St. Paul, Minn. — Hatch says his audit found that Healthpartners executives and several board members received numerous executive perks. For example, he says the company paid for several country club memberships for former CEO George Halvorson, who left the company last year.

He also says company officials engaged in unnecessary travel to places like Australia, Chile and Brazil. The trips include one Halvorson took to Australia to attend a seminar on how high health care costs were affecting consumers.

“Is this really relevant to what’s going on in this state?” Hatch asks. “We now have patients who have to be shipped on mental illness issues to places like Des Moines, Duluth, Sioux Falls. Shouldn’t we be directing our attention to the problems in regard to treatment in this state?”

Hatch doesn’t allege any criminal violations of the $2 billion company, which has 675,000 enrollees. 2001

Oh, come on give the other Michelle some credit.

Earlier this summer, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) waged a high-profile, wildly-dishonest campaign against the Census. The Minnesota congresswoman said she was so worried about the threat of the government asking “very intricate questions” and collecting information that she would illegally refuse to fill out the form. “They will be in charge of going door to door and collecting data from the American public,” she said. “This is very concerning.” She repeatedly used inflammatory and fear-mongering rhetoric against the Census:

– “I think there is a point when you say enough is enough to government intrusion.” [6/25/09]

– “If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the census bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations, at the request of President Roosevelt, and that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps.” [6/25/09]

“You will receive approximately six contacts from them [Census workers], either through phone calls or they will knock on your door. If you still do not give them the information, they said they’ll contact your neighbor to the left of you, to the right of you to get information.” [6/25/09]

Check it out.

http://civilliberty.about.com/od/waronterror/p/torturelite.htm

What’s in my wallet? About forty bucks and a few credit cards, and some other odd and ends. What’s in yours ZNOFOB? Let us know when people stop accepting those green things in your wallet for food and other necessities, and then maybe I’ll start listening about how “bankrupt” this country is.