Groundhog Day Coming On Bastille Day!

     From a press release:

House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) announced today that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing entitled “Social Security’s Solvency Challenge: Status of the Social Security Trust Funds.” The hearing will focus on the status of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Federal Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds and the effects of delaying action to address Social Security’s future insolvency. The hearing will take place on Friday, July 14, 2017 in 2020 Rayburn House Office Building, beginning at 9:00 AM.

     I say groundhog day because Republicans on the Social Security Subcommittee schedule one of these hearings every year. It's their annual opportunity to warn that Social Security is running out of money. Their solution for the threat of future benefit cuts is to start cutting benefits right now. Any other solution, such as removing the cap on wages covered by the F.I.C.A. tax, is unacceptable since we can't burden the wealthy, excuse me, "job creators."

Big Backlogs In Florida

     From "ClickOrlando" which is apparently what some television station chooses to call its website:

According to the Florida Disability Benefits Center, 65 percent of the [Social Security disability] applications they receive are initially denied. And in the state of Florida, it can take anywhere from one to two years to get a disability hearing, and even longer to get a decision. ...

According to the FDBC website, it can take anywhere from 376 to 682 days to obtain a disability hearing. It will take an additional 45 to 90 days to receive a decision on the disability claim. ...

In the Orlando, office, which serves the Kissimmee, Lake Mary, Leesburg, Ocala and Orlando field offices, the average processing time is 502 days. In the Fort Lauderdale ODAR office, it takes an average of 376 days to schedule a disability hearing before an administrative law judge. In the Fort Myers office, the wait is 11 months. In the St. Petersburg office, it's 13 months. And the Tampa office is 682 days. ...

So we took our research one step further and searched the Social Security Administration data on average wait times until a hearing is held. According to their records, for the month of May 2017, here's how the averages break down. The shortest wait time is 14 months in Fort Myers. While the longest wait time is 23 months or 699 days for the Miami office. ...

Former Social Security Employee Sentenced

     From the Chicago Sun-Times:

A former employee of the Social Security Administration in Chicago was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday for a fraud scheme in which he authorized more than $1.9 million in benefits. 

Jayson Cruz, 41, pleaded guilty last year to one count of wire fraud, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. 

Cruz was a former benefits authorizer at the Social Security Administration in Chicago, prosecutors said. Between 2009 and 2013, he ayuthorized fraudulent payments to more than 150 people, causing the Social Security Administration to pay $1,908,290 in fraudulent benefits. ...

A Felony Charge? Seriously?

     From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Federal authorities have charged a mentally ill man with felony destruction of government property after he allegedly threw a rock through a large window of the U.S. Social Security Administration office in Kenner, causing nearly $1,500 in damage four months ago.

Bobby Joseph Hammond, 38, was charged in a bill of information filed Monday (July 3) in New Orleans' federal court by acting U.S. Attorney Duane Evans' office. The felony is punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both.

Family Members Plead Guilty To Social Security Fraud

     From the Dallas Morning News:

Some Arlington family members who got a free ride from the government for years by faking mental disabilities have admitted to committing an extensive ruse.

Doreen Mitchell, 54, and her cousin, John Mitchell, 60, as well as her two sons, Michael Mitchell, 31, and Sonny Mitchell, 28, have agreed to plead guilty to the scheme in federal court in Dallas, court records show.

The family members helped one another fake mental disabilities for years to collect more than $460,000 in benefits from the government, prosecutors said. They were arrested in 2015 after suspicious agents secretly followed them to expose their well-rehearsed hoax against the Social Security Administration.

The agents found them dressed normally and engaging in routine daily activities such as driving, shopping and socializing in large groups, court records said.

But all four “misrepresented their actual levels of intelligence and functioning” during interviews and examinations with Social Security employees, authorities said, including claims that some of them talked with ghosts. ...

Doreen Mitchell first applied for disability benefits in 1979 when she was 15 years old, “alleging visual and auditory hallucinations,” court records said. She claimed she suffered from schizophrenia and other conditions.

She once attended an SSA exam wearing a dirty nightgown and “mumbled unintelligibly to herself,” according to court records. She told investigators that she could not read or write. ...

Federal investigators suspected Doreen Mitchell was faking mental illness in 2004, and her benefits were stopped. She appealed that decision in 2005.

At the hearing, she appeared to talk with her dead father. But the hearing officer noted that “her auditory hallucinations ... appeared to be an act,” and her appeal was denied. ...

