In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama promised to create 5 million “green jobs” if elected president. However, an analysis by the Institute for Energy Research (IER) finds that since 2009, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) $26 billion loan program created just 2,298 permanent jobs, at a cost of $11.45 million per job created.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/08/Report-Obama-Spent-11-45-Million-Per-Green-Job-Created
On Thursday, April 11, Stuart Varney, the host of Fox’s Varney & Co, agreed with Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, that the three major TV networks were withholding information from the American public that revealed the detrimental effects of ObamaCare. Bozell hurled the charge that the networks are “deliberately censoring news and information from the American people,” then backed it up with substantial evidence. The evidence include the following stories, none of which got even one mention on the networks:
http://ez-qr.com/xa
“What I will concede is that we were looking and the Republicans were looking for a trigger around which to build a mechanism to get us out of default possibility and the sequester was one of the ideas put forward, yes by the president’s team.”
– White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on “Special Report with Bret Baier” on Tuesday talking about automatic, across-the-board cuts to federal spending enacted as part of a 2011 debt-limit deal.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/14/obama-cant-outrun-culture-crisis-helped-create-523665467/#ixzz2KuENF5iB
Everything changed after the election, and it had nothing to do with Obama winning a second term.
For as long as I’ve been aware of the media, I’ve known that I live in a country with a media biased strongly in favor of Democrats. Fair enough. But there were rules in that world; one of them being that once a Democrat was safely elected or reelected, the media would do its job when it came to scandals, and overall accountability.
The White House has informed House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that it will miss the legal deadline for sending a budget to Congress.
Acting Budget Director Jeff Zients told Ryan (R-Wis.) late Friday that the budget will not be delivered by Feb. 4, as required by law, a House aide said.
Dont they realize that the 2nd ammendment is not about hunting? The Founding fathers put that in to protect us agains the Government so if we ever get into a scrap with the Gov I think it would be difficult if we only had handguns. What a dip sh_t
Now, now. Calm down. Yes, I know you voted for Obama, but didn’t you ever stop to think that he’d tax you, too? You didn’t? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Disillusioned Obama voters are waking up to face the reality that Obama didn’t exempt them in his quest to steal money from all Americans to pay for his expanding government. It turns out that those making $30,000 a year will pay more taxes than those making $500,000 because of the deal Obama pushed for after the fiscal cliff debacle. Obama voters, the joke’s on you. Oh, one other little tidbit. The Democrats want to find $1 trillion more in taxes in 2013. The message is sinking in. Here are some tweets from Obama voters: @CZebari22 Damn the taxes killed me. I should have voted Romney @crushonchrissy I’m starting to regret voting for Obama. @gekka_88 I have a friend who voted for Obama publicly complaining about the new #SS tax raise. I would just like to say: You did this to yourself. @VAisforlovas But really how am I ever supposed to pay off my student loans if my already small paycheck keeps getting smaller? Help a sister out, Obama One comment on the liberal site DemocraticUnderground.com. whined:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/08/Obama-Voters-Furious-About-Tax-Hikes
The Obama administration chose to listen to voices suggesting that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was moderate rather than those who warned it would resort to violence if it came to power, cables obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism show. The cables make four things clear about the Muslim Brotherhood’s role in the Egyptian revolution and how the Obama administration failed to address it: •The White House ignored the warnings, then was silent in the wake of intimidation and violence by the Muslim Brotherhood. •Despite broken promises, the White House refuses to cut funds to Morsi’s government. •Religious minorities and women are marginalized by the new constitution, while being threatened by government leaders. •Resentment from pro-democracy groups is growing as White House inaction leads to the rise of an Islamic state.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/01/08/Opposition-Leader-Obama-Administration-Downplayed-Brotherhood-Warnings
Barack Obama saved General Motors with his words—and you paid for it with your money. The Obama administration said the government will sell 40% of its ownership, amounting to 200 million shares, back to GM, and will exit ownership by March 2014.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/20/Taxpayers-Take-Hit-On-GM-Buyback
NEW YORK – In a bizarre case of political correctness run wild, New York educrats banned references to “dinosaurs,” “birthdays,” “Halloween” and dozens of other topics on city-issued tests.
That is because they fear such topics “could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students.”
Dinosaurs, for example, call to mind evolution, which might upset fundamentalists; birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses; and Halloween suggests paganism.
Even “dancing” is taboo, because some sects object. But the city did make an exception for ballet.
The forbidden topics were recently spelled out in a request for proposals provided to companies competing to revamp New York City’s English, math, science and social studies tests given several times a year to measure student progress.
“Some of these topics may be perfectly acceptable in other contexts but do not belong in a city- or state-wide assessment,” the request reads.
Do you think Barrak Obama is a Muslim?
O Yes he is a Muslin
O No he is not a Muslim
O I am not sure
O I do not care
To understand why the AFL-CIO this week endorsed President Obama for re-election, it helps to know that Tyrone Freeman enjoys Cognac — $175 glasses of Cognac, allegedly paid for by the SEIU local he used to run. Freeman’s union also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to companies run by his wife and family.
New, Bush-era federal rules forced unions to be more open about their spending, and brought these facts to light. Soon afterward, the SEIU forced Freeman to resign. Everyone except corrupt union officers ought to support such transparency.
It was just one giveaway of many, which is why the AFL-CIO endorsement was no surprise. For all candidate Obama’s talk of putting the common good above special interests, President Obama has given the union movement handout after handout — at a high cost to taxpayers and the economy.
Within days of taking office, Obama signed an executive order directing agencies to use project labor agreements on their construction projects. PLAs require contractors to sign collective-bargaining agreements before starting work. He also required contractors on stimulus projects to use union work rules and pay union rates. These orders reserved federal jobs for the one-in-seven construction workers who belong to a union. Nonunion workers got left in the cold.
Obama proceeded to staff his Labor Department with union officials. They’ve run the agency at the behest of their former employers — hence the rollback of union transparency. And Obama appointed the SEIU’s lawyer, Craig Becker, directly to the National Labor Relations Board.
The NLRB used to referee disputes between unions and management; Becker transformed it into an agency pushing workers to unionize. And while the NLRB’s drive to close a nonunion Boeing plant in South Carolina got national attention, other outrages escaped much notice.
Under Becker, the NLRB shortened the time for union elections to roughly two weeks. That gives employers little time to explain their side before workers vote. Hearing primarily from unions will make employees more likely to unionize, which is exactly the point.
And he allowed unions to cherry-pick which groups of workers will get to vote on unionizing: Organizers targeting a hospital, for example, could form a union of just registered nurses, excluding nurse practitioners from the vote.
Don’t forget the Detroit bailout. Obama spent far more than GM and Chrysler needed to stay running — his stated goal. In a normal bankruptcy, courts would’ve rewritten union contracts wholesale, junking inefficient work rules and reducing compensation to current workers. Instead, the administration insisted that the United Auto Workers get special treatment.
