Apple — just a bad citizen

The New York Times reports that Apple Inc. is both anti-tax as a matter of principle and pays little to the states and countries which permit it to exist. Steve Jobs — Genius© — made it very clear that government ought to serve the interests of his company and that his company lacks a civic conscience:

In one of his last public appearances before his death, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, addressed Cupertino’s City Council last June, seeking approval to build a new headquarters.

Most of the Council was effusive in its praise of the proposal. But one councilwoman, Kris Wang, had questions.

How will residents benefit? she asked. Perhaps Apple could provide free wireless Internet to Cupertino, she suggested, something Google had done in neighboring Mountain View.

“See, I’m a simpleton; I’ve always had this view that we pay taxes, and the city should do those things,” Mr. Jobs replied, according to a video of the meeting. “That’s why we pay taxes. Now, if we can get out of paying taxes, I’ll be glad to put up Wi-Fi.”

He suggested that, if the City Council were unhappy, perhaps Apple could move. The company is Cupertino’s largest taxpayer, with more than $8 million in property taxes assessed by local officials last year.

Ms. Wang dropped her suggestion.

Think different, indeed….

Suicide nets surround an iPhone factory in China

Barack Obama

Barack Obama delivers a speech at the Universi...

Cynic In Chief

Glenn Greenwald once again destroys the credibility of this vile and cynical tool. This time, Greenwald examines Obama‘s current position of medical marijuana, the Department of Justice legal harassment of medical marijuana dispensaries and his dishonest use of rule of law rhetoric to attack the medical marijuana industry. To be sure, Obama’s Department of Justice could not bother itself to prosecute Bush era criminals, Wall Street criminals, etc. These individuals and institutions are largely exempt from legal accountability. But not medical marijuana producers and distributors.

A despicable man.

Related articles

Damn….

Wednesday was a very bad day for Mary Tolan and the company she runs, Accretive Health. Not only had the State of Minnesota taken action against Accretive Health, but:

Shares of Accretive Health plunged 42 percent, or $7.74, Wednesday to close at $10.75, as the scope and detail of the allegations became clear, a day after [Minnesota Attorney General Lori] Swanson’s office released a six-volume report on her investigation.

The Wall Street Journal reported that “An Accretive spokeswoman declined to comment on the company’s share price but said the company has ‘a great track record of helping hospitals enhance their quality of care.’” Only in a bizarro world would patient harassment count as an enhancement of care quality.

Accretive’s stock price trend is ominous:

Going down

The expectation driving this trend issues from the belief that litigation will compel Accretive Health to change its dubious business practices.

Related articles

Need a job? Lack a soul?

Accretive Health has a position for you. The New York Times reports:

Hospital patients waiting in the emergency room or convalescing after surgery could find themselves confronted by an unexpected visitor: a debt collector at bedside.

Mary A. Tolan, Accretive Health CEO

One of the nation’s largest medical debt-collection companies is under fire in Minnesota for having placed its employees in emergency rooms and other departments at two hospitals and demanding that patients pay before receiving treatment, according to documents released Tuesday by the Minnesota attorney general. The documents say the company also used patient health records to wrangle for more money on overdue bills.

The company, Accretive Health, has contracts not only with the two hospitals cited in Minnesota but also with some of the largest hospital systems in the country, including Henry Ford Health System in Michigan and Intermountain Healthcare in Utah. Since January, it has faced a civil lawsuit filed by Attorney General Lori Swanson of Minnesota alleging that it violated state and federal debt-collection laws and patient privacy protections.

Shocking — that is, I find it shocking that Accretive’s morally dubious practices violate debt collection laws and privacy protections. These violations are contrary to the spirit of the times! I am sure that ALEC, with its deep and strong concern for protecting the rights of health care consumers to directly pay for their health care, will want to get these laws fixed as soon as possible.

Related articles

Not guilty

George Zimmerman entered a not guilty plea to second degree murder changes. Zimmerman had apologized to Trayvon Martin’s parents during his April 20th Bond Hearing, a act that drew criticism and another apology from Zimmerman’s lawyer.

Related articles

Ending Dependency As We Know It: How Bill Clinton Decreased Freedom

Reblogged from Corey Robin:

When Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law in 1996, many hailed it as a necessary step toward ending the dependency of the poor.  Dependence on the state, that is.  Barack Obama praised the bill during his presidential campaign, and in fact made a point of noting that he had helped cut the welfare rolls when he was in the Illinois state legislature. 

Read more… 451 more words

Lest we forget that Democrats are also enemies of the poor.....

File this under — reality is worse than fiction

The New York Post reported that:

A “kind and generous” Long Island mom donated a kidney to save the life of her boss — who then turned around after she got what she wanted and helped fire the poor woman, according to an explosive new legal complaint.

“I decided to become a kidney donor to my boss, and she took my heart,” Debbie Stevens, a 47-year-old divorced mother of two, sobbed to The Post.

“I feel very betrayed. This has been a very hurtful and horrible experience for me. She just took this gift and put it on the ground and kicked it.”

Thank God for “at will” employment law….

Related articles

The ungrateful bastards

The New York Times reports that:

President Obama’s re-election campaign is straining to raise the huge sums it is counting on to run against Mitt Romney, with sharp dropoffs in donations from nearly every major industry forcing it to rely more than ever on small contributions and a relative handful of major donors.

From Wall Street to Hollywood, from doctors and lawyers, the traditional big sources of campaign cash are not delivering for the Obama campaign as they did four years ago. The falloff has left his fund-raising totals running behind where they were at the same point in 2008 — though well ahead of Mr. Romney’s — and has induced growing concern among aides and supporters as they confront the prospect that Republicans and their “super PAC” allies will hold a substantial advantage this fall.

To whom does the Obama campaign turn when the stuffed-pocket crowd has turned its collective back on him?

With big checks no longer flowing as quickly into his campaign, Mr. Obama is leaning harder on his grass-roots supporters, whose small contributions make up well over half of the money he raised through the end of March, according to reports filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission.

As one should have expected after the Supreme Court’s very controversial Citizens United
decision (.pdf), the Republican Super PACs are fat with cash. This has forced the Obama campaign to appeal for funding from the lesser people whose interests he failed to serve during his first term.

Caveat emptor!

Related articles