Nearly One in Five Members of Congress Gets Paid Twice
They draw government pensions from previous work
in addition to their congressional salary. The practice is called
“double-dipping.”
To solve the debt crisis, Americans—who are already suffering in
these tough economic times—will have to make even more sacrifices, Rep.
Mike Coffman told his House colleagues last year. So, leaning on his
military service, the 58-year-old Colorado Republican argued that
members of Congress should take the first step and abolish their
congressional pensions. “If there’s one thing I learned in both the
United States Army and the Marine Corps about leadership, it was leading
by example,” Coffman lectured them, pointing to his chest at a
committee hearing. “Never ask anyone to do anything that you yourself
would not be willing to do.”
What Coffman left unsaid that day in a speech about his bill’s
“symbolic” importance was that he was collecting a $55,547
state-government pension in addition to his congressional paycheck.
Having spent two decades as an elected official in Colorado, he has
received retirement benefits since 2009, the year he arrived in
Congress.
“We did not want to double-dip on
the taxpayers in a time of fiscal challenge.”—Rep. Chris Gibson, R-N.Y.,
who declines his pension
Coffman is not alone. About 90 members from both chambers collected a
government pension atop their taxpayer-financed $174,000 salary in
2012, National Journal found in an examination of recent
financial records. Including a dozen newly elected freshmen who reported
government pensions last year, the number now stands above 100. That’s
nearly one-fifth of Congress. One lawmaker, freshman Rep. Joyce Beatty,
D-Ohio, received $253,323 from her government pension last year—a sum
that, combined with her congressional salary, will make her better paid
than President Obama this year.
Congressional pensioners span the ideological spectrum, from
tea-party conservatives who rail against government waste to unabashed
liberals. They are among the richest members (Sen. Dianne Feinstein,
D-Calif., with a net worth of at least $42.8 million in 2011) and the
poorest (Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who reported between $15,000 and
$50,000 in the bank and at least $600,000 in mortgage and loan debts).
Overall, Democrats draw government pensions more often than
Republicans—by a ratio of 2-to-1. Some lawmakers draw on multiple public
retirement packages, including the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, John
Cornyn of Texas, who collected $65,000 from three different pensions in
2012.
All told, current members of Congress pocketed more than $3.6 million
in public retirement benefits in 2012, the investigation found. The
actual figure is almost certainly even higher because disclosure is
uneven. Some lawmakers reported retirement earnings in ranges; others
listed pensions but no amounts at all. This analysis, which included
historical data from the Center for Responsive Politics, also does not
include most military retirements, because lawmakers are not required to
report them (although those who voluntarily did so were included).
Members who served last year but are gone now were not included;
freshmen who reported collecting pensions as candidates in 2012, such as
Beatty, were included.
The practice of piling a pension atop a paycheck is legal, if
unsavory to many. Taxpayer groups and some conservatives have condemned
the practice as “double-dipping”; they say elected officials shouldn’t
simultaneously draw a public pension while cashing a government
paycheck, because taxpayers ultimately foot at least part of the bill
for both. “You’re paying them twice,” says Steve Ellis, vice president
of Taxpayers for Common Sense.Fixed pensions are a fading memory for
most American workers, who are still smarting from losses to their
401(k)s during the credit crisis—even if those accounts have since
recovered. The fact that federal lawmakers can draw large retirement
payments atop generous taxpayer-funded salaries only helps fuel the
widespread sense that the ruling class in Washington puts its own
interests first.
UNCOMMON RICHES
Many states and municipalities forbid the practice of retiring and
then taking a full-time job within the same governmental system. But
those rules don’t apply to members of Congress when they are drawing a
federal paycheck and, typically, a state or local pension. “It’s a hard
nut to crack as far as addressing it, because it’s different
jurisdictions,” Ellis says. And federal lawmakers who have served before
on the state level can garner gold-plated retirement benefits, because
state legislators often write their own generous rules to allow earlier
retirement or fatter pensions.