So the UAW recovered far more of its debts than other creditors, which is how it wound up owning half of Chrysler. And while new hires took large pay cuts, the union boasted “for our active members these tentative changes mean no loss in your base hourly pays, no reduction in your health care, and no reduction in pensions.”
The president decided that taxpayers — most of whom make far less than UAW members — would spend tens of billions of dollars to preserve UAW pay and benefits.
The special treatment extends even to the president’s signature achievement: Unions have also gotten more than half of the waivers from the president’s health-care law.
There’s a larger reason for labor’s love of Obama: The movement has changed dramatically over the past generation.
The AFL-CIO endorsed President John Kennedy’s 1963 tax cut, but now most union members work in government; the Post Office employs twice as many union members as the domestic auto industry. And government unions benefit directly from higher taxes and bigger government — Obama’s solutions to every problem.
It takes a special loyalty to protect union officers who want to hide how they spend members’ money; Obama has given unions that and much more. The AFL-CIO can expect a solid return on the $500 million it plans to spend to re-elect him.
(Reuters) – To be or not to be a tax?
That is the question in this month’s U.S. Supreme Court case testing the validity of President Barack Obama’s controversial healthcare system overhaul.
At issue is the money that Americans will have to pay starting in 2014 to the Internal Revenue Service if they fail to obtain medical insurance.
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama promised not to raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000. That’s the same income bracket where a lot of people lack health insurance.
So, as president, Obama and his aides studiously avoided using the “t-word” as they worked to persuade Congress to pass the healthcare overhaul. Instead, they called it a “penalty.”
Now enacted, the law itself refers to a “penalty” that must be paid if a taxpayer fails to get medical coverage.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a recent congressional hearing that the payment “operates the same way a tax would operate, but it is not per se a tax.”
Just last month, acting White House budget director Jeffrey Zients said in a hearing that it was not a tax.
Now, however, the White House needs to defend the healthcare law in court and things are different.
The Supreme Court starting on March 26 will begin hearing a case on whether Obama’s healthcare overhaul is constitutional.
The administration is arguing the government can make people buy health insurance and charge them if they don’t through its powers to regulate interstate commerce and to tax.
That argument raised some eyebrows and provided a “gotcha” moment for Republican lawmakers when administration lawyers argued in briefs filed before the Supreme Court that the minimum coverage requirement provision operated like a tax.
“The only consequences of failure to maintain minimum coverage are tax consequences,” the administration lawyers argued in the briefs.
How did America become broke and insolvent? How did we build up an unimaginable $115 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities? How did we allow the American Dream to become a nightmare?
All we need do is look at the primary demand the Eurozone and IMF are placing on hopelessly bankrupt Greece to get their new $170 Billion bailout — Greece has agreed to cut 150,000 government employees. Even Cuba’s leader Raul Castro recognizes government employees are at the root of economic destruction, as he is cutting over 2 million of them to save Cuba from bankruptcy.
The truth is that government employees are the true 1%. We have far too many of them (21 million), many of them are paid too much, and their union demands are straining taxpayers to the breaking point.
They have become a privileged class that expects to be treated superior to the taxpayers — the same folks who pay their salaries and pensions. But it is their obscene pensions that are the big problem moving forward for America.
How would you like to retire with $6 million? $8 million? $10 million? All you have to do is become a government employee to hit the jackpot.
You don’t believe me? Do the math.
I recently talked with a retired New York City toll taker. His salary averaged about $70,000 per year over 20 years. But in his last few years he worked loads of overtime and added in accumulated sick days to get his salary in those final years up to $150,000.
His pension is based on his final years’ salary. This is a common pension-padding ploy.
He bragged that he will now get a taxpayer funded pension of $120,000 a year for the rest of his life. He’s only 50 years old.
The average 50-year old male has a life expectancy of almost 80. With automatic cost of living increases, that’s a bill to taxpayers of $5 million for the next 30 years –for not working. THREE TIMES WHAT HE EARNED WHILE WORKING.
And, of course, we’re also paying his medical bills.
No country, no budget, and no taxpayers anywhere in the world can afford this. Ask Greece.
But here’s a frightening question- what if he lives to 90? Or 100? His pension could rise to $8 million or higher.
Multiply this times 21 million government employees (on the federal, state and local level) and you now get a sense of what is bankrupting America.
Are these stories the exception, rather than the rule? Over 77,000 federal government employees earned more than the governor of their state.
On the federal level, it was just reported by USA Today that the average federal civil servant compensation is $123,049 per year.
That’s more than double what private sector workers earn (average of $61,051). Since 2000, federal government employee compensation has grown by 36.9% versus 8.8% for private sector employees.
In Las Vegas (Clark County) the average firefighter earns $199,678 per year.
When he retires at age 45 or 50, we owe his pension based on that obscene salary. But here’s the clincher –when he finally dies, the taxpayer has to continue paying the pension to his spouse. Add up the damage to the economy. It is catastrophic. Talk about a 1 per center — a single firefighter could retire with $8 to $10 million for not working for the rest of his life.
This is madness.
Now it’s true that policemen and firefighters are heroes. But they make up a small portion of government employees.
Recent studies prove the average janitor that works for government makes over $600,000 more in his career than a private sector janitor. Are janitors heroes too?
Again, this is madness.
Three stories on the same day in this past Sunday’s Las Vegas newspapers sum up this national outrage.
Let’s start with the Las Vegas teachers union. It was reported that more than a third of the union’s entire $4.1 million annual budget went to pay just nine union leaders.
The Teachers Union Executive Director received $632,546, while the CEO of the union-created Teachers Health Trust was paid $546,133.
So next time you hear educators scream that we must spend more money on education, because “it’s for the kids,” you’ll know the truth. It’s for the unions.
It’s always been for the unions.
Bernie Madoff has nothing on the government employee union scam.
Article number two in Sunday’s Las Vegas Review Journal was about those highly paid Las Vegas firefighters.
It turns out they weren’t satisfied with making almost $200,000 per year. They also abused sick leave, rigged work schedules to pump up their pensions, and appear to have engaged in widespread disability fraud.
About half of all Clark County firefighters retired with work-related injuries in recent years- garnering bonus payments averaging $320,000 apiece. That’s in addition to their obscene pensions for life.
Is this also “for the kids?”
Article number three in Sunday’s paper was about a now retired Las Vegas homicide detective and possible police brutality. It had nothing to do with pensions. But interestingly, the retired homicide detective they quote in the story is 47 years old.
He’s 47 and already retired?
Want to bet that you and I are on the hook for $5 to $10 million in pension and health benefits from now until the day he dies- for not working. Is this also “for the kids?”
I’ll say it one more time… this is madness.
