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2/8/10: PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR RELIEF
Action Page: CIGNA Refuses to Cover Brain Tumor Removal
"In 2008, about $510 million was spent on virtual goods...last year the amount almost doubled"
"The global warming movement as we have known it is dead,"
"The public, including NRC employees, can use the tool to easily share ideas and comments"
"Duke has already found contaminated groundwater near its ash ponds"
"We do not believe...that you will ever have any meaningful bipartisan support"
"And he says that it’s still the people...who make change"
"In the United States, bribery is legal and it's terrifying"
"The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site is finished"
"when you remove accountability for risky behavior you encourage it"
"every EPA publication on the subject was ghostwritten by the American Coal Ash Association"
"The money is the bait; the waiver is the hook"
"Rep. Alan Grayson is trying something new: saying pretty much whatever he feels like"
"dirty coal is not only unsustainable...it is also extremely deadly to human life"
"Americans will be out on the streets fighting for rat meat"
"mountaintop-removal coal mining destroys streams and threatens human health"
"mining companies are looking again to exploit Navajo lands - and their workers"
"More Vietnam veterans committed suicide after the war than were killed during it"
"mandatory arbitration is closing the courthouse doors to far more people"
"The cash balance plan lawsuit...will be going to trial"
"the greatest obstacle to reducing cancer deaths is lack of health insurance"
"The payment is part of a $93 million settlement with Duke Energy over clean air violations"
"Duke will pay a $1.75 million civil penalty"
- Frank & Ernest Attend a Benefits Meeting -
- Christmas Will Never be the Same -
"Retirement Party"
"It is the responsibility of Congress to reopen the courthouse doors"
"The President looks back to the bipartisan Patient's Bill of Rights"
"The insurance industry will be able to write the rules"
"At issue is how public companies report stock options and stock awards"
"Congress has the power to stop that escalation"
"What if climate change were not real?"
"After 40 years in Congress...he is not about to quit asking questions now"
"Ten of those are Duke's"
"groundwater samples repeatedly broke state safety standards"
"Who wants a tombstone made of coal?"
"Last year, Wal-Mart paid $640 million to settle 63...class-action wage-and-hour lawsuits"
"it wasn’t that the Fed was asleep at the switch; they were actually complicit"
"I recently put a hold on the renomination of Ben Bernanke"
"Strengthens the case for utilities to continue to use coal"
"lobbyist pay the politicians to say these things"
"the middle class in this country is collapsing"
"Duke Energy has recently detected tainted groundwater near its basins"
"Duke effectively avoided the requirement to clean up their toxic pollution"
"particularly if they have decent retirement benefits and retire relatively early"
"State Street concealed the fraud by deliberately failing to include time stamp data"
"Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. talks about how a few large banks managed to tank our economy"
"CEO of CIGNA...brought home a total of $120 million over the past five years"
The co-pay went from $27,000 to $101,000
"bound by both the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and the Internal Revenue code"
"The ugly truth, though, is that the 401(k) is a lousy idea, a financial flop, a rotten repository"
"They'd been stripped of their...pensions and told to make due with a...'cash balance' plan"
"School officials in Delaware have zero tolerance for eating utensils"
"Duke Energy has spent more than $10 million to lobby Congress since 2008"
"Duke acknowledges that the groundwater...was contaminated above state standards"
"44,000 American die every year due for lack of health coverage"
"The video shows Beck sitting for a still camera, making crying faces"
"We do not have the best heath care in the world, only the most expensive"
"a CEO is actually between a doctor and the patient"
"a senator...suggested using a rocket ship to shoot the waste into the sun"
"If that health insurance is good enough for...Congress…it’s good enough for everybody"
"Yucca Mountain project is about to be canned"
"We won't stand idle while...Halliburtion, Duke, and Enron rape our world for profit"
"Where did he come from and why does he have this job?"