Take Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, 57, who has been collecting her
Louisiana pension since late 1997, the year she joined the Senate. She
was only 41. (Louisiana voters had passed a constitutional amendment to
ban pensions for new state legislators in 1996, the year before. But
Landrieu, who had spent eight years as a legislator, could withdraw hers
because she was grandfathered in.) The average Louisiana state worker
hired in recent years, by contrast, can’t retire with a full pension
until age 60. Landrieu lists her annual pension payout as between
$15,000 and $50,000. “They’re two different levels of government, and
it’s completely permissible,” says Landrieu, who served two terms as
state treasurer after her time as a state legislator. “I have every
intention of maintaining it and continuing.”
Like Landrieu, most lawmakers collecting public pensions say they
deserve the payout because they put in the time and contributed to their
retirement from their own paychecks. “I’m just saying I worked hard 33
years,” says Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., a former detective who helped
hunt down the Green River serial killer and retired as King County
sheriff. He earned a $109,101 pension in 2012—fourth highest in
Congress. “Anyone who looks at a 33-year career and watches someone
retire and says they don’t deserve that retirement, I would vigorously
disagree with that.”
Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 House Democrat,
accepted a $55,000 pension last year. “I spent over 30 years working in
state government and receive a pension just as all other qualified state
retirees do,” he said in a statement. Clyburn, the state’s former
human-affairs commissioner, has collected roughly $1 million in pension
benefits since joining Congress in 1993.
Pete Sepp, executive vice president of the National Taxpayers Union,
says such packages can erode public trust in an institution where it’s
already in short supply. “Retirement packages remain a concern for
taxpayers because they naturally invite comparison to their own
situations,” he says. And there aren’t many Americans earning a
six-figure paycheck and a five- or six-figure pension.
Or, in Beatty’s case, a quarter-million-dollar pension. Beatty spent
more than eight years in the Ohio Statehouse, including a stint as
Democratic leader, before landing a job in 2008 as the senior vice
president of outreach and engagement at Ohio State University. It was a
plum post that came with a $320,000 salary, plus benefits, that vastly
inflated her pension. At the time, Ohio used the three highest years of
salary to calculate pension payouts; Beatty was in the university job
for three years and 20 days. Beatty’s spokesman, Greg Beswick, says she
began collecting the money last year, when she was a candidate.
Among Republicans, the biggest retirement package belongs to Rep. Ted
Poe of Texas, who has cashed more than $300,000 in combined pay and
pensions in each of the last five years. Poe is only 64. He was a Texas
prosecutor and a judge, so he has received two pensions since his
arrival in Congress in 2005. They were worth $139,382 in 2011. (An
“accounting error” that provided him only 11 months of payments from one
pension dropped the total to $126,743 last year, according to Poe
spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes.) “Under the law of the State of Texas he has
earned a pension for his public service to both the county and the
state,” Hynes said in an e-mail. In his first eight years in Congress,
Poe earned more than $1 million in retirement pay.
Some double-dippers occupy congressional leadership posts. Besides
Cornyn and his three pensions, Sen. Roy Blunt, the Republican Conference
vice chairman, collected $36,721 in retirement benefits last year from
his previous service in Missouri. Records show that Blunt, 63, has
collected a pension since 2005. In the House leadership, besides
Clyburn, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat, received $20,481
from a pension last year. He has been collecting since 1999 from his
dozen years in the Maryland Legislature.
Although the House Ethics Committee’s guidelines say “you must
disclose” pension payments as earned income, congressional disclosure is
inconsistent. Some lawmakers, such as Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., list
their pensions but not how much—or even if—they withdrew. (Brown’s
office did not return calls for clarification.) Others leave their
pensions off their forms entirely for years at a time. In a series of
amended filings last year, for instance, Cornyn reported that he’d been
receiving one of his three pensions as far back as 2006. During his
failed Senate campaign, former Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., had to update a
decade of disclosures to reflect a state pension he’d previously hidden
from public view. He called it an “unintentional oversight.”
