Shakedown: Health Insurance Industry Official Says Companies Being Pressured To Contribute Funds To Implement Obamacare… Chicago-style. Via The Hill: The links between a nonprofit promoting President Obama’s healthcare law and the White House have created an “air of expectation” that insurers will contribute to the group, according to an insurance industry official. Current and former administration officials have taken on leadership and fundraising roles for Enroll America, a nonprofit aiming to make sure people sign up for new coverage options. As the ties grow deeper, the organization has come to feel like “just an arm of the administration,” said one official who works closely with insurers. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has already come under fire from congressional Republicans because she has raised money for the organization. They say it puts inappropriate pressure on insurers, who will need the department’s approval to sell their products through a federally run insurance exchange in more than half the country. “Companies and organizations should never be pressured for money because it sends the message that contributions are necessary to secure favorable regulatory decisions — creating a ‘pay to play’ environment — or to avoid regulatory reprisals,” Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee said in a recent letter to Sebelius. Enroll America was created by some of the Affordable Care Act’s most ardent supporters, with a newly targeted mission of promoting enrollment in the law’s new insurance exchanges.
Shocker: Obama Donor/IRS Director Sat In On And Monitored IG’s Interviews Of Employees Talk about chilling…didn’t they try this same tactic with witnesses on Benghazi? Via Breitbart: On Wednesday, House hearings on the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) political targeting of conservative groups uncovered a startling revelation about the interview process used to construct the Inspector General’s report: Obama donor-turned-IRS director of tax exempt organizations Holly Paz sat in on 36 of 41 interviews with IRS employees. “Why was Holly Paz… in almost all of the interviews you conducted?” asked Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC). “Why would you have someone from the IRS in those meetings? Is that proper protocol?” “I am unaware of it,” said Inspector General J. Russell George. “This is the first I’ve heard this.” George then requested time to research the revelation. “This is the first time that I was made aware of this,” said George. George then clarified he and his agency performed an audit, not an investigation. “The operative word, Mr. Chairman, is audit,” said George. “It was not conducted as an investigation.” Still, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) seemed unsettled that Paz was allowed to sit in on the IG’s interviews of IRS employees. “Usually when you are conducting an investigation—I know this was an audit, I got that—you want to keep your witnesses separate because you’re in search of the truth and you are trying to make sure there’s no advantage of a person hearing what somebody else said,” said Cummings. “That’s pretty standard procedure.” George ultimately conceded to Cummings that, “in hindsight, given this matter, obviously this seems somewhat unusual. I need to do a little more research.” Cummings pressed on, suggesting that Paz’s reason for sitting in on interviews may have been to protect herself or the IRS. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/24/Revealed-Obama-Donor-Sat-In-On-IG-Interviews-With-IRS-Employees
Lerner intrigue goes back to ’96 Durbin/Salvi U.S. Senate race Home - by Cardigan - May 30, 2013 - 23:15 America/New_York - 6 Comments Illinois Review CHICAGO – The IRS scandal may have its roots in Illinois politics. Specifically, the 1996 U.S. Senate race between Democrat Congressman Dick Durbin and conservative Republican State Rep. Al Salvi. More than a decade before his 2010 letter to IRS officials urging the agency to target conservative organizations, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin’s political career crossed paths with Ms. Lerner when she was head of the Enforcement Division of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and directly involved in the 1996 Illinois U.S. Senate race. Al Salvi, Dick Durbin, Lois Lerner | Salvi photo source: Cal Skinner Soon after the IRS story broke, Al Salvi told Illinois Review that it was IRS official Lois Lerner who represented the FEC in the 1996 Democrat complaint against him. According to Salvi, Lerner was, without question, politically motivated, and went so far as to make him an offer: ”Promise me you will never run for office again, and we’ll drop this case.” Salvi declined her offer. In fact he ran for Illinois Secretary of State in 1998. But when he saw Lerner plead the Fifth Amendment before Congress last week, he recognized her. ”That’s the woman,” Salvi said. “And I didn’t plead the Fifth like she did.” In 2000, a federal judge dismissed the FEC case against him, clearing Salvi’s name and reputation. Now with the revelations about Lerner, the IRS, and the intriguing connection to Durbin, Salvi shared with Illinois Review his experience with Lois Lerner. http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2013/05/lerner-intrigue-goes-back-to-96-durbinsalvi-us-senate-race.html
It is time for a "flush" in Washington. Evict every single person in office and ban them from politics for life. Then start again with a fres slate.
