Feds Want Detroit Mayor Jailed for 28 Years

Detroit citizens endured a tumultuous period of corruption, scandal, mismanagement and greed under the leadership of their former mayor, say federal prosecutors in asking a judge to slap the thug with nearly three decades in prison.

It would mark the harshest punishment for public corruption in U.S. history, but the truth is no one deserves it more than Kwame Kilpatrick. If this were the Olympics, he’d get the gold. If it were the Tour de France he’d wear the yellow jersey. Even among today’s dirty politicians, Kilpatrick sticks out among the pack, even compared to the Louisiana congressman (William Jefferson) busted with a $100,000 cash bribe in his freezer!  

Convicted of 24 corruption charges, Kilpatrick operated monstrous extortion, kickback and bribery schemes in which virtually all parts of city government were up for grabs for the right price. He also lived the high life on taxpayer dime, charging hundreds of thousands of dollars on city-issued credit cards for pro football tickets, fancy spas and restaurants, rock concerts and family trips to Las Vegas. Kilpatrick even had taxpayers pick up the $42,000 tab to lease two luxury vehicles for his wife and he put his friends and relatives on the city payroll.  

But the single transgression Kilpatrick is most famous for involves lying under oath and billing his constituents north of $8 million to cover up an extramarital affair with a city staffer. Cops on the mayor’s security team were forced out of their job for raising questions about the affair and the city kept the wrongfully terminated officers quiet with an $8.4 million settlement. Kilpatrick and city-paid lawyers masterminded the secret deal, but two local newspapers got wind of it and obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act.

Via: Judicial Watch

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Hollywood Uses Influence to Push Obamacare, Denies It Has Influence on Violent Culture

Well if a celebrity is for it, then it must be a good idea. The Obama administration launched a new social media campaign last week using controversial celebrities as spokespeople for the Affordable Care Act. Counting the celebrities’ Twitter followers alone, that gives the administration access to more than 67 million people to push the president’s mandatory healthcare program.

Singer Lady Gaga, comedians Sarah Silverman and John Hodgman, “Revenge” actors Nick Wechsler and Emily VanCamp, and “Parks and Rec” star Amy Poehler, are just a few celebrities who tweeted out or Instagrammed pictures of themselves holding signs with the hashtag “#GetCovered” as part of Obama’s social media campaign to get young people to sign up for his healthcare plan.

Once again, Hollywood celebrities were eager to use the power of Tinseltown to push a liberal message, without ever acknowledging that same power is used to promote violence. In early 2013, the top five movies at the box office included 65 scenes of violence, with 185 individual victims. Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” was a huge part of that total. But when Tarantino, who often relies on over-the top violence, was questioned about that, he said it was “totally disrespectful to [the Sandy Hook victims’] memory. Obviously, the issue is gun control and mental health.”

Get Covered was only the latest of a series of celebrity oriented initiatives. Hollywood A-listers from actor George Clooney to rapper Jay Z have raised millions for the president’s election. A wide variety of mostly entertainment media outlets have promoted Michelle Obama’s food crusades. In the first four years of her husband’s presidency, the First Lady appeared on everything from Disney’s “iCarly” to working out with “The Biggest Loser” at least 44 times.

As part of the new “#GetCovered” campaign, Vampire Diaries star Nina Dobrev even posed topless with the hashtag sign covering her. On October 1, singer John Legend tweeted, “F the shutdown. The Health Insurance Marketplace is now open in every state. Don’t wait another day to #GetCovered!”

This is somewhat of a repeat performance of last year’s publicity stunt where liberal starlets took to Twitter with pictures of themselves with pithy political messages promoting “women’s rights,” (which apparently meant government-funded abortions and contraception.)

After all, celebrities are the pinnacles of wisdom, especially when it comes to understanding politics and the American people. Sarah Silverman, for instance, last April called religious people “addicts & sociopaths;” conservatives racists, and tweets crass jokes like “Got a quickie aborsh in case R v W gets overturned,” and “My vagina has off-beat good looks.”

Via: Newsbusters

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Fox News Inks Dr. Ben Carson to Contributor Deal

After several months making frequent appearances on Fox News, pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson has officially joined the network as a contributor. He will provide analysis and commentary across Fox’s daytime and primetime programming.

