The Feds have joined a lawsuit against San Francisco-based McKesson Corporation, which alleges that the medical supplier submitted false claims to Medicare, paid illegal kickbacks and set up a sham company to cover its tracks.
The Department of Justice announced today that it has entered into the lawsuit, which was first filed by an individual whistleblower named Thomas F. Jamison. The suit involves several companies including McKession Medical Surgical Medinet, and Arkansas-based Beverly Enterprises, which operates 345 nursing homes, 18 assisted living centers and 56 hospices.
By Benjamin Wachs
God what a dull week. The only thing that could make this week in government interesting is a sex scandal. Luckily Mayor Newsom is running for higher office, so, there's a pretty good chance.
To keep things interesting until that happens, I'm going to add a sexual undertone to each of this week's meetings.
Monday, Oct. 6
10 a.m. – Government Audit and Oversight Committee
If I had an intern, I would have them describe this meeting to you while I nursed a hangover and tried to remember why why why I got into journalism in the first place.
But I don't. So instead I'm just going to pour another single-malt and cry.
Hey, whose panties are these?
The cover of this week’s issue of the Bay Guardian is devoted to, yet again, Sonoma State’s Project Censored and its list of the most important stories ignored by the mainstream media. Sometimes Project Censored does unearth stories deserving of more attention, but all too often the “censored” stories simply didn’t get the kind of treatment the lefties who put together the list would have liked. In fact, many of the “censored” stories actually appeared in the mainstream press. This year, for instance, editorials and opinion pieces ran about some of these censored subjects in such underground publications as the New York Times and the Moonie-owned Washington Times.
But at least our rivals had the good sense not to include Guardian strongman Bruce B. Brugmann’s latest rant about PG&E, public power and the Raker Act in the paper. Instead, Brugmann was left to blog about “The Most Censored Story in SF History,” which his paper has been writing about for the last 40 years. In it, Brugmann offers his tendentious view of how “the local media, led by the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle, has censored and marginalized the scandal in every way possible.”
The gist of Brugmann’s tirade: Old-man Hearst cut a deal with PG&E in the late ‘20s to reverse his support for the Raker Act and public power. “To it's (sic) everlasting shame,” Brugmann wrote last week, “Hearst corporate has marched in lock steps everlatter with PG&E and against the city and county of San Francisco and its residents and businesses.”