Former Obama Aides Cashing In Public servants… Via Washington Post: The decision on whether to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline is a political headache for President Obama. But to five of his former aides, it represents a business opportunity. Four of them — Bill Burton, Stephanie Cutter, Jim Papa and Paul Tewes — work as consultants for opponents of the project, which would carry heavy crude oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries. Another, former White House communications director Anita Dunn, counts the project’s sponsor, TransCanada, among the clients of her communications firm. Keystone XL is just one of several upcoming administration decisions providing lucrative work for former Obama advisers on issues ranging from gun control to mining to legalized gambling. Just this week, three of Obama’s top former political advisers —Robert Gibbs, Jim Messina and David Plouffe — were given five-figure checks to deliver remarks at a forum in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, which is in the midst of a campaign to burnish its image in Washington. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-obamas-ex-aides-its-time-to-cash-in-on-experience/2013/05/30/a649ccde-c867-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html?hpid=z1
PRISM Scandal: Tech Giants Say NSA Tapped Their Servers Without Their Knowledge… Not sure what to believe here, at best the firms are trying to cover their asses, at worst (and this would be very, very, very bad) the Obama administration allowed the NSA to secretly tap the servers that run the internet. Via Guardian: Two different versions of the PRISM scandal were emerging on Thursday with Silicon Valley executives denying all knowledge of the top secret program that gives the National Security Agency direct access to the internet giants’ servers. The eavesdropping program is detailed in the form of PowerPoint slides in a leaked NSA document, seen and authenticated by the Guardian, which states that it is based on “legally-compelled collection” but operates with the “assistance of communications providers in the US.” Each of the 41 slides in the document displays prominently the corporate logos of the tech companies claimed to be taking part in PRISM. However, senior executives from the internet companies expressed surprise and shock and insisted that no direct access to servers had been offered to any government agency. The top-secret NSA briefing presentation set out details of the PRISM program, which it said granted access to records such as emails, chat conversations, voice calls, documents and more. The presentation the listed dates when document collection began for each company, and said PRISM enabled “direct access from the servers of these US service providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple”. Senior officials with knowledge of the situation within the tech giants admitted to being confused by the NSA revelations, and said if such data collection was taking place, it was without companies’ knowledge. An Apple spokesman said: “We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers and any agency requesting customer data must get a court order,” he said. Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer, said it did not provide government organisation with direct access to Facebook servers. ”When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinise any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law.” A Google spokesman also said it did not provide officials with access to its servers. “Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘backdoor’ into our systems, but Google does not have a ‘back door’ for the government to access private user data.” Microsoft said it only turned over data when served with a court order: “We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don’t participate in it.” A Yahoo spokesman said: “Yahoo! takes users’ privacy very seriously. We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/prism-tech-giants-shock-nsa-data-mining
Number Of U.S. Households On Food Stamps Hits Yet Another All-Time High, More Than 23 Million… Cost to the taxpayers, $6,340,839,766 per month. Via Zero Hedge: Yesterday, briefly, we were confused by the eruption in the stock market following a not too bad sub-200K nonfarm payrolls number. Because we know that in the New Normal bad is always good, no matter what the well-coifed TV pundit du jour tells you. Then we remembered that yesterday is when the USDA releases its monthly Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program data, i.e. Americans on Foodstamps. It was here that the ramp was perfectly explained, because while the bad (for stocks of course) data was that individual foodstamps recipients rose by 170K in March – if just a whisker below all time highs – it was the number of American households on foodstamps, which rose to a new all time high of 23,116,441 (each collecting an average of $274.30 per month) that perfectly explained the Dow Jones’ 200 point surge higher: the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle-classes to the 1% continues without a hiccup. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-08/american-households-foodstamps-climb-new-record