NEED VS. WANT
Those collecting pensions range from some of the poorest in Congress
to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., whom the Center for Responsive
Politics ranked as the third-wealthiest senator in 2011. (His net worth
was between $79.6 million and $120.8 million.)
That didn’t prevent Blumenthal from cashing his annual $47,000 state
pension, even as Connecticut’s depleted pension fund has struggled. A
2012 study by the Pew Center on the States said the state had barely
half the money it needed to pay its long-term retirement obligations,
the third-worst ratio in the nation.
Blumenthal bristles when asked about whether his personal wealth and
congressional salary allow him to forgo the pension. “The benefits I’m
receiving from the state were earned over more than two decades of
public service, and they’re two separate entities, two separate
governments, and … they’re being paid according to law,” he says. “I’m
not going to comment as to any aspect of my financial disclosure. I
would just say, I seek to give back through public service and other
ways such as the charitable contributions that my wife and I make.”
Feinstein is the second-wealthiest lawmaker to draw a pension,
according to CRP’s rankings, which estimate the California Democrat’s
net worth at between $42.8 million and $98.7 million. Her pension, worth
$54,925 in 2012, is from her time as mayor of San Francisco. She has
collected about $850,000 in retirement benefits since she joined the
Senate two decades ago. Feinstein declined to comment for this story.
Feinstein is hardly the longest-tenured congressional pensioner. That
honor falls to 90-year-old Rep. Ralph Hall, the oldest member of the
House, who spent a decade in the Texas Legislature before taking a seat
in Congress in 1981. The Republican (who was a Democrat until 2004) has
been collecting a Texas state pension ever since. In those 32 years he
earned some $1.3 million in retirement benefits. (Many years in the
1980s he didn’t list specific amounts; this analysis presumes his
pension remained flat during those years.) His 2012 pension was $65,748.
“I didn’t write the law,” Hall said in a statement. “I complied with
the law, and I contributed as was allowed under the law during my
official service in Texas.”
Not every member of Congress who is eligible for a pension chooses to
collect. Rep. Chris Gibson, R-N.Y., a retired Army colonel who won his
seat in 2010, says he writes a check every month for his full military
pension, minus taxes owed, to the U.S. Treasury. It was a decision he
came to jointly with his wife. “The salary that we get as a congressman
is very generous,” Gibson says. “We did not want to double-dip on the
taxpayers in a time of fiscal challenge.”
The Gibsons aren’t rich by congressional standards. They hold no
stocks, bonds, or mutual funds—only a single bank account with between
$100,000 and $250,000. It earned less than $1,000 in interest last year.
Still, he declined to judge his better-off colleagues who are
collecting twice. “It’s a personal decision people have to make,” he
says.
Rep. William Keating of Massachusetts, who pulled $110,743 from his
pension in 2012—second-largest of any Democrat—donates all of it, after
taxes, to a nonprofit that assists child-abuse victims. “The work done
by the caring professionals there is priceless,” Keating, a former
legislator and district attorney, said in a statement.
SPECIAL PRIVILEGES
Many states offer especially sweet pension packages for their elected officials.
Take the curious case of Rep. Trey Gowdy. The conservative Republican
served for a decade as a district attorney in South Carolina, where the
retirement system requires 24 years of service to qualify for a
pension. But a controversial perk allows solicitors and judges to
purchase extra years of service without actually working them. The
practice, called “airtime,” lets employees draw bigger pensions if they
fork over a lump sum on the front end.
It appears Gowdy exercised this option. (His office refused multiple
requests to clarify his activity.) His financial records report a loan
in 2009 of between $250,000 and $500,000 for “purchase of SC solicitors
and judges retirement.” So, in 2011, the year after he rode the
tea-party wave into Congress promising to slash government spending, he
reported $88,432 in pension income—one of the 10 largest in Congress. He
was 46.