"Jim Rogers said none are planned"
"That's a bald-faced lie, Senator. And you're a bald-faced liar"
"Only about 1 to 3 percent of us are sociopaths"
"When she learned about drastic changes in IBM's pension plan…she lost faith in the company"
"2009 Citizen of the Carolinas"
"Republicans seem off balance now that they have lost their talent for hypocrisy"
"There are a lot of unfair, often illegal things going on in the workplace"
"Nothing will change...until the moneylenders are tossed out of the temple"
Bill Moyers Journal Video
"It falls to Congress to undo the damage"
"Positively identifying the man was complicated because he had more than one ID on him"
"Carbon capture is perhaps the worst possible economic investment"
"The 2009 Duke Energy Employee Opinion Survey is available to take"
"Torture and abuse is really a failure of leadership"
"The boys running the show at Blue Cross in North Carolina are running scared"
"Our labor law system is broken"
"The money IBM stole went to boost profits and to grease the pockets of...executives"
"There is usually one shareholder to provide comic relief"
"corporations...have paid Luntz tens of millions of dollars to craft their messages"
"In return, the lobbyist wanted the lawmaker to kill a bill that the lawmaker had sponsored"
"increased cancer risks from drinking water polluted by coal-ash impoundments"
"The future is clean energy, wind, solar and energy efficiency"
"The utilities are carving out exceptions for coal plants"
"Nearly 44 million workers are at risk of not being paid the benefits they are due"
"Harrison, a former employee of the United Way in Charlotte, pleaded guilty"
"she's the target of a federal criminal probe"
"It's important for people to understand that in a democracy, there will be a full investigation"
"The result was a horrific stew of pain, degradation and ... suffering"
"With the crowd chanting 'Arrest Jim Rogers' "
"Several hundred people participated in a peaceful protest on Monday"
"Concerned locals are taking a stand against mountaintop removal"
"Please don’t take away my laser plane…it’s all I have left"
"Deregulation benefits the people at the top. They get...rich doing stuff that might otherwise be illegal"
"This type of support shouldn't come as much of a surprise"
"Ever wonder why the South remains the nation’s poorest region...?"
"Don't get the President angry"
"Give us the health benefits we earned and paid for over decades of loyal service"
"a layoff is admitting that its management was incapable of building a working team"
"The system...might work for the powerful...But I don't. I work for the American people"
"The real war was never reported to the American public"
"Is he going to do this for four years?"
"big cuts in programs for the elderly"
"What troubles me is that a lot of the company changes came when times were good"
"When jobless claims are blocked, employers save money"
"residents are responsible for making sure they are being charged the correct rate"
"The ruling paves the way for a new trial on most of the charges"
Video
"Duke Energy is the nations's third largest consumer of coal from mountaintop removal"
"The major goal of AARP was never to be an altruist lobbying group for senior citizens"
"Reinstate...workers with full back pay with all wages lost, plus compounded interest"
"Investigations have shown fraud incidence of 50% at (once) major subprime lenders"
From the Pension Rights Center
"Many had repeatedly cycled through the system despite a history of violence"
"In the name of the war against terrorism, public freedoms registered an unprecedented decline"
"At least 50 daily papers have switched from backing Bush in 2004 to supporting Obama"
"McHenry often confuses 'putting our country first' with 'putting our wallets first' "
"Sen. McCain unveils his new strategies on Weekend Update"
"Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin (Fey) address the Nation on QVC"
"McCain has the other guys beat, in years"
"I can't say that she would be a genius in the job"
"McCain approves truth-enhanced negative campaign messages"
"The most cringe-worthy political moment of the day"
"The nastiest, most misleading, negative ad of the campaign"
"The military had used psychiatric evaluations to discredit and stifle whistleblowers before"
"Companies 'dishonestly screw millions of older workers' out of pension monies"
"Lawmakers' retirement benefits start earlier and accrue faster"
"Hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the...status quo"
"Keating, now 84, once wrote to McCain that 'I'm yours till death do us part' "
"More than 100 daily newspapers have endorsed Obama this year"
"Bush offering an unwanted endorsement for the McCain-Palin ticket"
"I haven't left the Republican Party. It left me"
"McCain has stooped to using the very tactics that G. W. Bush used on him in 2000"
"McCain was unwise to have her on the ticket...unwise not to veto this appearance"
"McCain's fake populism is thankfully being relegated to irrelevance"
"Joe the Plumber...his 'imaginary friend' "
"McCain would make Bush's 'temporary' tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans permanent"
"I'm an Alaskan, not an American"
"Those people who have caused the problem…should pick up the tab"
"Tina Fey as Sarah Palin in VP Debate"
"John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis"
"A not so subtle reminder about the all too serious issue of voter fraud"
"I reject the underlying premise that we needed this bill"
- He Was For Deregulation Before He Was Against It -
"Tina Fey and Amy Poehler spoof the Palin/Couric interview"
- Animated Cartoon Clip -
"McCain worked to kill legislation that would have opened...POW/MIA files"
"The Pentagon had been withholding significant information from POW families for years"
"End the 'anything goes' culture on Wall Street…crack down on lobbyists"
"From Saturday night's season premiere"
"McCain used his position as a senator to help his wife avoid being searched by customs"
"Lies and phony outrage and swift-boat politics"
"Benefits consultants have cautioned insiders to keep quiet"
"I’m 70 years old and I’ve lived through being a prisoner of war; I’m going to tell it like it is"
"Now is the time...that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses"
"Carbon fuels industry – big oil and coal – have a 50-year lease on the Republican Party"
"The union says they have documents, including recordings"
"Up with guaranteed retirement benefits"
"No way. No how. No McCain"
"Hear discussions about buying fake ID’s, circumventing ICE, and how many illegals are employed."