These aren’t CEO types. These are average government employees retiring with the equivalent of $5 to $10 million. These are the true 1% privileged class that are bankrupting our country and destroying the once great U.S. economy.
Something is very wrong here.
No one has a right to complain about the high incomes of business owners in the private sector (the 1%). We rarely have pensions and our compensation doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime. We risk our own money to start our businesses and often work 16 hour days, weekends and holidays.
Yet for all that risk and hard work, do you know any small business owners who retire with $5 to $10 million? They are few and far between. But that’s exactly what a private sector employee would need in the bank on the day of his or her retirement to match the $100,000 per year pensions (plus health care benefits and cost of living increases) of government employees paid out over 30 to 50 years.
Keep in mind that government employees never risk a dollar of their own money. They have lifetime job security. And they rarely work beyond 9 to 5, let alone weekends or holidays.
Yet government employees are paid millions by taxpayers to retire early, often on pensions fattened by gaming the corrupt system.
They are the true 1%.
This is a national disgrace that is bankrupting America. The gall of this scam would make Bernie Madoff blush.
But hey…”It’s for the kids!”
INDIANAPOLIS – A report released today during national Sunshine Week by the Society of Professional Journalists found that reporters who cover federal government agencies say they face impediments to getting information to the public because of interference from public affairs officers.
An online survey of 146 Washington, D.C.-area reporters in February indicated overwhelming frustration from journalists trying to interview federal employees or get basic information for the public.
Download the full report here.
The survey was conducted by the Freedom of Information Committee of SPJ. Key highlights of the study include:
• Pre-approval: Three-quarters of the working journalists reported that they have to get approval from public affairs officers before interviewing agency employees.
• Prohibition: Two-thirds of reporters said agencies outright prohibit reporters from interviewing agency employees some or most of the time.
• Monitoring: About 84 percent said their interviews have been monitored in person or over the phone by government public information officers. “They sit right next to the person I am interviewing and often times jump in to make a comment or interfere with the conversation,” one respondent stated.
• Censorship: Seven out of 10 reporters agreed with the statement, “I consider government agency controls over who I interview a form of censorship.”
• Public hurt: About 85 percent of the journalists agreed with the statement, “The public is not getting the information it needs because of barriers agencies are imposing on journalists’ reporting practices.”
Carolyn S. Carlson, a former SPJ president and lead author of the study, said the results were alarming. “Reporters in Washington are struggling to give the public an objective view of the federal government, but are running into interference rather than assistance from the very people hired by the government to help them. Public affairs officers need to facilitate media coverage, not interfere or block it,” she said.
SPJ President John Ensslin agreed, saying, “The findings in this report, while not surprising, are a dismaying trend. Government works best when there’s a free flow of information at all levels. The strategy of spokespeople acting as the spigots of that information inevitably backfires by fostering leaks and intrigue instead of the sunshine of full disclosure.”
On a good note, about 70 percent of the surveyed journalists said they had a positive relationship with the public information officers with whom they work, and most reported that officers quickly respond to their queries most of the time.
However, overwhelmingly, comments from the surveyed journalists indicated increasing frustration at what they perceive as efforts by agencies to control the message to the public. “PAOs tend to make up information,” stated one respondent. “You can never trust the information they provide. They make our jobs almost impossible and they treat journalists with barely any professionalism.”
Another respondent: “They act as gatekeepers. And they are very rarely completely helpful or forthcoming.”
The survey was conducted online Jan. 23 through Feb. 24. A sample of 776 journalists identified by SPJ as covering federal agencies were contacted, and 146 responded (19 percent). Most (91 percent) were reporters and worked for wire services (32 percent) or large newspapers (32 percent). The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 7 percent.
The survey was conducted by Carolyn S. Carlson, an assistant professor of communication at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Ga., and David Cuillier, director of the School of Journalism at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz., on behalf of the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee, of which both are members. Carlson is a former national SPJ president. Cuillier is a former chairman of the FOI Committee and is currently secretary-treasurer of SPJ’s national board of directors. They were assisted by Kennesaw journalism student Lindsay Tulkoff.
For more details, see the study report at http://spj.org/pdf/reporters-survey-on-federal-PAOs.pdf. For further information, contact Carlson at ccarls10@kennesaw.edu or Cuillier at cuillier@email.arizona.edu.
Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry; works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists; and protects First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press. For more information about SPJ, please visit www.spj.org.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu to explain how the solar panel manufacturer had qualified for the loan after the ratings firm Fitch had determined the company would make a “highly speculative” investment.
“Fitch describes Abound as lagging in technology relative to its competitors, failing to achieve stated efficiency targets, and expecting that Abound will suffer from increasing commoditization and pricing pressures,” wrote Rep. Darrell Issa, R.-California, the committee chairman. “DOE’s willingness to fund Abound, despite these concerns, calls into question the merits of this loan guarantee.”
Issa’s letter to Chu, dated January 30, came just weeks before the company announced it would lay off 180 of its 400 workers as it tries to retool to produce a more efficient type of solar panel in order to keep a technological edge on Chinese manufacturers who are flooding the market with less expensive models. So far Abound has drawn down $70 million of its $400 million federal loan.
It remains way too early to determine whether Abound is poised to follow the trajectory of the best-known solar manufacturer to receive a sizeable government loan — Solyndra, the California firm that filed for bankruptcy in September after having burned through the bulk of its $535 million federal loan.
Abound’s chief executive, Craig Witsoe, told ABC News he hated “to see politicians [comparing Abound to] Solyndra to score political points.”
“Obviously, any big failure like that, a lot of people don’t know the details of the different technologies,” he said. “Our technology is very, very different from Solyndra. Solyndra didn’t have a competitive, cost-effective technology. Our strategy is to create a most cost-effective solar module.”
U.S. Energy Department officials were also quick to note differences between the two companies, most notably that Abound Solar also had strong backing from Republicans in Indiana who shared the hope that it could be a catalyst for new manufacturing jobs. The state’s GOP governor, Mitch Daniels, even supported an $11.85 million tax credit for the firm. Energy officials also said that two Abound investors were major Republican donors who have given more than $100,000 to Republicans in the last few years.
“The Department’s decisions about Abound were made on the merits,” said Damien LaVera, a DOE spokesman. “Abound is an innovative domestic start-up company with a history of bipartisan support, including from the Governor of Indiana.”
Energy officials also maintain hope that Abound will find its way in a tough solar energy market. “While the challenges facing solar manufacturers have been widely reported,” said LaVera, “we continue to believe that supporting innovative companies like this is important to ensuring our nation has the ability to compete for the clean energy jobs of tomorrow.”
Pattern to Energy Loans?
Issa’s letter, however, suggests that House Republicans believe the DOE loan to Abound Solar follows a troubling pattern. In addition to raising questions about the degree of risk involved in putting taxpayer funds into Abound, Issa also inquires about the company’s political ties to the Obama administration. Namely, Issa notes that a major investor in Abound Solar, the Bohemian Companies, is run by Pat Stryker.