Last year, Gowdy reported a far smaller pension. His spokesman,
Nicholas Spencer, says Gowdy listed the package in a different section
of the report “because pensions are not reportable as outside earned
income,” citing advice from “Ethics counsel.” The House Ethics panel’s
published guidelines, however, say pensions should be reported as
income.
In Maine, special rules allow former governors to collect a pension
no matter how many total years of state service they’ve accrued. That’s
how Angus King, who served two terms as governor and now is the state’s
independent U.S. senator, collected a $30,488 pension last year. “It’s
under the law, and it has no relationship to whatever I do after,” King
says. As for the idea of forgoing it because of his $174,000 Senate
salary, he says, “I don’t quite see the argument.”
In Pennsylvania, former state legislators can start collecting their
pensions a decade earlier than most other state workers. That’s how
Republican Rep. Charlie Dent started collecting his $16,000 pension in
2010, the year he turned 50. And how Rep. Allyson Schwartz, a Democrat,
garnered her legislative pension beginning in 2005, the year she was
sworn into Congress. She was 56 at the time. Schwartz is currently
running for governor and would decline her $18,340 pension if elected,
her spokesman Greg Vadala says.
In 2001, Pennsylvania state legislators boosted their own pensions by
50 percent. The same state law lifted teacher and rank-and-file state
worker pensions by only half that. Both Dent and Schwartz were among
those who voted against the Pennsylvania pension bump. But Republican
Rep. Jim Gerlach, 58, voted for it, and now he’s a beneficiary. He has
collected a legislative pension since 2003. It was worth $15,400 last
year and became the subject of attack ads by his Democratic opponent. He
e-mailed a statement: “Again, this is information that has been shared
with my constituents countless times and has been fully disclosed every
year.” Gerlach noted that he paid into the system for 12 years.
“It’s really unconscionable—the fact that they’re collecting a
pension while drawing a salary for service at the federal level,” says
Leo Knepper, executive director of Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania, a
conservative group that fashions itself as a state version of the Club
for Growth. “Our pension system is $48 billion underfunded. Honestly, I
don’t know how they can look voters in the eye.”
Knepper reserved his biggest rage for Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., who
served in the Statehouse for 24 years, and brought home $90,867 in
retirement benefits last year. A member of the conservative Republican
Study Committee, Pitts has received $1.4 million from his pension since
he joined Congress in 1997. His office says his pension tops $90,000
annually because he combined his service in the military and as a
teacher. Knepper says he’s galled that Pitts “really represents himself
as a conservative” to voters while “absolutely double-dipping.”
Not all tea-party activists are in agreement. Sal Russo, chief
strategist for the Tea Party Express, one of the nation’s most active
groups, doesn’t begrudge federal lawmakers who make use of the current
pension system. “An employee is going to take advantage of any benefits
they’re provided—it’s just human nature,” Russo says. Instead,
conservatives should focus on enacting broader change, he says. “The
person who gets the benefit didn’t create the system.”
BIG GOVERNMENT BENEFITS
Reforming that system, Coffman says, is the point of his legislation
to eliminate congressional pensions. “The part that I oppose is having a
defined-benefit retirement plan for members of Congress—and have argued
against a defined-benefit program when I was at the state level,” he
tells National Journal.
But isn’t he taking part in a defined-benefit program?
“I am,” he replies. “I am.”
Coffman’s $55,547 retirement benefit is a pittance in the scheme of
the state’s pension-fund finances, but, as he argued when he presented
his pension-axing bill in committee, symbolism matters. Colorado’s
pension fund has been under duress in recent years. State workers there
must now contribute more, work longer, and receive less after retirement
under a 2010 law, says Katie Kaufmanis, a spokeswoman for Colorado’s
retirement system.
