After a 2 year investigation the FBI indicted the hospital executive Rudra Sabaratnam and his accomplice Estill Mitts for a scheme that is estimated to have cost Californians millions of dollars in fraudulent health care payments. The scheme involved finding Skid Row individuals who qualified for Medicare or MediCal, paying them $20-30, sending them by ambulance to the hospital, giving them phony medical histories and then treating them for something they didn't have. According to the story one woman almost died from being treated for fake high blood pressure which she did not have. The real medicines dropped her normal blood pressure dangerously low. She was not treated for any of the medical problems she did have.

Rocky Delgadillo along with the FBI will be bringing these greedy worms to justice. Thank Heavens for actual Public Servants!

The LA Times is set to cut 250 jobs. Many from the editorial staff. According to a radio story broadcast today, 6 July 2008, the Times will begin focusing on stories it is uniquely situated to do here in LA.

Did you guess that would be Entertainment? If so you win the Dumbing-Down of America prize because that is exactly what is planned.

Remember the up-is-down names that the Bush Administration gives to its programs? No child left behind left millions out. Clear Skies meant clear of birds.

In the same tradition, Andy Stern now brings us 'Justice for All.'

Ester Kaplan of The Nation (Labors Growing Pains) gives us a great article that delves into the history of the debate and disagreements that have exploded between the country's fastest growing progressive unions: CNA, UHW and SEIU.

Dissent from without SEIU as well as from within is sending a message to Stern: that he had better come up with a more democratic way to lead his union or get out of the way so that others can.

The Temporary Restraining Order brought against SEIU for its aggressive activities against the California Nurses Association leaders and members was described by SEIU as 'an entirely frivolous injunction.'

Andy Stern and Stephen Berzon, his lawyer, two men, want to claim that harassment of single women and mothers with their children at their side is acceptable and that objecting to it is entirely frivolous. Andy Stern and his SEIU want to claim that targeting a female union leader, Rose Ann DeMoro, as the object of a mob of 800 (SEIU's number, in reality it was probably more like 200) is acceptable and objecting to it is entirely frivolous.

The actions of SEIU over the past few weeks toward CNA/NNOC has been intentionally intimidating. Such tactics are old-style union/mobster tactics, not fit for the 21st Century and must be stood up to. Objecting to SEIU's inappropriate aggression is what every union member should be doing. It is not entirely frivolous. Objecting to SEIU's gangster image is what we now need to do to save unionism.

The New York Times and Wall St. Journal both cover the incredible events at Saturday’s Labor Notes conference in Michigan, where Andy Stern of SEIU International sent busload of male staffers to chase and harass RNs from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, in retaliation for CNA/NNOC defeating them in a controversial “company union” vote last month in Ohio.  Fortunately the targeted RNs were able to escape out a back door, but other conference-goers were not so lucky, with one woman sent to the hospital, and others punched, kicked, slapped, and shoved

SEIU RNs throughout California and the nation have seen the light and had enough. They have been signing up by the thousands to join their RN colleagues in the CNA/NNOC.

Last December, RNs at Saint Mary’s in Reno voted overwhelmingly for CNA/NNOC representation, rejecting SEIU’s last minute attempt to derail the election. RNs at the St. Rose Dominican Hospitals in Las Vegas are voting in May to switch from SEIU to CNA.

Check out this video about how SEIU really operates as Las Vegas RNs and service employees speak from their hearts. (SEIU members appearing in this video are not actors and were not paid or coaxed.) http://www.youtube.com/...