Forbes puts Stryker’s net worth at more than $1.3 billion, and Stryker has donated nearly $500,000 to Democrats in the past five years, including $50,000 to Obama’s inaugural fund and $35,800 to his victory fund, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
A message left at Stryker’s office in Colorado has not been returned.
Energy Department officials reiterated that the decisions made by loan officials were based on the merits, and never on political considerations.
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Two Republican-led House committees have been investigating the Obama administration’s green energy loan program, and to date, no evidence has emerged showing loan recipients used political influence to secure their money.
Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.
A chunk of an $11 million stimulus grant meant to provide low-income Detroit residents with clothing for job interviews reportedly aided just two people — far short of the 400 job-seekers the money was meant to help.
The findings were part of a new audit on the city’s Department of Human Services, according to The Detroit News.
The 2009 grant in question was used to start a service center — which included among other features a call center for families in need and a clothing boutique.
However, the audit reportedly found the department did not safeguard the funding for that boutique, which was run by a contractor. According to the report, the contractor advanced nearly $150,000 to a city clothing store without involving the city government.
While the department was supposed to help 400 job-seekers with clothing between the fall of 2010 and 2011, the boutique instead came up with two documented cases where clients received clothing.
“The potential loss of thousands of dollars exists because controls have not been established for the boutique,” the audit said, according to The Detroit News.
The department reportedly has undergone heavy scrutiny since an internal probe was launched last year
HELENA, Mont. — Two top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee called for a hearing Tuesday to examine a Montana judge’s conduct in forwarding an email that included a racist joke involving bestiality and President Barack Obama’s mother.
Reps. John Conyers of Michigan and Steve Cohen of Tennessee told Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, in their letter that the committee has a duty to investigate the potential consequences of Judge Richard Cebull’s email.
“At a minimum, forwarding this email illustrates poor judgment and of conduct that was unbecoming of a federal judge,” they wrote. “More troubling, however, is the possibility that public disclosure of the judge’s conduct may not only undermine the public’s view of his personal credibility and impartiality as a judge, but also the integrity of the … federal judiciary.”
A hearing would determine whether further investigation or legislative action was needed, they wrote. Congress can remove a federal judge for misconduct by impeachment in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate confirmation, but such action is rare.
Smith had no immediate response to their hearing request.
At least three complaints have been filed with the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals against Cebull regarding the email, which he forwarded to six friends on Feb. 20. One of the complaints was filed by Cebull himself. He asked 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski “to conduct an inquiry as to whether recent activity of mine constitutes misconduct.”
Cebull did not return a message from The Associated Press on Tuesday. He has previously said that he forwarded the email because he disliked Obama and denied allegations of racism. News of the email broke Thursday when it was forwarded to a Great Falls Tribune reporter.
The judge sent Obama a letter of apology Thursday in which he said he accepted responsibility, assured the president that it will never happen again and said he had asked for a judicial review.
“Honestly, I don’t know what else I can do,” Cebull wrote. “Please forgive me and, again, my most sincere apology.”
Cebull was nominated by former President George W. Bush and received his commission in 2001. He has served as chief judge of the District of Montana since 2008.
The two other known complaints have been filed by the good-government advocate, Common Cause, and by the Montana Human Rights Network.
David Madden, the assistant executive for the 9th Circuit, declined to say whether other complaints have been filed, citing confidentiality in the judicial misconduct process. Cebull and the other groups waived confidentiality when they filed their complaints, he said.
“We have acknowledged receiving Judge Cebull’s complaint and announced that the matter will be investigated. That is the extent of what we can say publicly at this time,” Madden said.
The 9th Circuit has the ability to censure or reprimand the judge, order that no new cases be assigned to him for a designated period of time or ask the judge to retire. If the conduct potentially constitutes grounds for impeachment, the 9th circuit could refer the matter to the Judicial Conference of the United States, which oversees the federal court system.
Conyers and Cohen wrote that a legislative inquiry is necessary regardless of the results of the 9th Circuit’s conclusions.
Vote here do you think it was racist? http://forum.goodporkbadpork.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=41
Ronald Ratner is the president and chief executive of Cleveland-based real estate giant Forest City Enterprises. His cousin, Deborah Ratner Salzberg, is the president of the company’s Washington D.C. office. Together, the two bundled between $200,000 and $500,000 for the 2008 Obama campaign. They’ve bundled another $200-500,000 for his reelection campaign as well, as of the fourth quarter of last year.
Since Obama took office, the Ratners have seen millions in taxpayer money funneled to the real estate company at which they are top executives. They are the latest in a long line of Obama supporters who have received taxpayer money, been appointed to federal posts, or enjoyed significant access to administration officials.
Ron Ratner hosted a fundraiser for the 2008 campaign featuring then-Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden. He also hosted Obama at his home for a meeting with Jewish leaders of Ohio.
The fundraisers have continued this election cycle: in September, Ratner again hosted Biden at his home for a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee’s Obama Victory Fund. Tickets to the event cost between $1,000 and $5,000.
Barely two weeks after Ratner hosted Biden for the DNC event, Forest City announced that it had signed a 50-year privatization deal with the Air Force “for the development and management of 2,185 family homes at four U.S. Air Force bases in the Southeast.”
The developments are valued at more than $300 million. Forest City “will also earn an on-going fee,” the company said, though it declined to specify what the fee would be.
The Air Force contract was not the first time Forest City received taxpayer dollars. According to data obtained through USAspending.gov, the company and its subsidiaries have received at least $4.9 million in 40 different federal grants, contracts, and other payments since fiscal year 2010.
The Ratners are not the only high-profile Obama supporters to receive federal money in one form or another. The Center for Public Integrity documented that nearly 200 Obama bundlers had received direct payments from the federal government, access to federal officials, or appointments to key administration positions.
In addition to Forest City’s federal payments, Ron Ratner was also appointed by President Obama to the council of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
A former Justice Department attorney who blew the whistle on his department’s policies is now questioning the promotion of a former defense attorney for an American terrorist to the No. 3 spot at the Justice Department — specifically charged with crafting U.S. policy on Guantanamo detainees.
J. Christian Adams, once an elections lawyer who accused the Justice Department of racial bias in its decision to not prosecute a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party, said Tony West’s promotion from assistant attorney general for the Civil Division to acting associate attorney general is one more step toward letting radicals run the Justice Department.
“The most dangerous thing is that West is overseeing Gitmo policy. It’s not that he’s just some guy at the Justice Department licking envelopes,” Adams told Fox News on Sunday.
Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group, noted that in Holder’s announcement of West’s promotion, he “conveniently omitted” West’s role as the defense attorney for convicted Al Qaeda terrorist John Walker Lindh, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being captured in Afghanistan in 2001 while fighting with the Taliban.