Senators slam EPA for leaking farmers’ personal data to environmentalists A bipartisan group of senators is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to answer for leaking the personal data of about 80,000 farmers and ranchers to left-wing environmental groups. “The EPA’s disclosure of personal information is not the first time sensitive data has been leaked to outside organizations under the Obama administration,” said South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune. Thune joined a bipartisan group of senators in sending a letter to acting EPA administrator Bob Perciasepe, asking the agency to answer for its actions. In April, the EPA admitted to leaking farmers and ranchers’ personal data to environmentalists, and has since redacted some of the sensitive records and asked environmental groups to return the released documents to the agency. Senators slammed the agency, sending a letter in April criticizing the agency’s actions and questioning whether or not the EPA had violated the Privacy Act. However, Thune said the EPA has yet to respond to issues raised in the first letter he and other senators sent to the agency. “These leaks provide further evidence of the growing credibility gap between the Obama administration and the American public,” Thune added. “This troubling pattern of unauthorized release of government-obtained personal information is unacceptable political intimidation. Americans deserve transparency and accountability.” The EPA leaked personal data — including names, personal addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses — as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request made by the groups Earth Justice, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pew Charitable Trust. According to Fox News, Pew returned the information to the EPA. However, the EPA said that much of the information was already publicly available on state databases, on federal and state permits, or is required to be released by federal and state law. The agency still redacted information from 10 of the 29 states that had personal data. “It is inexcusable for the EPA to release the personal information of American families and then call for it back, knowing full well that the erroneously released information will never be fully returned,” said Thune in a statement to FoxNews.com. The EPA did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/06/senators-slam-epa-for-leaking-farmers-personal-data-to-environmentalists/#ixzz2VleaAt9a
Friday Afternoon News Dump: Obama Rewards Top Campaign Fundraisers With Ambassadorships… More cronyism. Via The Hill: President Obama named some of the major financial backers of his 2012 reelection campaign to top European ambassadorships on Friday, ahead of his trip to Northern Ireland for next week’s G8 summit. The White House said that Obama had named John Emerson as the next ambassador to Germany. According to the president’s campaign, Emerson raised at least half a million dollars last year for the president’s reelection effort, topping the between $100,000 and $200,000 he netted for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Obama has also nominated Rufus Gifford, a former finance director for the Democratic National Committee and finance director of his reelection campaign, as the next ambassador to Denmark. Gifford also served as a major fundraiser for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign and the chairman of the president’s inaugural committee. Gifford joins the relatively small ranks of openly gay men to be appointed a U.S. ambassador. The president also appointed James Costos, an openly gay executive at HBO, as the next American representative to Spain. Costos gave $67,000 to support the president and Democratic National Committee during last year’s race, according to the Federal Election Commission.
I guess the ambassadors to the mid-East were RNC fundraisers? Oops, guess my file at the NSA and DOJ just got thicker.
That last one-off was actually only half tongue in cheek. Throughout my career I have had background investigations through the XXX and XXX (three letter organizations) to determine my fitness for clearances and reliability programs. One of the positions with my current company is for an NSA data center, which would require an NSA background check. The files from these background checks are SUPPOSED to be of a transient nature, in which the final result is recorded but the supporting documentation is destroyed. The revelations of the privacy intrusions and semi-permanent nature of these records raises concerns not only of historical investigations and where that information resides and how it is used, but also the nature of future investigations and what is "unrelated" information can now be collected without effort and used. For instance, will NSA (and other three-letter organizations) investigations for clearance become fodder for the current winds that blow in the nation's political climate? Although I have never posted anything that was not publicly available, could searches through thick databases reveal "concerns" with how information is shared, even if it is through publicly available news stories and associated commentary? These latest revelations of should scare everyone, not only those that think they have something to hide, because EVERYONE can become a target to SOMEONE in our government as soon as administrations change. The final result is the repressing of information sharing and "unpopular" idea development, which is EXACTLY what the Revolutionary War was fought for, on a log scale.
:roll: We've been told NOT to teach about the Revolutionary War any more. It's not even part of our state standards for teaching U.S. History...
AP CEO: Obama Regime Succeeded In Muzzling Government Sources From Talking After DOJ Seized Their Phone Records… The MSM would be going ballistic over this if we had a Republican in the White House. Via BuzzFeed: The CEO of the Associated Press told an audience Wednesday that the Department of Justice has succeeded in muzzling government employees from talking to AP reporters in the weeks since the seizure of AP phone records was revealed. “What I learned from our journalists should alarm everyone in this room and I think should alarm everyone in this country. The actions of the DOJ against AP are already having an impact beyond the specifics of this particular case,” AP CEO Gary Pruitt told an audience at the National Press Club. “Some of our longtime trusted sources have become nervous and anxious about talking to us, even about stories that aren’t about national security. In some cases, government employees that we once checked in with regularly will no longer speak to us by phone, and some are reluctant to meet in person.” After it was made public that the Justice Department took AP Washington bureau phone records as part of the Obama administration’s aggressive anti-leak operation, Pruitt said the fear among potential sources has spread to reporters from other outlets. “I can tell you that this chilling effect is not just at AP, it’s happening at other news organizations as well,” he said. “Journalists from other news organizations have personally told me it has intimidated sources from speaking to them.” http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/ap-ceo-details-chilling-effect-after-dept-of-justice-seized