"He barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of...800"
"Senator - you declared victory in Iraq, five years and nearly three months ago"
"Duke Energy is still facing an antitrust lawsuit in U.S. District Court"
"3 million have lost their pension"
"Union members make almost 30 percent more than their nonunion counterparts"
"Could result in a lawsuit against the plan"
"The old reverse Robin Hood -- watch out for your pension fund"
"Duke Energy informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the test was halted"
"The campaign to Send Karl Rove to Jail just won a major victory this morning"
"You can't call it a broken system because it was a bad one from the start"
" 'Simply put, this is theft. This is illegal,' said chairman George Miller"
"Liliana Segura Talks"
"The case for war was based on fraud"
"If the vice president did nothing wrong, what is there to hide?"
"You can't appease these people, so why try?"
"McCain said most of the nation’s economic problems are “psychological”"
"A 61-year-old librarian was ejected from an ostensibly public McCain campaign event"
"Drifting away from the leadership he promised and into the focus-group-tested calculation"
"The law has been used by employers as a shield against suits"
"Take that American flag off your lapel and replace it with...the Exxon or Chevron logo"
"Bush made a terrible mistake today"
"Bush will seek to comfort victims of his presidency"
"We won't stand idle while...Halliburtion, Duke, and Enron rape our world for profit"
"The most infuriating part of the ordeal was the supervisors' cavalier responses"
"Bush’s latest ratings are 24 percent positive and fully 75 percent negative"
"It would be a 'novelty' to have an 'intelligent' person in the White House"
"It has become a cliché to say that we live in a new Gilded Age."
"This is a war you, and the President you support...conned this nation into"
"This president is a liar. A shameless bold-face liar"
"We used to have a better...term for 'message discipline.' We called it "stonewalling"
"Airbus was awarded a contract that will cost American taxpayers jobs and money"
"The nation is on the verge of becoming a full-blown corporate state"
"Never before seen footage of a Young Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama"
"Obama promises his first act will be overturning the abuses of the Bush Administration"
"There is no way that a pilot would give up an airplane to hijackers"
- “Loser” Lieberman Rides Again -
"You are being paid as if you are superhuman...but you are not"
"Anyone owning at least $2,000 of company stock may file a shareholder resolution"
"The US Supreme Court embraced an expansive view of certain civil rights laws"
"To lash out at Obama for being right is demonstrably ridiculous"
"A must-see Monty Python mash-up"
"Bush relied on 'propaganda' to sell the war"
"I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot"
"Impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did"
"CEOs can't lose, mainly because they take the bulk of their pay in stock"
"Is she the Dead Parrot? Or is she the Black Knight?"
"Most party leaders in Washington are stupid"
"Any Republicans close to the him will suffer"
"Terrorism inside Iraq is your creation, Mr. Bush!"
"The loss has already shaken establishment Republicans in Washington"
"Cash-balance conversions"
"A statistically significant association between autism risk and distance from the mercury source"
"The recession of 2001 never ended"
"The disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt"
"This is your baby. Go do it."
"These lawsuits represent the employees' only hopes for restoring...losses caused by the unlawful wearaway"
"Only 27 percent are happy with his job on the economy"
"An expert report...was recently served on Duke Energy"
"Duke has previously lobbied to legalize its cash balance plan"
"New calculations will reduce lump-sum distributions"
"Setting up an unregulated subsidiary…to make payments to opponents of a rate increase"
"An all day Duke Energy Cash Balance hearing was held"
"What if all the ratepayers used Duke’s methods in paying their obligations?"
"It may even go down in history as the world’s worst rate increase attempt!"
"It’s as if the foxes had been picking other foxes to guard the henhouse."
"Video of a kid doing a funny scene"
"Do you recall N. C. Sen. David Hoyle’s quest to reduce workers compensation benefits?"
"I'm just working to pay a light bill"
"Potential to corrupt the criminal justice system in the Western District of North Carolina"
"On July 12, a motion for partial summary judgment was filed on behalf of employees"
"I guess I'll die explaining how the things that they complain about, Are things they could be changin'"
"Drug companies had a deep hand in steering the Medicare prescription drug bill"
"I guess we should be pleased that the Kennedy assassination happened in Dallas!"