“He actually pleaded guilty to aiding the Taliban and carrying explosives while fighting U.S. troops in the region,” Judicial Watch noted of Lindh.
Adams said not only did West represent Lindh, but his firm was also involved in two other defense cases for terrorists working against the U.S.
“Tony West took on, and his firm, took some of the most radical causes for America’s enemies before coming to the Justice Department,” he said.
“When he took on the representation of John Walker Lindh, even after the sentencing, he was out shilling for him. He said things like … ‘I think he’ll have a lot to offer after he gets out of jail.’ I mean, what is he going to have to offer after when he gets out of jail? How to endear yourself to prominent Democrat lawyers? I mean there’s no reason to be talking like that.”
West has previously defended his work for Lindh, saying, “I fully believe that in working on that case, I was recommitting myself to those principles of due process, fairness — things that separate us from most nations in this world.”
West was promoted a week ago. In the announcement, Attorney General Eric Holder said West and Stuart Delery, who was tapped to fill the spot West is leaving, “bring a wealth of experience to their new positions.”
“I’m confident they will provide invaluable leadership and will play a critical role in furthering the department’s key priorities and fulfilling its traditional missions,” he said.
West, who was a a finance co-chairman in President Obama’s 2008 election, was nominated for his Civil Division post in January 2009 and approved by the Senate in April of that year. Prior to joining the administration, he was a special assistant attorney general in California and a lawyer at a San Francisco firm.
At the Justice Department, West was already responsible for litigating national security cases like habeas corpus petitions brought by detainees at Guantanamo Bay. He also was the top lawyer defending the president’s health care reform legislation against constitutional challenges and leading civil enforcement actions filed after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. His department defends federal officials in lawsuits filed against them.
Adams, who now runs the Election Law Center blog, said in another era, being a defense attorney for America’s enemies would not have qualified someone for a job at the Justice Department.
“It would have disqualified you,” he said. Now, though, many of the very people who worked for detainees at Guantanamo “are in charge of Gitmo policy.”
Holder is expected to deliver remarks on Monday on national security matters and the Obama administration’s counterterrorism efforts
WASHINGTON – Cost estimates for a key part of President Obama’s health care overhaul law have ballooned by $111 billion from last year’s budget, and a senior Republican lawmaker on Friday demanded an explanation.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., wants to know by Monday why the estimated ten-year cost of helping millions of middle-class Americans buy health insurance has jumped by about 30 percent.
Administration officials say the explanation lies in budget technicalities and that there are no significant changes in the program.
The revised numbers, buried deep in the president’s budget, stumped lawmakers and some administration officials for most of the week. At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is in charge of carrying out the health care law, indicated she was unaware of the changes.
At issue are subsidies that will be provided under the health care law to help middle class people buy private coverage in new state insurance markets that will open for business in 2014.
Last year’s budget estimated the cost of the aid to be $367 billion from 2014-2011. This year’s budget puts it at $478 billion over the same time period.
“This staggering increase … cannot be explained by legislative changes or new economic assumptions, and therefore must reflect substantial changes in underlying assumptions regarding the program’s … costs,” Camp wrote Friday in a letter to Sebelius and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
Republicans say they’re concerned that either the estimated cost of the insurance has gone up, or that the administration has determined many more people will be losing employer coverage and going into the new government-subsidized markets, which will be called exchanges.
Administration officials say the big increase from last year’s estimates is no cause for alarm and that the administration is not forecasting an erosion of employer coverage or higher insurance costs.
About two-thirds of the increase is due to effects of newly signed legislation that raises costs for one part of the health care law, but still saves the government money overall. The rest is due to technical changes in Treasury assumptions about such matters as the distribution of income in America.
“The estimates do not assume changes in what exchanges look like, the cost of insurance, or the number of Americans who will get their insurance in this new marketplace,” Treasury spokeswoman Sabrina Siddiqui said in a statement Friday.
That explanation has drawn skepticism from Ways and Means Committee Republican staff members
Remember that eye-popping $110 million bill taxpayers are on the hook for in defending former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac execs since 2004?
The total bill is actually even higher – and the worst part is that, by law, taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay it at all.
Taxpayers have footed the bill for $194.4 million on legal fees to defend former executives like Franklin Raines and the companies themselves over accounting frauds that boosted bonuses and predated the government takeover of the companies, as well as for their role in the housing collapse. And that’s money spent only since the government seized them in 2008.
The new figures come from the office of Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.), whose House oversight subcommittee oversees Fannie and Freddie. The figures are based on confidential government documents FOX Business has reviewed.
Rep. Neugebauer now has a bill cosponsored by Reps. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), Scott Garrett (R-NJ) and three other Congressmen that will attempt to minimize the impact on taxpayers, his office says.
Fannie and Freddie have also spent another $272 million for general legal costs since their government takeover, for things like bringing actions against banks to take back bad mortgage bonds the two had bought, Rep. Neugebauer’s office says.
Veering Towards Half a Billion Dollars
That brings the total Fannie and Freddie have spent on legal costs to $466.4 million since the government took them over through July 2011, “a number that is now rising well above a half a billion dollars, because we are still awaiting a document dump for a year’s worth of data,” says a Congressional official close to the matter.
The controversy raises anew the question whether the government should have restructured them instead by placing the two into receivership, since a bankruptcy trustee would have been legally free to nix these legal fees.
And under the 2008 federal law letting the government seize Fannie and Freddie, the former executives would be prohibited from suing the companies’ bankruptcy estate—they’d have to get in line with other unsecured creditors, and possibly end up with nothing.
“Seems a Little Fishy”
Moreover, Fannie signed agreements with its former executives in 2004 stipulating it would refund their legal fees—well after the companies’ government regulator had launched an investigation into its accounting fraud engineered by these officials. ”It seems a little fishy that we had to renew the contracts in 2004,” Mr. Neugebauer has said.
Taxpayers are paying a virtually open-ended legal bill for an army of lawyers and expert witnesses to defend former Fannie and Freddie executives and their increased compensation, which they got through orchestrating accounting frauds that helped destroy their companies and drove the two into the arms of the U.S. government in September 2008.
Fannie and Freddie execs routinely donated to Congressional campaigns. Countrywide Financial was one of Fannie’s biggest clients, providing about 28% of all the mortgages Fannie guaranteed. Fannie in 1999 backed Countrywide’s “Fast and Easy” program to give buyers loans without proof of their income or assets.
Because of their unlimited pipeline into the U.S. Treasury, taxpayer costs for Fannie and Freddie continue to mount, with Fannie yesterday asking another $4.57 billion, bringing their total taxpayer cost to nearly $190 billion.
The FHFA, the regulator for both, is charged with “minimizing taxpayer losses” at the two. Today, Fannie and Freddie guarantee an estimated three out of every four new mortgages.