A former state treasurer who had a seat on Colorado’s pension board,
Coffman had previously taken on the most extreme cases of
“double-dipping” at the state level, in which state or school employees
would retire, collect a pension, and then be rehired by the exact same
employer. “The state’s pension fund is bleeding red, and the little
things like this are aggravating it,” Coffman told the Colorado Springs Business Journal in 2004. “Maybe we should suspend pensions [when people go] back to work,” he added.
Coffman’s situation isn’t exactly the same: He’s collecting state
benefits and a federal paycheck, not double-dipping with the same
employer. (“I’m a military retiree too,” Coffman notes. He resigned his
state treasurer post in 2005 to rejoin the Marines and serve in Iraq.)
Still, he stumbles in defending his decision to draw both a paycheck and
a state pension. “I fought for reform when I was in state, and I’m
fighting to reform the system now,” he says. “At states, they ought to
end the defined-benefit portion programs.… I’m certainly a beneficiary
of it, but at the state level that’s unsustainable, too, and that’s
going to have to change.”
Other Republicans, too, have introduced legislation to limit
congressional pensions while collecting a public retirement benefit.
Rep. Richard Nugent, R-Fla., the former Hernando County sheriff, earned
$72,339 from his pension last year; he introduced legislation in 2011
and 2013 to let House members opt out of their congressional pension
(it’s currently mandatory) and titled it the Congress Is Not a Career
Act. Nugent presented his measure to the same committee on the same day
as Coffman made his proposal.
Nugent says he introduced the bill so he could decline a
congressional retirement because “as you point out, I already have a
pension.” He further saves taxpayers money by declining federal health
insurance coverage, he says. But he objects to the suggestion that he
could or should bypass taking his local-government pension while in
Congress. “Why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t I?” he asks. “After 38 years in
law enforcement, I worked hard, stuck it out, and I retired, which is
kind of what I signed up for.”
Nugent explains that while cops deserve a pension, members of
Congress may not. So what about all his colleagues pulling in pensions
for state legislative service? “I don’t begrudge anyone. That’s a
personal choice on their part,” Nugent says, adding, “That’s between
them and their constituents.”
Conservative solutions for America’s finances, in turns out, don’t always correlate with conservative solutions to lawmakers’ personal
finances. Cornyn, the triple-pension-collecting senator from Texas, has
regularly railed against government waste. Rep. Bill Posey, a Florida
Republican, touts on his official website his votes to reform and cut
congressional pensions. He makes no mention of his $14,495 state
pension. And Rep. Tom McClintock, a California Republican and a
tea-party-style conservative long before the term existed, has railed
against a bloated public sector—and the looming pension crisis in his
home state—for years. Yet when he arrived in Congress in 2009, he began
collecting two taxpayer-supported state pensions, worth $9,579 in 2012.
Why didn’t he pass on them? “You’d have to take up that question with
Mrs. McClintock,” he says.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misspelled the
name of the spokesman for Rep. Allyson Schwartz. It is Greg Vadala.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/nearly-one-in-five-members-of-congress-gets-paid-twice-20130627
IG: U.S. Park Police Lost Track of Thousands of Guns
According to a new report
from the Department of the Interior Inspector General, the United
States Park Police have lost track of thousands of handguns, shotguns,
machine guns and rifles.
An anonymous complaint led the Office of Inspector General
(OIG) to investigate the management and supervision of the U.S. Park
Police (USPP) firearms program. Simultaneous, unannounced inspections of
unassigned weapons at USPP facilities revealed that USPP could not
account for Government-issued military-style rifles. It also showed that
its weapons inventory was incomplete. Incomplete weapons inventories
undermine USPP accountability for all of its weapons, and allow for the
possibility that weapons that cannot be located and may not be in safe
keeping.
During our site visits and subsequent interviews with key USPP firearms
program personnel, OIG identified systemic internal control weaknesses.