"What coal, nuclear and...ethanol all have in common...powerful corporations control them"
"Duke is trying to suit up for both teams"
"The Court also chose not to hear Saville v. IBM, 06-407, a retaliation case"
"Next to be decided will be the motion for class certification."
"He negotiated a $210 million retirement package on his way out!"
"Cash balance plans are not age-neutral."
"All time jerk Jeffery Skilling will begin his 24-year sentence next month"
"Michael Whalen is a former Cinergy, which is now Duke Energy, trader."
"UMass Memorial Medical Center employees rejected a pension freeze and a 401 (k)"
"There is just no money to pay asbestosis claims, now run along and play in traffic"
"Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Transfer"
"Duke Energy’s motion for a change of venue"
"Duke Energy is once again allowing some employees to volunteer to be laid off"
"The harmful agenda shared by the administration and Duke"
"Ruth Shaw will get $25,000 a month for three years for consulting for two years."
"Yours is the least competent government, in time of crisis, in this country's history!"
"I will be damned if you can get away with calling me the equivalent of a Nazi appeaser"
"Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet's First Amendment"
"Christian leaders…described as ridiculous, out of control, and just plain goofy"
"If you leave, you can't come back"
"He was ‘creeped out by it’…there was a lot of ‘fawning, petting and touching’ "
"I'm very concerned they're trying to shift all the risk to the rate payers"
"Instant Messaging To Victory"
"I guess this is God trying to make up for half of what I lost at BHP"
"Republican leaders put their own political interests ahead of the safety of congressional pages"
"You want to preserve a political party's power. And...you'll sell this country out, to do it."
"Our investigation looks at the collision of political and ethical decision-making in Washington"
"Boehner…said he was informed of the e-mail messages earlier this year"
"This cheating…of older workers was accomplished by…cash balance pension plans"
"The miniscule changes are hardly worth calling an enhancement"
"This will allow tens of thousands of employees potentially to sue...for age discrimination"
"We have many more enemies bent on our destruction than before our invasion of Iraq"
"If the pension plan were to be disqualified, the results would be potentially nuclear"
"Duke Energy...made about $59,000 in political contributions to NC legislators"
"The employees were cleaning coal ash out of a boiler"
"They want us to sell our cars, our houses, go to food banks"
"Sometimes a company's obligation for a single executive's pension approaches $100 million"
"Teresa Ghilarducci, Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame"
"Single-party rule must come to an end"
"Most workers…get lower…benefits when…employers switch…to cash-balance plans"
"Boehner, fought hard for basically lifting the ban, and won"
"Boehner-tried mightily but failed to retroactively legalize cash-balance conversions"
"It even permits sleight-of-hand accounting"
"The defendants have been so resistant to producing these tapes"
"Mr. Lowery taught him the right way to do it: hand over the envelope in the hallway "
"It also contains harmful provisions that allow plans to break pension promises"
"Allows Cuts In Vested Benefits, Undermines Pension Plans"
"Finally, a Duke Power employee shot miner Lawrence Jones in the face"
"It represents a further step in reducing the degree of transparency and democracy"
"We called those people criminals. Here we call them legislators"
"If the corporate lobbyists want it, Dole and Burr try to deliver it"
"We can't vote for this kind of stuff"
"The fallout continues from...trying to become another Enron."
" 'Saving storage space' does have a better ring to it than 'destroying potential evidence.' "
"The very next day, Boehner declared that the bill was all but dead"
"Duke Energy employees can now seek pension justice without taking any financial risk."
"Any legal fees will not come out of the pension refunds"
"The corporations were charged in 2004 with issuing false and misleading statements."
- Watch as Bush Explains the Intricacies of Immigration -
"Two corporations in a row have wanted Paul Anderson back."
"It makes me sick as to how the Duke Energy employees are getting shafted"
"Why not convert your own pensions into cash balance schemes?"
"Pensions are not a gift from employers. Workers earn their pensions"
"I am so angry with Elizabeth Dole I can't see straight"
"Xerox owes the employees between $35 million and $50 million."
"Evidently, executives do not like to have their pensions taken away either."
"If they are not raiding the pension fund, they are cooking the books"
"Duke Energy is trying to cripple the Cinergy unions from day one."
"The laid off employees were the replacement vendors!"
"The North Carolina Utilities Commission should block the merger"
"Telephone Number: (919) 733-7300"
"Why has no corporation ever started a cash balance plan from scratch?"
