Emily Brown
@lachlan OMG, you just can't make this stuff up! We really do need term limits.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Lachlan Markay
HUD Staffer Fraudulently Charges $12k on Govt. Credit Card
During the government shutdown a couple of years ago, an employee at a cabinet-level agency long embroiled in scandal fraudulently charged thousands of dollars in personal items on his work-issued credit card.
Enraging as it may seem, it’s not all that surprising considering it involves the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a famously corrupt agency well known for a multitude of transgressions over the years. In this particular case a HUD staffer racked up nearly $12,000 on his agency credit card by charging personal items such as groceries, lodging, television cable, transportation and even prescription medications.
This occurred in the midst of the 2013 government shutdown caused by Congress’s failure to pass a spending bill. That paralyzed most functions of government, accounting for the second longest shutdown since 1980. The standstill caused a huge economic disruption and billions in lost output, according to a report published by the White House. Although federal employees were eventually compensated for the period of the shutdown, hundreds of thousands did not receive their full paychecks during that time. “The burden of delayed paychecks on federal workers and their families was significant and harmful,” the White House report states.
The HUD employee who went on a spending spree with his government credit card got busted but the agency didn’t bother to take action, according to the federal audit that exposed the scandal this month. The fraudulent purchases—$11,938 in total—were made during a relatively short period from August through October of 2013 so it was difficult for the agency not to notice. By January 2014 the fraud was confirmed but HUD failed to even reprimand the employee or report the wrongdoing. “This occurred because HUD’s existing purchase card policies did not include specific procedures to evaluate violations for purchase card program weaknesses and criteria to report violations,” the inspector general writes.
So, this bloated and notoriously corrupt agency gives its employees credit cards and has no measures to assess violations, which occur regularly throughout government. In this case the HUD staffer charged an astounding $7,357 in groceries, which raises red flags all on its own. He also charged $1,280 in drug stores and pharmacies and $488 on cable television for his home. The rest was spent on commuter transportation, hotels, restaurants and telecommunications equipment, according to the breakdown offered in the audit.
HUD’s scandals have been well documented throughout various administrations—both Republican and Democrat—and Judicial Watch has covered many of them. In fact, earlier this year JW reported that a HUD director who simultaneously ran a leftwing nonprofit changed agency policies to benefit her group. Her name is Debra Gross and for years she headed a crucial HUD policy office while she served as deputy director of a leftist organization called Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) that claims to work to “preserve and improve public and affordable housing through advocacy, research, policy analysis and public education.”
In 2011 a JW investigation found that the Obama administration violated the ban on federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) by giving the famously corrupt group tens of thousands of dollars in grants to “combat housing and lending discrimination.” The money, $79,819, flowed through HUD and clearly violated a law (Defund ACORN Act) passed by Congress in 2009 to stop the huge flow of taxpayer money that annually went to ACORN after a series of exposés about the leftwing group’s illegal activities.
Problems at the agency go way back. President George W. Bush’s HUD secretary, Alphonso Jackson, was ousted after the feds launched an investigation into his plots to enrich himself and his friends by giving them lucrative government contracts and Bill Clinton’s housing secretary, Henry Cisneros, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about payments to his former mistress. An influence-peddling scandal under Ronald Reagan led to the conviction of 16 people, including top aides to then HUD Secretary Samuel Pierce.
[VIDEO] Giuliani: Hillary Clinton Should Be Under Investigation For Five Different Crimes
Former Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said that if he was still a U.S. Attorney, he’d have former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton under investigation for five different crimes.
“I believe she should be under investigation by the United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York for obstruction of justice, for destroying government property,” he said on CNN’s New Day. “I think its clear that she had a conflict of interest, her husband getting hundreds of millions of dollars, she’s making decisions about companies and about corporations that he’s getting money from. I think they filed a joint tax return.”
“I’d have her under investigation for about five different crimes,” he continued. “I think it’s outrageous that the Justice Department is not moving forward with this. General Pertraeus, a lot of other people have gone to jail…”
That said, Giuliani said he would’ve have shown leniency towards David Petraeus after the former general was found guilty of moving classified government documents off site. “Hillary Clinton, there are five acts we are talking about. Pertraeus gave away one or two little things. She destroyed a drive with 34,000 e-mails on it.”
Obama’s Kenya Flights Cost $6 million, Now Tied for Most Total International Trips
(Alexandria, VA)—Today, President Obama returns from his most recent voyage to Africa, having now spent 161 days abroad during his presidency on 41 international trips. That’s the data from National Taxpayers Union Foundation’s (NTUF’s) new Presidential travel study “Still Up in the Air.”