Carson rose to cable news prominence earlier this year when he spoke out against Obamacare, political correctness, and the accumulation of federal debt while standing several feet away from PresidentObama at the National Prayer Breakfast. That moment and his controversial comments regarding gay marriage garnered him a slew of cable news appearances, from CNN to MSNBC to (most frequently) Fox.

In making the announcement, Fox chief Roger Ailes said: “Dr. Carson is a brilliant neurosurgeon who has dedicated his life to healing others. He also has a broad perspective on what’s going on in the country and his wisdom and provocative viewpoints will make a major contribution to our network.”

Carson retired in June from his post as the director of pediatric surgery at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center — a position he held for 39 years. He has also been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (in 2008), as well as more than 60 honorary doctorate degrees.

Carson will begin his contributorship tonight with an appearance on The Kelly File at 9 p.m. ET.

Via: Mediaite.com

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LAUSD Another Brainless Organism

Some species of jellyfish can grow to be very big. They are also said to be brainless and, to the unwary, can be hazardous. To taxpayers, this is also a fair description of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The massive district, geographically the nation’s largest and second in enrollment, covers all or part of 31 communities in addition to the city of Los Angeles. Its budget is larger than a least 18 states and, unfortunately, possesses a well-earned reputation for horrible management. One has to look back only a few years for prominent examples.

In the late 1990s, the district set about building the nation’s most expensive high school on real estate that turned out to be contaminated with hazardous chemicals. Mitigating this problem added years to the completion of the project and millions to the taxpayers’ bill. Although the evidence suggested that this boondoggle was the result of incompetence, ignorance and outright corruption, LAUSD officials uniformly asserted the Bart Simpson defense: “I didn’t do it, nobody saw me and you can’t prove a thing.” Incredibly, no one was ever held accountable for this fiscal fiasco.

Since then, with the support of campaign funds from contractors who profit when schools spend money, the district has been able to convince voters to approve 5 separate bonds totaling $20 billion, with a repayment cost of close to $40 billion, to fund a massive school building program. While the district was placing bonds on the ballot at a rate of almost one every two years, enrollment has actually declined by 10 percent, raising the question of what will be done with the vacant classrooms if this trend continues. But as usual, no one in authority seems to want to address the possibility that the district may be building, and taxpayers are being charged for, classrooms that aren’t needed.

The latest prominent example of LAUSD’s brain dead management style is the $1 billion program to supply all students with iPads. Before evaluating the wisdom of this move, it should be noted that even though the district would need hundreds of thousands of units, officials failed to negotiate a better than retail price.

Now that the program has begun, officials are actually surprised that some of the $700 iPads have gone missing and students have shown the ability to “jailbreak” – a term describing the process of removing limitations on the use of these Apple units. These students are now able to play games and surf the net freely, instead focusing on assigned studies.

Via: California Political Review

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HUD’s Power Grab > The Obama administration plots a wholesale federal intrusion into local housing policy

President Obama may have been distracted by Syria, but his domestic presidency proceeds apace, seeking what he heralds as “the transformation of the United States.” Especially is this true at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which aims to remake neighborhoods all across America, starting, as we’ll see, in Westchester County, N.Y.

SHAUN DONOVAN

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Established in 1965 at the height of the last unambiguously progressive presidency, HUD enforces, among other laws, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which forbids discrimination in housing on the basis of race and ethnicity. That act, together with other statutes, says HUD, also directs “program participants”​—​local governments and states that receive federal housing grants, and also public housing agencies​—​to go beyond simply combating discrimination. They are to take “proactive steps” to “address significant disparities in access to community assets, .  .  . overcome segregated living patterns and support and promote integrated communities, [and] .  .  . end racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty.” HUD has a name for all this proactive step-taking: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, also known in HUD circles by its acronym, AFFH.

It so happens, however, that the transformation of America by means of AFFH has been a bit too slow in coming. Says HUD: “The current practice of affirmatively furthering fair housing as carried out by HUD grantees .  .  . has not been as effective” as it should have been. Indeed, housing secretary Shaun Donovan has called it “a meaningless paper exercise without any teeth,” a difficult metaphor to conceptualize, but you get the point.

Via: Weekly Standard

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Debbie Wasserman Schultz Tries to Explain Obamacare Enrollment Failures

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was on MSNBC today in an attempt to answer questions about why the Obamacare implementation hasn't gone as planned. She stumbled her way through the interview and even brought up former vice president and presidential candidate Al Gore to solidify her argument about the country "moving on" after an election.