"Securities and Exchange Commission form 8-K"
"Only a fool would choose the cash balance plan."
"Paul Anderson is a pension plunder perpetrator perpetuator"
"Cinergy employees have said that they are blessed with three labor unions"
"The lawsuit...resembles a landmark discrimination and pension suit against IBM"
"$258,000 under the old plan…under the new plan…$129,000"
"Duke Energy committed age discrimination and violated pension laws"
"Duke's cash-balance plan harmed older workers in violation of federal laws"
"I can assure you, it ain't a trivial lawsuit."
"Duke Energy executives tried to pretend that there were no complaints about the...conversion"
"She heads the compensation committee of the Wachovia board"
"John Boehner parrot’s the exact words of corporate pension lobbyists."
"The public has no interest in playing bait-and-switch games to try to save a few pennies"
"The executives at Duke Power should be hijacked by pirates and given shock treatments"
"Duke will keep 84 percent of the total savings"
"Who is better qualified to exploit every possible legal maneuver than an ex-judge?"
"Cash balance age discrimination charges against Duke Energy are still open"
"There were no protections for early retirees."
"An interesting point is that Tom Sun was never fired or suspended from his job."
"I think that I shall never see A power pole lovely as a tree."
"Cinergy employees will keep their benefits, at least for a while"
"The IBM cash balance conversion discriminated against older workers."
"S984 is...so bad that it cannot be salvaged."
"How nice it is to have big brothers in high places"
"Why do executives...begrudge employees the pensions...they have already earned?"
"Even the insurance, called 'finite risk,' has proven to be controversial."
"Will he truly be happy if people say 'Duke is not as scandalous as it used to be'?"
"The Bank of America pension plan may have violated the IRS anti-cutback rule"
"The US Supreme Court hinted that it might revive a price-fixing lawsuit"
"She started off with true statements to lure in the gullible and uniformed."
- The Great Nest Egg Robberies -
"PNC reduced my benefit to a lump-sum just slightly in excess of $12,000. I feel cheated."
"Cheaper does not necessarily mean better."
"Elizabeth Verdin, 89, froze to death after Duke Power cut off her electricity"
"Employees need to retain an attorney the very day they start work."
"The law doesn't allow companies to cut benefits retroactively."
"A cash balance plan is like being in the middle of the ocean - in a rubber raft"
"Well, Priory was wrong"
"For many employees, a cash balance conversion effectively terminates their pension"
"A vote for a corporate lapdog is a vote for no pension."
"Cash balance plans are age discriminatory"
"The bin Laden Family Had US Guardians"
"Additional pension benefits of $67 million dollars will be paid."
"Ms. Shaw stated that executives feel the Duke criticism personally."
"But employees at...AT&T and Duke Energy, are still fighting to save their...pensions."
"[T]hey were instructed not to discuss their allegations...faced federal prison if they did"
"Mr. Padewer was always talking about his ´Rules For The Road.´ "
"[E]mployment-at-will relationships have fallen into disfavor"
"[W]orkers expressed concern about the nuclear industry influencing regulations."
"Companies...showing possible Death Star activity included Duke Energy and Williams Cos."
"If the plans were not illegal to start with, why would they need to be legalized now?"
"She calculated that I.B.M.´s pension changes would cost her $400,000."
"Winston retired…with…$400,000, compared with the $181,00…cash balance"
"These defendants conspired with the other defendants…reporting false information"
"We´re in a death spiral for energy trading"
"Coley approved a move…reclassified expenses would not reduce bonus programs"
"Fighting broke out only after an out-of-state worker...pulled a gun"
"American workers should be fighting mad right about now."
"Former convicts say many illusions are broken the first day."
"IG estimated that workers are being underpaid between $85 million and $199 million annually"
"The NRC also is...taking into account for the first time a possible suicide attack by a large aircraft"
Duke Energy, Dynegy, and Reliant Resources Admit to Round -Trip Trading
"State officials say the casks may be vulnerable to terrorist attack."
"Many voters said their votes didn´t count or they were turned away from poll"
"Study ties utilities to future dirty air deaths."
"This is a process and a plan with a lot of questions that need to be answered."
Hot particles from Ohio found in SC, VA, TX, a home, a hotel, and a Duke plant!
Casualties from a worst-case scenario would dwarf those of the WTC.
Harvey Padewer had a one-on-one meeting with the energy secretary.
The industry is hoping the trips to caverns and casinos will help secure Congress´ approval.
"The NRC has admitted that even a crash at the auxiliary electrical or cooling
facilities could trigger a core meltdown." - U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."