bentley describes his true love for Rebekah, including a text message Bentley thought he was sending to Rebekah that he mistakenly sent to his former wife Dianne instead.

KWAME MALIK KILPATRICK
MDOC Number: 702408
SID Number: 3353708P
Name: KWAME MALIK KILPATRICK
Racial Identification: Black
Gender: Male
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Height: 6′ 4″
Weight: 310 lbs.
Date of Birth: 06/08/1970 (45)
KWAME MALIK KILPATRICK Image Date: 5/25/2010

Yellowhammer bought into

Department of Justice Report on #ALpolitics @GovernorBentley Now Underway

Alabama Governor Bentley with paramour Communications Director/Senior Political Advisor Rebekah Caldwell Mason

DOJ Report on Bentley Underway

By Donald V. Watkins
Published via Facebook October 11, 2015, 9:54am
Used with permission

Our Facebook news teams is in the process of preparing a detailed prosecutorial memorandum on Alabama Governor Robert Bentley’s misuse of taxpayer and donor money to carry on a love affair with Rebekah Caldwell Mason, his senior political advisor. It is anticipated that the report will be

#ALpolitics @FirstLadyDB: Strength in the Face of Domestic Abuse

Dianne Bentley: Strength in the Face of Domestic Abuse

By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on September 23, 2015.
Used with permission

In her official state biography on the Governor’s website, it states, “If Mrs. Bentley can be remembered for one thing as First Lady, she hopes that the people of Alabama will remember her stand for Christ. After all, the Bentleys feel that they have been called “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14) and always strive to remain in God’s will.”

Governor Robert Bentley abused Dianne Bentley emotionally, psychologically, and verbally. The abuse started when Rebekah Mason became Bentley’s closest advisor and lover during the governor’ first term in office. Bentley’s domestic abuse of Dianne was pervasive, degrading, and ugly, and his malicious words and deeds, ultimately left Dianne feeling irrelevant, disgraced, and utterly inadequate.

As Bentley’s romance with Rebekah Mason heated up, so did his abuse of Dianne. Though not physical in nature, Bentley’s abusive conduct was so disparaging towards Dianne that even the couple’s four sons and some of his grandchildren have felt the need to disassociate from him.

Once Bentley became governor, he changed. He was

Bentley’s Real Executive Protection – Part 3, Forbidden Love: #ALpolitics @GovernorBentley’s Secret Love Affair

Bentley’s Real Executive Protection

Forbidden Love – Robert Bentley’s Secret Love Affair – Part 3

By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on September 11, 2015
Used with permission

George L. Beck, Jr., is the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, which includes Montgomery.

George L. Beck Jr. was sworn in as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama on July 6, 2011. He was nominated by President Obama on March 31,2011, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 30, 2011.
Prior to being appointed, George Beck served as Deputy Attorney General for the State of Alabama for eight years, and Judge Advocate General for the Corps of Alabama Army National Guard for over thirty years, retiring at the rank of Colonel. He joined a private law firm in January 2004 where he remained until he was confirmed as U.S. Attorney.
Mr. Beck received his undergraduate degree from Auburn University and his law degree from the University of Alabama.

President Obama appointed Beck to the top federal prosecutor’s job in Montgomery in 2011. Beck’s Senate confirmation took a mere three months from the date of his nomination, even in the midst of a gridlocked Congress, because Beck enjoyed the support and loyalty of Alabama’s two Republican senators, as well as its Republican governor and state attorney general. For all practical purposes, Beck is a “closet” Republican.

Beck received his law degree from the University of Alabama, where he was a law school classmate and personal friend of David Byrne, Governor Robert Bentley’s chief legal advisor. Over the years, the two men formed

Sodomy: A prime example of what’s wrong with #ALpolitics

A dear friend who is a long-time retiree, aged 78 years, entire subsistence is from a meager pension (earned from a lifetime of work in a unionized organization), supplemented with a paltry Social Security check.

She’s lived through breast cancer surgery (mastectomy) & reconstruction, other major surgeries (knee replacements) and procedures, and lives in a trailer which she owns, situated upon a lot which she rents. She has resided there many, many years.

To save money, she recently