“A Feeding Frenzy”
And because of that unlimited Treasury pipeline, the government has created a perverse incentive for outside lawyers for Fannie and Freddie to delay and not settle, and to run up colossal legal bills footed by U.S. taxpayers, says Rep. Neugebauer, with no end in sight.
“This is a feeding frenzy,” Ohio’s attorney general has testified–his state’s public pension system is suing Fannie Mae.
It’s the equivalent of betting against the house, having the house fall down not on you, but on taxpayers–and letting your lawyers charge taxpayers legal fees into infinity to defend you for the collapse you created.
The inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has reported that Fannie and Freddie spent $110 million to defend former executives since 2004.
That includes $37 million shelled out since the government took them over in September 2008—and all of that money was spent on just the three former Fannie execs, an official with the FHFA’s inspector general’s office confirms to FOX Business.
The actual $194.4 million number breaks down to an estimated $159.7 million for Fannie and its execs since September 2008, and an estimated $34.7 million for Freddie and its execs for that time (factor in the $73 million paid for just the executives legal fees since 2004, and the total number rises to $267.4 million).
Fannie did not return calls for comment. Freddie Mac spokesman Michael Cosgrove emailed FOX Business to say such payments are “in accordance with Virginia law and our bylaws and indemnification agreements.”
An Army of Lawyers and Experts
Tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money has been flying out the door for an army of outside lawyers, consultants and troves of expert witness to defend the former executives, and their increased compensation, as well as for things like computer data services.
Fannie and Freddie are also reimbursing lawyers for their copying costs, long distance phone calls, and travel expenses, government documents show.
Based on info from the FHFA, and according to analysis by Rep. Neugebauer’s office, an army of lawyers has racked up an astonishing 159,000 billable hours for just the three former Fannie executives since the government took them over.
There are only 8,760 hours in a year.
That means these lawyers somehow packed in 18 years worth of round the clock work, wall to wall, 24/7 legal work in just four years’ time.
Also, the government lets the former executives’ lawyers bill for charges at every one tenth of an hour (six minutes), says the new report from the inspector general for the FHFA.
A Fannie case “ongoing since 2004 has included over 120 fact depositions, various expert depositions and millions of discovery documents. Unfortunately, no end is in sight,” Rep. Neugebauer says.
Ohio attorney general Michael Dewine notes that, even just for short routine conferences, “where nothing substantive is discussed,” Fannie Mae typically brings a crowd of 35 to 40 attorneys and paralegals, “costing taxpayers over $600 per hour for some of these lawyers.”
For example, Raines’ deposition held in April 2010 “lasted 12 hours, covering two days,” Dewine says, adding that “the Fannie Mae defendants brought 13 lawyers,” including five for Raines, two each for the former CFO and controller, and one for Daniel Mudd, a former Fannie Mae official, “who isn’t even a defendant in the case.”
What did taxpayers get for these 13 lawyers?
“None of these 13 lawyers asked a single question at this particular deposition,” Dewine testified.
Just as bad are the taxpayer-paid for “expert” witnesses hired to defend the former executives against their accounting fraud — and to defend their compensation rigged higher by the frauds.
At one point in the Ohio suit, defendant KPMG had five experts. But the Fannie Mae defendants had “25 experts, costing taxpayers an astounding $600 to $1500 an hour,” Dewine testified.
Moreover, Raines had “nine experts just for himself, including four to say essentially that he fulfilled his job as CEO by properly relying on others,” and “two to say that his $91 million in compensation over five years was justified,” the Ohio attorney general says.
Dewine noted that at a later hearing, the judge on the case said there is absolutely no way that so many experts would actually testify at trial, “admonishing Fannie Mae defendants: ‘so you don’t need to have five experts say the same damn thing…the costs are just staggering.’”
The problem is, the Ohio case has been going on now for over seven years. There are other lawsuits as well, involving even more lawyers.
Dewine has warned: “It’s really easy to hold up the resolution of a lawsuit, when you’ve got a seemingly bottomless coffer of U.S. taxpayer dollars from which to pay your legion of lawyers to engage in wasteful delay tactics.”
Ignoring Efforts to Settle
Dewine noted that, although his office is trying to settle its class action suit, their “efforts, at every turn, have been ignored, with no meaningful conclusion in sight.”
Dewine also has testified that Fannie Mae “is doing everything in its power to delay and stall, all while racking up astronomical legal costs and sticking America’s taxpayers with the bill,” because they continue to use “U.S. taxpayer dollars to pay their highly compensated cadre of lawyers to over-lawyer their indefensible actions.”
The judge on the Ohio class action suit has also commented in court that “I am not so sure the taxpayers are doing pretty well, but the lawyers are doing pretty well in this deal.”
Shangri-La for Lawyers
And the Ohio attorney general has noted: “If, what Supreme Court Justice David Brewer once said is true — that ‘America is the paradise of lawyers’ — then counsel for Fannie Mae, Raines, Howard, and Spencer have found Shangri-La!”
Dewine notes that in his experience, “98% of all securities cases reach a conclusion in far less time — and with far less cost,” adding that even a similar June 2003 securities fraud class action case against Freddie Mac “was resolved in a little under three years.”
The bottom line, as Judge Leon put it, is this: “The more this litigation is protracted and prolonged, the greater the risk that..pensioners and the shareholders will not have as much or will have markedly less and the taxpayers will be out millions and millions and tens and tens of millions of dollars for legal fees that can’t be recouped.”
Taxpayers Still Kept in the Dark
And after all these payments are shelled out by taxpayers, Fannie and Freddie still must abide by the executives “attorney client privileges.”
Meaning, the lawyers don’t have to disclose any further evidence they uncover that the executives knowingly and willingly broke the law–and thus broke the companies’ indemnification standards.
Here’s What Happened
In 2006, the federal government found that Fannie’s former head, Raines, and two other executives put their own personal interests ahead of Fannie’s when they engineered a $10.6 billion accounting fraud to manipulate earnings, and their bonuses, higher over a six-year period, from 1998 to 2006. The moves smoothed Fannie’s earnings so as to hit Wall Street earnings targets.
Freddie, too, was found to have manipulated its profit figures from 2000 to 2002; the company later revised its results by $5 billion.
Raines and the executives could not be reached for comment.
That fraud resulted in Fannie Mae overstating reported income and capital by an estimated $10.6 billion, said the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise and Oversight, Fannie and Freddie’s federal overseer at the time, in a May 2006 report. The fraud triggered a restatement and losses.
Fannie Mae admitted its wrongdoing in May 2006, when it paid a record $400 million total to the SEC and OFHEO for violating more than two dozen generally accepted accounting principles and a variety of OFHEO rules, among other things.