NTUF found the President has traveled internationally as much as any U.S. President through July of the seventh year in office – equaling former President Clinton with 41 trips. Though, Obama has tended toward shorter stays, falling shy of Clinton’s 178 days spent overseas.
Study author and Policy Analyst Michael Tasselmyer said, “Where in the world is Barack Obama remains the easy question, the difficult question for taxpayers is: What in the world is the cost of the travel?”
Table 1. Presidential Travel Abroad Through July of Seventh Year in Office
Notes:
Sources: State Department data, media reports.
Visits are defined as the number of countries traveled to during a trip (e.g., if the President spends time in 4 countries before returning to the U.S., that is counted as 4 visits).
The most recent estimate on the hourly cost of flying Air Force One from Fiscal Year 2015, verified by NTUF, is $206,337 per flight hour. This figure, obtained by Judicial Watch, represents a slight decline from 2013.
The President’s trip to Africa has taken him to Nairobi, Kenya from Andrews Air Force Base, and on to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia then back to D.C. for a total flight time of 29 hours, at a cost of $5,983,773.
Visiting this region of Africa requires additional security measures for the President. In this instance security costs are compounded by the presence of 20 Members of Congress who traveled with the President and additional members of the Executive branch.
Table 2. Presidential Obama’s Most Frequently Visited Countries
Notes:
Sources: State Department data, media reports.
Fourteen countries tied with 2 visits: Australia, Belgium, Burma, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Italy, Poland, Russia, South Africa, and Vatican City.
Despite two prominent trips to Africa, President Obama has most frequently traveled to European nations, as well as Mexico, Afghanistan, and South Korea.
Additional notable findings include:
Presidents continue to travel more in their second terms (during the jet travel era), even President Eisenhower spent 54 more days abroad during his second term than during his first, Obama continues this trend.
Vacation trips are considered official travel and thus funded by taxpayers.
In FY 2015 the Office of Management and Budget reported that the Secret Service was appropriated an estimated $852 million for “protection of persons and facilities” and $31 million for “international field operations, administration and operations.”
The Air Force will be moving ahead with replacing the current fleet of VC-25 aircraft (Air Force Ones), which could cost upwards of $1.7 billion over five years
Tasselymyer concluded, “While flight costs can be estimated, the rest of the expenses associated with travel, including security, lodging, food, and more, not just for the President and Air Force One, but additional staff and airplanes, remains opaque.”
Via: Canada Free Press
Continue Reading.....
Thank God Mr. Cruz is in Washington
My email account was on fire, everyone excited about Senator Ted Cruz calling Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell a liar on the Senate floor. Cruz cited each of Obama's unprecedented unlawful power grabs and repeals of our freedoms that the GOP promised to block, only to stab us (We the People/Tea Party) in the back. Immediately, I thought, “Thank God Ted Cruz is in Washington.”
Before I go on, I wish to address a guy whom I will call Ned. Whenever I praise a conservative, Ned emails to correct me, claiming the conservative is a deceitful traitor. When I share reasons for optimism, Ned vehemently disagrees, even seeming a bit angry that I would think our efforts could possibly make a difference in America's corrupt political environment. Ned always sees the glass less than half empty. I guess we need people like Ned to keep us balanced -- although I am not quite sure about that.
Sure enough, in response to patriots' giving Cruz rave reviews for speaking truth to Washington power, Ned ripped into Cruz about questionable votes. Folks, I realize Ted Cruz is not perfect. But then, which presidential candidate is? Jesus is not running for president in 2016.
To a member of the Tea Party since it began, Cruz going down the list of GOP betrayals brought back memories. Remember how we fought and worked our butts off to give the GOP the House, then the Senate? We worked to elect Republicans to stop Obama from rolling out the welcome mat to illegals.
Over a million of us showed up in DC to protest ObamaCare.
I thought about how Obama sent out his liberal mainstream media air force to bomb us with accusations of racism against the first black president; hoping to soften and diminish our ranks. The Tea Party is not racist, nor do we hate anybody
In his speech, Cruz did two things that were quite remarkable. First -- Cruz exposed the good-cop, bad-cop personal and corporate enrichment scam both parties have been playing on the American people. Second -- Cruz spoke with unprecedented clarity. He did not say McConnell misspoke or McConnell was disingenuous. Cruz said McConnell lied.
Health chief defends Planned Parenthood amid calls to defund
President Obama’s top healthcare official defended federal funding for Planned Parenthood at a hearing on Tuesday as Republicans zeroed in on cutting off its money.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell focused her comments on how the federal funding for Planned Parenthood provides mammograms and other services for women.