IRS Chief’s Top Aide Visited Obama White House Over 300 Times… Nothing to see here folks, move along. Via Washington Examiner: While congressional lawmakers are questioning why former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman paid dozens of visits to the White House during his tenure, Shulman’s top political aide seems to have spent even more time working side-by-side with members of the Obama administration. White House visitor logs show Shulman’s chief of staff, Jonathan M. Davis, appears to have visited the White House and adjacent Eisenhower office building as many as 310 times between the fall of 2009 and February 2013. Davis’ background is in technology and had no expertise on tax issues , according to some IRS sources who said Davis served mostly as a political aide who served with Shulman to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, where Shulman was vice chairman, and then followed him to the IRS. http://washingtonexaminer.com/top-shulman-aide-frequent-white-house-visitor/article/2532216
Chicago Tribune Calls For Special Prosecutor In IRS Scandal Golf clap, thank you, Tribune! Can we get on with the prosecution, the ratting out of the higher ups and the jailing, please? Via Chicago Tribune: “It’s inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives. … I’ll do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this happens again by holding the responsible parties accountable ….” — President Barack Obama condemning “misconduct” at the Internal Revenue Service, May 15, 2013 All of us understand that IRS misconduct, right? And we know which parties Obama needs to hold accountable. It’s obvious, right? End of story: We learned at the get-go of this scandal that, during a long run-up to the 2012 presidential election, IRS officials extensively hassled conservative groups that had applied for tax-exempt status. Congressional Republicans pounced on this as an attempt to hijack the election. But wait. Early last week we read that the agency used keywords such as “progressive” to target left-leaning groups, too, for extra scrutiny. “New IRS chief: Lists targeted more than tea partyers,” said the Chicago Tribune. “Documents Show Liberals in I.R.S. Dragnet,” said The New York Times. Congressional Democrats pounced on the suggestion that the agency had treated conservatives and liberals with equal indignity. But wait some more. On Wednesday a Treasury Department inspector general undercut the equal-abuse argument: From May 2010 to May 2012, the IRS had flagged for added scrutiny six of the 20 applicant groups with words such as “progressive” in their titles. “In comparison, our audit found that 100 percent of the (292) tax-exempt applications with Tea Party, Patriots or 9/12 in their names were processed as potential political cases” — that is, groups possibly too political to merit tax-exempt status. “While we have multiple sources of information corroborating the use of tea party and other related criteria,” wrote Inspector General J. Russell George, “including employee interviews, emails and other documents, we found no indication in any of these other materials that ‘progressives’ was a term used to refer cases for scrutiny for political-campaign intervention.” http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-irs-20130630,0,7731019.story
Regulation-Obsessed USDA Tells Magician To Write Disaster Plan For His Rabbit… Always cracks me up when Obama claims he’s cut government regulations. Via Bob McCaty: An Ozark, Mo.-based magician whose story about being harassed by USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service agents (a.k.a., “Rabbit Police”) was one of three stories highlighted in an article two years ago, Marty Hahne contacted me today with an update. “You won’t believe what the USDA has come up with now,” Hahne wrote in an email message late Friday afternoon. “If this wasn’t so stupid, it would be funny!” He went on to share details about his continued harassment by the USDA — all for using a three-pound rabbit in his magic act: “My USDA rabbit license requirement has taken another ridiculous twist. I just received an 8 page letter from the USDA, telling me that by July 29 I need to have in place a written disaster plan, detailing all the steps I would take to help get my rabbit through a disaster, such as a tornado, fire, flood, etc. They not only want to know how I will protect my rabbit during a disaster, but also what I will do after the disaster, to make sure my rabbit gets cared for properly. I am not kidding–before the end of July I need to have this written rabbit disaster plan in place, or I am breaking the law.” http://bobmccarty.com/2013/06/28/usda-tells-magician-to-write-disaster-plan-for-his-rabbit/
Illinois Democrat Requests National Guard Come To Chicago To Help Stop War Zone Violence… This is what happens to a city after being ruled by Democrats for decades. CHICAGO, Ill. (IRN) - Gun violence in Chicago is so severe that a state lawmaker wants state police and the National Guard to assist the local cops. State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) is making the request. “I am requesting with this press conference that Gov. Patrick Quinn order the Illinois National Guard (and) the Illinois State Police (to) come to Chicago and work with our mayor Ron (sic) Emanuel to provide safety for the children, especially,” she said at a news conference in Springfield. Other state lawmakers accompanied Davis to recognize the severity of the problem, and the extent to which it carries beyond Chicago’s troubled neighborhoods to the entire city and other parts of the state, but not necessarily to concur with her solution. Over the holiday weekend, 74 people were shot and 12 killed in Chicago, and Davis says the police don’t have the manpower to make arrests.