Around the time republican Michigan governor Rick Snyder replaced democracy in certain areas of Michigan, with emergency managers beholden to no one but Rick Snyder and when those managers then turned around and poisoned the drinking water for tens of thousands of Americans, another republican scam was underway.
It started with Snyder’s Midas program. Replacing the human workers that used to process unemployment claims by laid-off workers and replacing those jobs with a new system called Midas:
The system, known as the Michigan Integrated Data Automated System (Midas), caused an immediate spike in claims of fraud when it was implemented in October 2013 under the state’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, at a cost of $47m.
Here is the report:
posted by Ryan Felton | December 18, 2016
A Michigan government agency wrongly accused individuals in at least 20,000 cases of fraudulently seeking unemployment payments, according to a review by the state.
The review released this week found that an automated system had erroneously accused claimants in 93% of cases – a rate that stunned even lawyers suing the state over the computer system and faulty fraud claims.
“It’s literally balancing the books on the backs of Michigan’s poorest and jobless,” attorney David Blanchard, who is pursuing a class action in federal court on behalf of several claimants, told the Guardian on Friday.
The Michigan unemployment insurance agency (UIA) reviewed 22,427 cases in which an automated computer system determined a claimant had committed insurance fraud, after federal officials, including the Michigan congressman Sander Levin, raised concerns with the system.
— emphasis added
So after scaring the shit out of people into paying fines when they’re out of work and vulnerable, taking away their tax refunds, and other threats..
“We had just a number of clients who were so desperate, saying that they were going to lose their house … they’ve never been unemployed before, they didn’t know,” said Gray, who filed a complaint with the US labor department in 2015 about the Midas system.
The fines can be enormous. Residents interviewed by local news outlets have highlighted fraud penalties from the UIA upwards of $100,000. Bankruptcy petitions filed as a result of unemployment insurance fraud also increased during the time frame when Midas was in use.
...With many people unaware that they could appeal the fraudulent accusation because of the way the Midas system operates, the unemployment fund looked like this:
But the republican racketeering didn’t end there. The republicans saw fit to help themselves to the unemployment funds
Paul Egan , Detroit Free Press 4:56 a.m. EST December 15, 2016
LANSING — A bill headed to Gov. Rick Snyder's desk transfers $10 million in "surplus" unemployment insurance funds to help balance the state budget at the same time thousands of Michigan residents are claiming millions of dollars in benefits and penalties were unlawfully taken from them after the state wrongly accused them of unemployment insurance fraud.
During their lame duck session, lawmakers gave final passage Tuesday to Senate Bill 1008, shifting $10 million to the state's general fund from the unemployment insurance contingent fund.
Looks like representative Sander Levin (D) won’t be accepting any republican excuses that it was all just a computer glitch..
U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak, and U-M law professor Steven Gray, who is director of the university's Unemployment Insurance Clinic, say the state's review of fraud determinations between 2013 and 2015 has not gone far enough.
They say the state needs to review about 30,000 additional cases in which Michigan claimants were determined to have committed fraud, but in which there may have been some involvement by agency staff and contact with the claimant — not solely an automated finding by a computer.
But on a more positive note, some news out today…
by ELIZABETH CHUCK | December 20, 2016
Four more officials were charged Tuesday in connection with the Flint, Michigan, water crisis that resulted in a surge of lead poisoning among children.
Two former Michigan state emergency managers, Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose, face multiple 20-year felonies for failing to protect Flint citizens from health hazards caused by the contaminated drinking water, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced. Former city of Flint executives Howard Croft and Daugherty Johnson also face felony charges.
Listening to various Democratic officials in this Rachel Maddow report, it looks like the investigation is building momentum and there is a good chance it may work its way into the governors office before it ends.
Here is Rachel Maddow & team’s report on both the republican unemployment fraud and the cases against the perpetrators of the poisoned water program
Rachel Maddow reports on two Michigan emergency managers charged in the Flint water crisis with each facing over 40 years in prison, bringing to 13 the number of people charged in the crisis as the investigation continues.
— emphasis added
p.s. I’ve been using the term ‘crime syndicate’ to describe the GOP for awhile now. Some legal expert may, again, call me on this as an exaggeration, perhaps because, in some cases no actual laws were directly applicable.
My answer remains the same; What these thugs have deliberately done to hurt people and will do to others is wrong. Whether they cleverly work around laws or not, they are still thugs and they will remain a crime syndicate in every way that matters — imo — and there are too few republican governors that I can name that don’t richly deserve the hard prison time that governor Snyder looks like he’s earned and heading for this time
— Kudos to all the hard working people, advocates, and everyone that have fought and resisted the hurtful oppression by the republicans, and continue to stand strong