“What I think is important is that our HHS funding is focused on issues of preventative care for women, things like mammograms and cancer prevention screenings,” Burwell told the House Education and the Workforce Committee.
“We do not fund abortion,” she added, though Burwell noted there are some exceptions to the Hyde Amendment, a law that prohibits federal funding of abortion.
Planned Parenthood has often been a GOP target, but the political storm surrounding the nonprofit has reacheda fever pitch following the release of a series of undercover videos showing officials candidly discussing the donation of fetal tissue for medical research.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that the chamber will vote to cut off funding for the organization before leaving next week for the August recess.
Lawmakers, including a group of 49 senators last week, have called on HHS to investigate Planned Parenthood.
“I would like some commitment from you here today on when your department will conduct an investigation on this very, very serious matter,” Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.) said Tuesday.
Burwell resisted those calls, deferring to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
She noted that Attorney General Loretta Lynch has said that Justice is conducting a review.
Planned Parenthood had apologized for an official’s “tone and statements” in the first video but said it has broken no laws and argued that the released videos had been heavily edited to inflict political pain on the organization.
Even then, Planned Parenthood said officials in the videos made it clear they were looking for legal compensation for expenses, not profit.
Still, the videos inflicted a toll on the group. It has turned to the public relations firm SKDKnickerbocker to help in its defense. The firm sent a memo on Monday night that discouraged the media from covering the videos.
“The extremists who entered Planned Parenthood labs under false pretenses violated research protocol, and, worse, violated the privacy of patients involved,” the memo stated. “Those patients’ privacy should not be further violated by having this footage shared by the media.”
Most Democrats have come to the defense of Planned Parenthood.
DEMOCRATS DIVIDED BY MINIMUM WAGE HIKE
The latest economic slogan of the hard left is to push the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. This would almost double the current federal minimum, which was raised to $7.25 an hour just six years ago.
Democrats universally still support a higher government-mandated minimum wage, mind you. The debate is over how high to government should push.
During his Presidency, Barack Obama has supported increases to $9 an hour and, in the midst of his reelection fight, a hike to $10.10 an hour.
The push for an increase to $10.10 an hour was so widespread across the left, in fact, that the Congressional Budget Office last year issued an analysis of the economic impact of such an increase. Unsurprisingly, the CBO found that the hike would cause half a million Americans to lose their jobs.
The CBO analysis found that about 16 million Americans, who currently earn somewhere between the current minimum and the new $10.10 hourly wage, would see an increase in their earnings.
So, using the most conservative estimate of possible job loss, a little over 10 percent of those with jobs would see some kind of benefit.
Those who would receive a benefit are not the caricature portrayed by the media. The average family income of a minimum wage worker is $53,000 a year, far above the national poverty level. This is simply because most minimum wage jobs represent a second or third job within a family. Only 4 percent of minimum wage workers are a single parent working full-time. About half of minimum wage workers are under 25.
A far better way to assist low-income workers struggling to raise a family on a minimum wage job is a boost in the Earned Income Tax Credit, which rewards those working. A job, even a minimum wage job, is still the best anti-poverty program. More than two-thirds of minimum wage workers receive a raise within the first year of employment.
A minimum wage is really a starter wage. As employees gain more skills and experience, they move up the job ladder. A government mandated increase in the minimum wage makes these first jobs more expensive for a business to offer, so there are fewer.
The negative consequences are far greater than simply the loss of 500k jobs. For many, those eliminated jobs were their first entry-point into the labor market. Low-skilled workers may have just enough knowledge to fill a $7.25 an hour position, but not enough to fill one at a higher minimum wage.
There is a great deal of debate over how extensive job losses are from a government increase in the minimum wage. Both sides of the debate tend to exaggerate the economic impact. The reality is that few Americans earn anything close to the minimum wage, so the macro effects aren’t enormous.
The human effects on those who can’t find a job at the higher wage level are enormous, though. That cost doesn’t fit into a slogan though.
This new push for $15 an hour seems to have come out of a union-backed effort to raise wages for fast-food restaurants across the country. This is part of a long-standing union effort to organize these businesses. Federal minimum wage levels don’t apply to union collective bargaining agreements, after all.
Democrat Presidential candidate
has embraced the $15 an hour level. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton has endorsed this wage level for fast-food restaurants in New York City, but has been silent on what the federal minimum wage should be outside of the Big Apple.
Congressional Democrat leadership is backing an increase to $12 an hour, as is President Obama currently.