Former OFHEO head James Lockhart described Fannie as having an “arrogant and unethical corporate culture where Fannie Mae employees manipulated accounting and earnings” which in turn “maximized the bonuses” for Raines, which totaled over $90 million from 1998 through 2003. Of Raines’ total, “over $52 million was directly tied to achieving earnings per share targets,” OFHEO said.
Neither Admit Nor Deny = Refunded Legal Fees
However, the trio neither admitted nor denied the charges—which means taxpayers have to keep on paying. “They did not admit to offenses that would have cost them their indemnification,” Edward J. DeMarco, Acting Director Federal Housing Finance Agency, testified last year.
It is standard practice for executives to settle cases neither admitting nor denying culpability, although the SEC is now trying to curtail this practice.
In addition, the executives got their total settlement fines of $31 million covered by Fannie’s insurance policies, and paid via forfeiture of stock options, pension and bonuses, among other things.
Taxpayers Foot Fannie’s Legal Bills for Housing Collapse
And taxpayers are now footing the legal bills for class action and other law suits, legal fights between Fannie and its auditor KPMG, as well as government investigations that are nearly a decade old, including probes by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the FBI, and other Congressional probes.
Taxpayers are also footing legal bills to defend the Fannie and Freddie for their outsized role in the housing crisis—where they took on an estimated $1.7 trillion in high risk mortgages.
The two are now stuck with trillions of dollars in mortgages and securities, including fraudulent liar loans and fraudulent subprime liar’s loans, which they took on so as “to increase profits and regain market share,” guaranteeing even fatter bonuses and more fatal losses, noted Armando Falcon, Lockhart’s successor at OFHEO.
Both of their balance sheets combined now total $5.4 trillion—equal to the gross domestic product of Germany and the United Kingdom–combined.
Paying Cash Advances, Too
Moreover, both Fannie and Freddie are paying cash advances to former executives to cover their legal fees ahead of time with little oversight—which means they face “no expense in just running up the tab for the U.S. taxpayers,” says Rep. Neugebauer.
Moreover, Fannie’s board sped up the time of that payment, a deadline of just 20 days for executives like Raines to get their taxpayer funded cash advances. Freddie, too, pays after 45 days time.
This practice, too, is causing taxpayer costs to soar.
Moreover, the FHFA has not independently certified whether the internal systems that Fannie and Freddie use to pay these cash advances for legal bills protect taxpayers, government documents show.
On Feb. 29, 2008, Fannie Mae’s board adopted a policy allowing for the advancement of cash to current and former board directors and executives for these costs.
The board suddenly decided that, if an executive was in compliance with its indemnification standards, “Fannie Mae will pay to directors and officers expenses incurred in advance of the final disposition of a proceeding,” an internal company document says.
Fannie didn’t return calls asking how the board determined Raines and the execs were “in compliance” with these standards.
Also, all Raines and the executives have to do is send a letter of request to Fannie’s general counsel, which is then supposedly put to a vote by the board.
And in a confidential, internal document, Freddie’s bylaws prohibit payment of legal fees if an employee “knowingly engaged in certain conduct and knowingly or recklessly caused a substantial loss to Freddie Mac or a substantial pecuniary gain or other benefit.”
It goes on to say that any employee “who has engaged in misconduct resulting in a loss to Freddie Mac or who has improperly received benefits as a result of such misconduct” may be subject to “legal action by Freddie Mac for restitution or reimbursement.”
Frannie and Its Regulator Say “We Have to Pay”
But instead of minimizing taxpayer losses–as the FHFA is charged with doing–by fighting to void these legal fees, Fannie and Freddie now argue, along with the FHFA, that their options are limited; that court cases enforcing payment for legal bills take precedent; that the executives could sue them and win; and that they need to keep paying these fees to keep existing employees on staff and attract skilled workers.
Cosgrove adds that “if FHFA or we were to cut off these payments, the officers could sue us to enforce their rights to such payments, which could subject us to additional costs.”
However, efforts to save taxpayers money are spotty. Fannie merely questions bills if more than one lawyer attends, says the FHFA IG, while Freddie does not.
Taxpayers Should Not Have to Pay
Trouble is, the 2008 federal law sanctioning their government takeover and even the companies’ own bylaws let the two repudiate these legal fees if their executives act against the companies’ best interests, engage in intentional misconduct or breach their duty of loyalty to their companies.
The inspector general for the FHFA also noted that the FHFA could have voided these legal fees under the 2008 law authorizing their government takeover.
An outside law firm has confirmed these findings, noting that the FHFA “has express statutory authority to repudiate or disaffirm” the refunding of these legal fees, which come as part of what are called standard, corporate indemnification agreements.
Nothing to Lose By Nixing These Fees
However, an outside law firm which has reviewed the contractual agreements says the government should take a shot at this and not pay, because if it lost, taxpayers would only have to pay their legal fees anyway if Raines and the other executives turn around and sue for breach of contract.
That’s because under a worst case scenario, in the 2008 law letting the government seize Fannie and Freddie, the law says the government would only have to pay the legal fees.
The 2008 law says the costs “should not exceed what the FHFA would have paid if it had continued to pay the former employees’ legal fees under the indemnification agreements.”
The 2008 law also says the damages would only equal “actual direct compensatory damages,” not punitive damages, damages for lost profits or pain and suffering.
Meaning, “the former executives’ incurred legal fees and expenses” the government would have paid in the first place if it didn’t try to void them, the legal analysis shows.
And taxpayer costs for a lawsuit nixing these legal fees would be low, since the FHFA could use its own legal staff, and not a phalanx of outside lawyers.
Fannie’s Legal Fees Contravene SEC Order
And Fannie’s payment of these legal fees for the 2004 accounting fraud contravenes a consent order it entered into with the SEC earlier last decade when it settled its accounting charges.
According to FOX Business’s review of its SEC consent order, Fannie Mae agreed to “not take any action or to make or permit to be made any public statement denying, directly or indirectly, any allegation in the [SEC’s] complaint or creating the impression the [SEC’s] complaint is without factual basis.”
However, by continuing to pay to defend these executives, Fannie Mae is doing just that, as its lawyers are “dragging out” litigation “billable hour by billable hour — and bleeding Americans,” Ohio Attorney General Dewine has testified to Congress last year.
Why the Sudden Indemnification?
Executives can get indemnification “only if the officers and directors were acting within the scope of their authorities, the FHFA IG’s report says.
Is securities fraud and cooking the books “in the scope of their authorities?”
Plus Fannie mysteriously, and suddenly, offered its executives indemnification well after the government had started probing its accounting fraud.
Another internal Fannie Mae document that Raines signed on Nov. 12, 2004 entitled “undertaking to repay indemnification expenses” noted that he agreed to reimburse Fannie Mae “for all expenses paid” by Fannie for his defense in any civil or criminal action if it’s determined he is “not entitled” to be indemnified.
The indemnification sets for “rights” AND “obligations” of these executives in order to be “indemnified.”