 "So we're uh, clearly, uh, eight days in and, to be insisted on data being produced day by day for a six month enrollment problem is...a little unfair."

Got that? DWS is now arguing taxpayers and journalists asking for information about how many people have enrolled in Obamacare, a program they're paying for and a program already changing the economy in a negative way, is "unfair" to the bureaucrats running the system.

DWS also argues the administration was expecting 50,000 people day to visit the site and that the glitches are happening simply because so many people are trying to sign up for Obamacare. I call bull. Barack Obama and Democrats repeatedly sold and campaigned for Obamacare on the talking point of 45 million Americans being uninsured and that the Affordable Care Act would fix the problem. They were wrong, unprepared and now, its showing. 

Via: Townhall
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$2 Billion NSA Spy Center is Going Up in Flames

The National Security Agency's $2 billion mega spy center is going up in flames.

Technical glitches have sparked fiery explosions within the NSA's newest and largest data storage facility in Utah, destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and delaying the facility's opening by one year.

And no one seems to know how to fix it.

For a country that prides itself on being a technology leader, not knowing the electrical capacity requirements for a system as large as this is quite questionable.

Within the last 13 months, at least 10 electric surges have each cost about $100,000 in damages, according to documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal. Experts agree that the system, which requires about 64 megawatts of electricity—that's about a $1 million a month energy bill--isn't able to run all of its computers and servers while keeping them cool, which is likely triggering the meltdowns.

RELATED: GOVERNMENT WASTES MORE THAN YOU THINK

The contractor that designed the flawed system—Pennsylvania-based Klingstubbins--said in a statement that it has "uncovered the issue" and is working on "implementing a permanent fix."

But that's not the case, according to the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), which is in charge of overseeing the data center's construction. ACE disagreed with the contractor and said the meltdowns are "not yet sufficiently understood." 

A report by ACE in the Wall Street Journal said the government has incomplete information about the design of the electrical system that could pose new problems if settings need to change on circuit breakers. The report also said regular quality controls in design and construction were bypassed in an effort to "fast track" the project.

Via: The Fiscal Times

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Bachmann: House Could Impeach 'Dictator' Obama

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said Tuesday that President Obama has “committed impeachable offenses” and that the House could hold a hearing to impeach.

“We can have an impeachment hearing in the House, and in my mind the president has committed impeachable offenses,” Bachmann told conservative talk show host Rusty Humphries in an interview first detailed by Right Wing Watch.

Bachmann was careful to distinguish between the House’s ability to impeach the president, which she said would merely be a “stain” on his record, and the Senate’s authority to remove the president from office, which she acknowledged would be unlikely in the Democratic-controlled upper chamber.

Still, the Minnesota Republican warned that impeachment was a “disruptive and harmful” tool.

“Impeachment is important that we have that tool — it’s very important — but it’s also disruptive and harmful to the nation and it’s to be used sparingly,” she said.

But she argued it may be necessary because citizens are on the cusp of civil disobedience because they’re so fed up with Obama’s “thuggery.”

“I think we could be on the cusp of seeing civil disobedience — I’m not saying I want civil disobedience — but people aren’t going to take the thuggery of this president much longer,” she said. “We see thuggery going on in the White House, we’re not going to take it. We’ve drawn a line in the sand, and we’re telling the president you need to recognize ... that you are a co-equal branch of government. You are not a dictator.”

Bachmann said that the U.S. was at risk of devolving “into a dictatorship,” but that the Tea Party had done its job in standing up to Democrats on the fiscal issues surrounding the government shutdown.

Via: The Hill

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CNN: Administration Knew Of Obamacare Website Glitches, Ignored Warnings

BRIAN TODD, CNN: A week into it, Wolf, still a lot of glitches. People not able to create accounts just to get information to possibly enroll, much less not being able to actually enroll in the plan. A week in, still a lot of problems. I was just with a database company owner named Luke Chung, he's out of Virginia. He has tried to enroll in this since the roll-out on October 1st. He is a database company owner, he knows this stuff. He says it really is just poorly designed, it's just not user friendly. He's still not been able to enroll, much less navigate and get information.

Just when I was with him, he got an error message on his computer saying that he couldn't really go any further. He went into a chat room trying to get information and was told there were others in line ahead of him. Even just trying to chat there on the website, people are having problems.