Republican Leadership is opposing an increase but, if history is a guide, will eventually go along with a more modest increase. Conservatives will, as always, oppose an increase as the bad economics that it is, among other valid reasons. Of course, given their treatment by most business organizations in Washington, conservatives may want to rethink how strongly they want to oppose an increase.
Like most political slogans, an increase in the minimum wage polls very well with the public. There is little evidence, though, that many voters actually base their decisions on the issue.
Still, there is a certain morbid pleasure in watching the Democrats trying to outbid each other in their political appeals on the issue. Given that Democrats are preternaturally wired to spend other people’s money and dictate how they should run their lives, one wonders why Obama and Congressional Democrats are being so coy.
It certainly raises the question: if $10.10 an hour is so obviously a good economic policy, why not $15 an hour? Please show your work.
Pennsylvania Democrat indicted on federal racketeering charges
Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) has been indicted on dozens of federal charges surrounding his unsuccessful run for Philadelphia mayor in 2007, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday.
The 11-term Democrat, along with four associates, was indicted on 29 federal counts, including bribery, money laundering, falsification of records and multiple counts of bank fraud, among other charges.
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell said Fattah and the others "embarked on a wide-ranging conspiracy involving bribery, concealment of unlawful campaign contributions and theft of charitable and federal funds to advance their own personal interests.”
“When elected officials betray the trust and confidence placed in them by the public, the department will do everything we can to ensure that they are held accountable," Caldwell said in a statement. "Public corruption takes a particularly heavy toll on our democracy because it undermines people’s basic belief that our elected leaders are committed to serving the public interest, not to lining their own pockets.”
The DOJ identified the other four facing charges as Herbert Vederman, 69, a lobbyist based in Palm Beach, Fla.; Bonnie Bowser, 59, Fattah’s Philadelphia-based district director; Robert Brand, 69, of Philadelphia; and Karen Nicholas, 57, of Williamstown, N.J.
The DOJ alleges that Fattah borrowed $1 million from a wealthy donor during his 2007 mayoral bid, returning $400,000 in unused funds and devising a scheme to repay the remaining $600,000 using charitable and federal grants filtered through a non-profit — the Educational Advancement Alliance — created and headed by Fattah.
The DOJ also alleges that Fattah used funds from both his mayoral and congressional campaigns to pay down his son's student loan debts. The repayments, totaling roughly $23,000, were paid by a political consulting company that had received the money directly from the campaign, the DOJ alleged.
Fattah's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning.
The Pennsylvania Democrat, a senior appropriator who's ranking member of the committee's Commerce and Justice departments subpanel, stepped down from that position within hours of the announcement Wednesday.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) issued a brief statement praising Fattah's commitment to the middle class and characterizing the charges as "deeply saddening." "Congressman Fattah has been a tireless and effective advocate for America’s hard-working families across more than 20 years of distinguished service in the House," Pelosi said.
“Congressman Fattah has rightly stepped down from his position as Ranking Member on the House CJS Appropriations Subcommittee pending the resolution of this matter.”
UNIONS CONTINUE TO SEEK WAIVER FROM L.A. MINIMUM WAGE HIKE
Unions in Los Angeles are again seeking to exempt their workers from the $15 minimum wage hike for which they pushed earlier this year.
The minimum wage hike is set to take effect in 2020. Unions want companies that employ their workers to be exempted from the new minimum wage, in a bid to increase unionization and union membership.
@mattdpearce Because they’re hypocrites? Unions also wanted exemption from Obamacare, after lobbying heavily to pass it.
— Johnson Brian (@BikeSwimRun26) July 27, 2015
Head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Rusty Hicks, told the Los Angeles Times in May that virtually “every [California] city that has passed a minimum wage include this kind of a provision.” The Times reportedly found inconsistencies with this statement pointing out that “San Diego, the largest California city to raise its minimum wage in recent years before L.A., did not include such an exception.”
The attempt has created divisions among union and labor leaders.
Drastic increases in the minimum wage by the West Coast’s liberal cities have forced manysmall businesses to close, including San Francisco’s beloved Borderlands Books; many other small businesses are expected to follow. Some economists have warned that the minimum wage hike will also raise youth unemployment.
The higher wages have also forced many business establishments to reduce their workforces, and fast-food chains are increasingly replacing human beings with computers.
Minimum Wage Hikes Result in McDonalds Closing Doors. We Told You…http://t.co/dWjUUh8IPD via @scrowder
— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) July 26, 2015
Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter @AdelleNaz and on Facebook.