The document notes they must act “in good faith and in a manner he or she reasonably believed to be in or not opposed to Fannie Mae’s best interests.”
Being involved in an accounting fraud is not acting in the best interests of any company.
Also, according to their bylaws, payment of legal bills must be “reasonable” expenses.
Are 40 lawyers and paralegals for one short courtroom conference, and a phalanx of experts defending fat cat pay rigged by accounting frauds “reasonable”?
Savage is responsible for the disgusting Google bomb that pops up when you search the word “Santorum.” Enraged by Santorum’s social conservatism, in 2003, Savage created a contest to define Santorum’s name – and the winner was “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes a byproduct of anal sex.” Savage even bought a website to optimize the term on search engines. “If Rick Santorum wants to make a $5 million donation to [the gay marriage group] Freedom to Marry, I will take it down. Interest starts accruing now.” The Freedom to Marry group endorsed Savage’s actions. Mr. Tolerance also told Bill Maher “I wish the Republicans were all f—ing dead.”
So now Savage has a new campaign. This one, you’ve likely heard of: the It Gets Better Project. It asks people to take a pledge: “Everyone deserves to be respected for who they are [except, obviously, religious conservatives and others who disagree with Dan Savage]. I pledge to spread this message to my friends, family and neighbors. I’ll speak up against hate and intolerance whenever I see it, at school and at work [but not against Republicans]. I’ll provide hope for lesbian, gay, bi, trans and other bullied teens by letting them know that ‘It Gets Better.’”
So, guess who’s made videos for “It Gets Better”? You guessed it: President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, among other Obama Administration personalities. According to Brian Bond of the White House, President Obama united in support of a project started by a man who writes smears his political opponents with fecal matter because “President Obama is committed to ending bullying, harassment and discrimination in all its forms.” He could start by telling the founder of It Gets Better to stop bullying, harassing, and discriminating against those who disagree with him.
But that’s not the purpose of the It Gets Better campaign anyway. It’s not about bullying of gay kids, which everyone agrees is wrong and needs to stop (as bullying of all kids should). The purpose is to browbeat anyone who disagrees with same-sex marriage, or thinks that the gay agenda isn’t good for America. That’s why Savage, a bully if ever there was one, is heading up the project. And that’s why Obama and Co. are supporting it, even as the founder of the project continues to hold Rick Santorum’s name and reputation hostage.
In January and February of this year, the Internal Revenue Service began sending out letters to various local Tea Parties across the country. Mailed from the same Cincinnati, Ohio IRS office, these letters have reached Tea Parties in Virginia, Hawaii, Ohio, and Texas (we are hearing of more daily). There are several common threads to these letters: all are requesting more information from these independent Tea Parties in regard to their nonprofit 501(c)(4) applications (for this type of nonprofit, donations are not deductible). While some of the requests are reasonable, much of them are strikingly onerous and, dare I say, Orwellian in nature.
What are local Tea Partiers to think with requests like “Please identify your volunteers” or “are there board members or officers who have run or will run for office (including relatives)”? What possible reason would the IRS have for Tea Parties to “name your donors” when said donations are non-deductible? These are just a few of the questions asked by the IRS in these letters, and one cannot help but suspect an intrinsic threat encompassing all these demands.
The other question is the timing of these IRS letters requesting reams of copies and hundreds of hours of work and potentially thousands of dollars in accounting/legal fees (all due in two weeks). Some of these Tea Party groups have not received anything concerning their nonprofit status since 2010 prior to these letters.
These documents are further undermined by a letter sent to the IRS Commissioner Shulman. Signed by six Senators, it requests that the commissioner investigate 501(c)(4) groups to determine whether they are engaging in substantial campaign activity, including opposition to any candidate. Who signed this letter? Senators Schumer, Franken, Udall, Shaheen, Whitehouse, Merkley and Bennet — all Democrats.
Could it be that these Senators want the IRS to investigate the nonprofit status of Media Matters and its coordinated political activity with the White House? Or perhaps they are concerned with nonprofit ACORN groups’ record of voter fraud, and other previous campaign abuses including alleged close ties with President Obama’s Project Vote? No, when these Senators sent this letter to the IRS commissioner, the message would be very clear. The 501(c)(4) groups they want investigated are not those with Democratic liberal ties.
But why would a department like the IRS cave to Democrat demands? Could it be because this Democratic administration proposed a budget earlier this month that would result in “$1.1 billion in new funds for the Internal Revenue Service… that would translate to 5,112 new hires, or a 5 percent expansion of enforcement operations”? Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, couldn’t contain her glee at the prospect of over 5,000 new union hires, exclaiming in response to the announcement that “the administration’s 2012 funding level for the IRS would permit the agency to improve services through increasing response rates to inquiries, deploying enforcement resources to what the White House called high-return integrity activities and by modernizing information technology systems.”
The IRS is already focusing on “deploying enforcement resources,” as Kelley put it, toward targeting small, local Tea Parties; we’re sorry to report that these “high-return integrity activities” are generating a higher fear factor, not necessarily higher returns.
In the near future, the Affordable Healthcare Act mandate and all things related to healthcare are to be policed and enforced by the IRS. This means thousands more IRS agents will be added, but the actual number is yet unknown. Considering that healthcare accounts for 1/6th of the U.S. economy, it will probably be a significant number of additional agents. According to the tax administration inspector general, Russell George, “The new Affordable Care Act provisions represents the largest set of tax law changes in 20 years.” That’s an overwhelming thought considering there are over 70,000 pages of federal tax code.
The Tea Party movement is well known for wanting to shrink the size of government and decrease government spending because of the ballooning deficit. This means that unionized government employees that may be out of a job if the Tea Party is successful also have the power to choose whether or not Tea Party groups get nonprofit status. And those same employees are also requesting names and information of board members, volunteers, donors, invited speakers(and party affiliation) and just about anyone that has had any association with the Tea Party.
It is apparent that there is a potential conflict of interest and it could be used to stifle the right to free speech of the Tea Party members, or any other citizen willing to question the system and powers that be.
Many Tea Party boards are afraid to speak out publicly about these intrusive requests because of fear of being personally targeted and singled out by the IRS. This is especially scary to citizens of modest incomes that don’t have the financial means to hire accountants or tax attorneys. And that is probably the point. Cower and fade away, or face possible persecution at the hands of government bureaucrats.
Some people may read this article about this possibly-coordinated effort against Tea Parties and be glad. But, the tables can easily be turned if and when another party takes control. The potential of using the IRS as a weapon against those that disagree with the people in power is exactly why the Tea Party fears the growth of government.
If your Tea Party has received similar letters, please let me know (Colleen Owens, citizenczar@gmail.com) and I will put you in contact with other Tea Parties that have also received them. I will not publish your Tea Party or names publicly.
Remember the words of Ben Franklin, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
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