But what we're also hearing now, Wolf, is that the administration was warned about these potential problems months in advance. We spoke to Robert Lushevsky (ph), he is a health care consultant who have clients who are insurers. He says his insurers who dealt with the administration in the months ahead of time, he says the insurers he dealt with had contentious meetings with people form HHS and other health care officials who were in charge of this. Contentious meetings in the months before this rollout, warning them, this isn't working. It's not going to be smooth. Don't do it right then. He says those warnings were ignored, they went full speed ahead, and said we'll work these problems out. Now, there has been a bit of pushback from the White House, we hope to get more later from then.

Via: RCP

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OBAMA'S NEGATIVE POLLING WORSE THAN CLINTON'S IN 1995 SHUTDOWN

Gallup released a poll last week showing President Barack Obama's negative polling among Americans during the current government shutdown is substantially worse in comparison to the numbers the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, had during his administration's shutdown in 1995. 

According to Gallup:

A majority of Americans, 57%, say they now view President Obama more negatively as a result of the shutdown, while 28% see him more positively. By contrast, during the December 1995 shutdown, 49% of Americans viewed Clinton more negatively and 35% more positively. Clinton's overall approval rating would tumble to 42% by the end of the 1995-96 shutdown, but rebounded later in 1996.

Gallup points out that Americans view the present shutdown as more serious than the 1995 government shutdown. Republican Congressional leaders are viewed similarly to how they were viewed during the 1995 shutdown, with 61 percent viewing them negatively. Democratic Congressional leaders are also viewed negatively by 58 percent of Americans.

President Obama's overall job approval rating has taken a sharp drop since he first came to office. Gallup's recorded Obama's approval rating at 67 percent when he first took office. That number has since plunged to 44 percent. 

Via: Breitbart

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We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404

It’s been one full week since the flagship technology portion of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) went live. And since that time, the befuddled beast that is Healthcare.gov has shutdown, crapped out, stalled, and mis-loaded so consistently that its track record for failure is challenged only by Congress.

The site itself, which apparently underwent major code renovations over the weekend, still rejects user logins, fails to load drop-down menus and other crucial components for users that successfully gain entrance, and otherwise prevents uninsured Americans in the 36 states it serves from purchasing healthcare at competitive rates – Healthcare.gov’s primary purpose. The site is so busted that, as of a couple days ago, the number of people that successfully purchased healthcare through it was in the “single digits,” according to the Washington Post.

We, the taxpayers, seem to have forked up more than $634 million of the federal purse to build the digital equivalent of a rock.

The reason for this nationwide headache apparently stems from poorly written code, which buckled under the heavy influx of traffic that its engineers and administrators should have seen coming. But the fact that Healthcare.gov can’t do the one job it was built to do isn’t the most infuriating part of this debacle – it’s that we, the taxpayers, seem to have forked up more than $634 million of the federal purse to build the digital equivalent of a rock.

The exact cost to build Healthcare.gov, according to U.S. government records, appears to have been $634,320,919, which we paid to a company you probably never heard of: CGI Federal.  The company originally won the contract back in 2011, but at that time, the cost was expected to run “up to” $93.7 million – still a chunk of change, but nothing near where it ended up.

Via: DIgital Trends

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Is This How IRS Cover-up Works?

Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, says he is confident the story behind the IRS’s targeting of tea-party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status will eventually come out. But patience will have to be a virtue. Issa’s staff acknowledged late last month that the IRS had handed over to the committee a little more than 10 percent of the documents the IRS itself has admitted are relevant to the committee’s investigation.

Last night, Issa spoke via Skype to the New York Meeting, a gathering of influential conservatives founded by Mallory Factor. Issa said that while his investigation is incomplete, he has concluded that at least one reform at the IRS is absolutely necessary. 

“While the IRS formally has only two political appointees — its commissioner and its chief counsel — it’s clear that political people are embedded throughout the agency in  ‘career’ slots,” he said. That can create real credibility and trust issues when the IRS is handling sensitive political matters.

Issa says he is thinking about a bill that would bar anyone from work in an apolitical “career” slot at the IRS for ten years if they come from an explicitly political position.  

As an example, Issa mentioned the case of “Susanne,” a lawyer whom he said had worked for Democrats on the House Oversight Committee until 2008. His reference is to Susanne Sachsman Grooms, who NRO’s Eliana Johnson has reported joined the IRS in the year President Obama was elected. She served the IRS as an adviser to the deputy commissioner for services and enforcement and then as a senior counselor to the chief of criminal investigations.  

Via: NRO

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