Newly Recovered Lois Lerner Email Shows IRS Tried To Cover Up Tea Party Targeting
The IRS sent one of its intrusive scrutiny letters to a nonprofit group in order to throw up a smokescreen and prevent the group from complaining to Congress about poor treatment, according to one of Lois G. Lerner’s apparently lost emails, which were recovered by auditors and released by an interest group Tuesday.
Judicial Watch, which sued to force the production of the Lerner emails, said the emails confirm that Ms. Lerner, the central figure in the targeting probe, and her colleagues were aware of the sensitive nature of the cases but appeared to hide details of the massive backlog they were amassing as they held up hundreds of tea party and conservative group applications for nonprofit status.
The IRS turned over 906 pages of emails July 15 to Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest law firm, ahead of a Wednesday court hearing. Judicial Watch concluded that the emails were part of the messages Ms. Lerner lost in a computer malfunction, and released them Tuesday.
“This material shows that the IRS‘ cover-up began years ago,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “We now have smoking-gun proof that top officials in the Obama IRS unlawfully harassed taxpayers just to keep them from complaining to Congress about IRS‘ targeting and abuse. No wonder the Obama IRS has had such little interest in preserving or finding Lois Lerner’s emails.”
The Lerner emails have become almost as big a scandal as the initial targeting. Ms. Lerner, who was head of the division that scrutinized the tea party applications until she retired while under investigation in 2013, suffered a computer hard drive crash that cost potentially thousands of emails that should have been part of the record.
The IRS took routine steps to try to recover the emails but reported that it was unable to do so.
But the agency’s independent inspector general said it was able to find the messages easily on backup tapes stored at remote locations — and that the IRS never bothered to look for those tapes, even as it was tellingCongress that all possible routes for message recovery had been exhausted.
According to the new emails, Ms. Lerner and her colleagues were aware of the growing outcry among nonprofit groups that they were being delayed.
In one Nov. 3, 2011, exchange between Ms. Lerner and Cindy Thomas, a program manager in the Cincinnati office that was handling the cases and was involved in a back-and-forth with Washington, the IRS admitted to having hundreds of cases stacked up and awaiting action.
Afraid of congressional pressure, Ms. Thomas ordered one of the inquiry letters to be sent, just to prevent one of the organizations being held up from complaining.
“Just today, I instructed one of my managers to get an additional information letter out to one of these organizations — if nothing else to buy time so he didn’t contact his Congressional Office,” she wrote in the email released by Judicial Watch.
Ms. Thomas said she feared a judge would get involved soon and order the IRS to move the applications more quickly.
That email exchange did confirm that IRS employees in Washington were deeply involved in making decisions about the nonprofit groups’ cases.
The IRS initially blamed the Cincinnati office for the glitch.
President Obama last week blamed the targeting scandal not on poor management but on “crummy” legislation he said Congress passed that gave his employees confusing instructions, and on funding cuts. He said the IRS wasn’t able to do its best work as a result.
Minimum Wage Hikes Result in McDonalds Closing Doors. We Told You…
The left has been pushing a minimum wage increase, mainly because telling voters “we’re going to give you more money” is easier than teaching them about economics and/or reality. If a leftist wants to be particularly panderific, they specify a wage hike on fast food workers, with McDonalds as their most popular whipping post.
The same McDonalds which just announced their WORST financial outlook in 12 years.
Some 29 franchisees, who collectively own and operate 208 McDonald’s restaurants in the United States, were asked to give their six-month forecast from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). The average response was 1.69, the lowest in the survey’s 12-year history.Previously, the lowest rating was 1.81, which was recorded three months ago.
One of the reasons?
Another respondent said, “At least half of the operators in my region are on [the] verge of collapse. With minimum wage for fast food workers potentially increasing to incredibly high levels, we are facing a crisis situation.”
So it would appear that if you take struggling businesses and increase the cost of doing business, it makes it hard for them to do business.
This is no revelation to anybody who’s completed a high-school economics course. But we’re talking about burger-flippers who think that their burger-flipping is a $15 an hour skill set here. A nutless monkey could do their job. Literally. I’ve seen a Chimpanzee ride a segway.
Also, this is an important time to note that this precisely is why we are a Constitutional Republic and not a democracy. Democracy is mob-rule. Our founding fathers were very concerned about the mob majority simply voting in their own self interests. Parasites that will inevitably devour their host, if you will.
Unfortunately, modern politics and particularly the Democratic party has placed us in the same quandary. In order to ensure votes, they need to appeal to the lowest common denominator, the non-contributors, the parasites… and promise them the world.
Let’s just start with a $15 minimum wage. Non-performance based of course.
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