     I don't know anything about the evidence here. I do know that it's virtually impossible to get a Social Security disability claim approved on psychiatric grounds for someone who isn't in psychiatric treatment at least off and on. I say off and on because some of the most severely impaired individuals can't manage to stay in regular treatment. That's one of the signs of how severe their impairment is. However those folks also tend to end up in psychiatric hospitals on involuntary commitments. Faking impairment for one consultative examination is one thing. Faking it for visit after visit to a mental health provider is another. Getting yourself hospitalized for phony psychiatric problems is nearly inconceivable. It's hard to imagine many people trying to do any of this much less successfully pulling it off.
     I wonder if there was gilding of the lily going on here -- people who had genuinely severe mental impairments who added an overlay of phoniness on top of real mental illness. That seems more likely to me than completely factitious disorders.
     The key thing is that you don't get on Social Security disability merely by showing up for one consultative examination and acting like you think a crazy person would act. If you're not involved with the program, you may think it's that easy but it's not.

An Official Answer On The Trump Photo Question

     From the Gainesville Times:

Why aren’t President Donald Trump’s and Vice President Mike Pence’s photos on the wall at the Social Security Administration office in Gainesville? 

The Government Publishing Office, which makes copies of the official photos, said it hasn’t received official photos of Trump and Pence yet from the White House.

“The Social Security Administration has not received the president’s official portrait from the Government Publishing Office,” Patti Patterson, regional communications director for the Social Security Administration, wrote in an email. “When the agency receives the portraits, we will distribute them to all Social Security offices nationwide to display.”

“GPO is standing by to reproduce copies of the president and the vice president’s photos for official use in federal facilities, and will do so as soon as the official photo files are provided to us,” Gary Somerset, chief public relations officer for the Government Publishing Office, wrote in an email. “I do not have a timeline on when GPO may receive those files from the White House.”

Somerset added that any photo at a federal facility now isn’t the official photo. ...

Happy Independence Day!

Does This Seem Right To You?

     From the Modesto Bee:

A 33-year-old Modesto man on Monday was sentenced to eight years and nine months in federal prison for assaulting a security guard at a Social Security Administration office in downtown Fresno.

Matthew Faron Blair on October 14, 2014, went to the Fresno office to try to collect his Supplemental Security Income benefits, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento.

Federal prosecutors said Blair became agitated when he was told his social security benefits had stopped but could be renewed by completing additional paperwork.

A security guard was called to escort Blair out of the office. As he was ushered out, Blair assaulted the guard, according to the prosecutors.

The guard suffered injuries on his head and his mouth, which required medical treatment. Authorities have said Blair punched the guard in the mouth and on the top of his head. Blair ran away but was captured in Stockton 12 days later.

     I've got no problem with active jail time for this guy but eight years, nine months? That sounds grossly excessive to me. It wasn't an assault with a deadly weapon. Medical treatment was required but this article doesn't suggest that the injuries were serious. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have gotten anything like this sentence if the case had been handled in a California state court under California state law.

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/news/article158298654.html#storylink=cpy

89 Year Old Man Arrested For Social Security Fraud

     From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

An 89-year-old Philadelphia man who escaped from a Maryland prison 47 years ago and was arrested in Philadelphia in March was charged by federal authorities Tuesday with Social Security fraud.

William Lewis is accused of collecting $457,771.20 in retirement benefits to which he was not entitled from about January 1991 to March 2017, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

According to an indictment returned by a grand jury Tuesday, Lewis was not allowed to receive benefits because he was a fugitive from the law, having escaped from a Maryland prison in 1970. The Social Security Administration has suspended or denied benefits to people wanted for, among other things, escape from custody.

Authorities said he was also receiving Social Security benefits under a false name. In October 1971, Lewis applied for a second Social Security number under the alias of James Wilson, listing a false date of birth and false names of parents, the indictment says. ...

Off Topic: Some Holiday Reading On Trump-Russia

     If you have trouble understanding the whole Trump-Russia connection, I really recommend you read this New Yorker article by Jane Mayer on Robert Mercer. You probably haven't heard his name before but you will. 

     The Russians influenced the presidential election by the aggressive use of social media to spread lies about Hillary Clinton. The big question is how did Russia know what lies to spread and where and how to spread them? That would seem to require detailed knowledge about the U.S. electorate. How would they know what lies to spread and who to spread it to? How would Russia come by that knowledge?

     It's clear from this article that Robert Mercer, a reclusive, sinister, oddball billionaire, paid vast sums of money to Cambridge Analytica to collect incredibly detailed knowledge about the U.S. electorate and how lies could be used to affect the Presidential election. It is exactly the sort of information Russia would have needed. Mercer was well aware of how lies and disinformation could be used to influence public debate since he is the money man behind Breitbart News.
     It should be said that Mercer probably didn't think any of it was lies. He has all sorts of weird beliefs about Hillary Clinton and is eager to use his money to share his weird beliefs with the world.
     By the way, Cambridge Analytica worked on the successful campaign to promote Brexit. Russia also favored Brexit.

     Ms. Mayer is not accusing Mercer of giving Cambridge Analytica data to Russia or knowing it was given. However, it's hard to believe that Russia didn't get the data one way or another. I don't know how Russia's involvement in the election could have been effective otherwise.

     In case you're not familiar with the New Yorker, it has a reputation for the most obsessive fact checking of any publication anywhere.