Our review revealed that USPP had no proper accounting for hundreds of
weapons. We discovered hundreds of handguns, rifles, and shotguns not
accounted for on the official USPP inventory. As recently as April 2013,
two automatic rifles were discovered during a firearms search for which
USPP had no prior knowledge.
We also found that individuals appointed to oversee the program,
including senior command officers, gave only minimal supervision to
officers and other program staff who had access to unassigned weapons.
This report, following our earlier reviews in 2008 and 2009, underscores
a theme of inaction and indifference by USPP leadership and a
lackadaisical attitude toward firearms management. We provided 10
recommendations to improve firearms management and accountability
throughout USPP.
"The accompanying report provides ample evidence that USPP's firearms
management requires immediate attention to address the multitude of
problems we found, which ranged from fundamental errors in record
keeping to glaring nonfeasance by senior command officers," Deputy
Inspector General Mary Kendall wrote in a summary.
The report, issued late Thursday evening, details that the Park
Service not only lost guns, but has no real idea of how many it is
actually responsible for.
"We initially set out to determine if USPP could account for all
military-style weapons in its inventory, whether USPP had intentionally
concealed missing weapons, and whether officers used USPP weapons for
their personal use. Our effort to definitively address the allegations
were hindered by a failure of the USPP property and firearms custodians
to provide a baseline inventory and accounting of firearms. We found
credible evidence of conditions that would allow for theft and misuse of
firearms, and the ability to conceal the fact if weapons were missing,"
Kendall wrote.
Handguns that were obtained from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, weren't placed into the inventory record.
"The custodian took no steps to record the handguns transferred from
ATF on any inventory system," the report states. "The only documentation
pertaining to these firearms that the custodian could provide was the
transfer paperwork from ATF During our documentation review, we
discovered that a handgun serial number had been incorrectly listed on
that paperwork."
On top of these weapons not being stored properly and recorded in
official inventory, many weapons were being stored in the homes of
police.
"This report further underscores the decade-long theme of inaction
and indifference of USPP leadership and management at all levels. Basic
tenets of property management and supervisory oversight are missing in
their simplest forms. Commanders, up to and including the Chief of
Police, have a lackadaisical attitude toward firearms management. Historical
evidence indicates that this indifference is a product of years of
inattention to administrative detail and management principles," Kendall
wrote.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/06/28/department-of-the-interior-loses-thousands-of-guns-n1629818
California schools are turning into government indoctrination centers
So, in a desperate attempt "the Obama administration created a marketing campaign for Obamacare that made it cool and hip"
by "reaching out to the NFL, the NBA and Hollywood for help, and
counting down the days to Oct. 1, when enrollment in the exchanges
officially begins." Further, "The administration is in a
good position to secure splashy endorsements, as Obama's 2008 and
2012 campaigns had a deep bench of celebrity surrogates."
Well, ok, nothing personal but those who will be influenced by endorsements from sports figures and entertainment
types are probably already in agreement with the President Barack
Hussein Obama (D) agenda; these plugs will merely further validate and
rationalize previously held beliefs. And for those who disagree,
especially some of the owners and major stockholders, well, in true
Chicago Way fashion the Obama administration has ways of making them agree.
But what is truly disturbing--actually repellent and frightening--is
the government's plan to abuse the concept of public education by
turning public schools into indoctrination factories, forcing children
to spout the joys of Obamacare. Or else!
In California, the educrats of the Los Angeles Unified School District
(LAUSD), the second largest school district in the country with over
640,000 students, will be force feeding students to sell Obamacare to
their families, funded by a nearly million dollar state grant (though
the state is broke) from Covered California according to this article in Human Events
The district listed as a primary outcome for its project, "Teens trained to be messengers to family members."
Covered California spokeswoman Sarah Soto-Taylor said staff have not questioned this goal.
"We have confidence that
the model LA Unified brought to the table will be successful in
reaching our target population, which includes family members of
students," she said.
LAUSD will also use
tax-paid staff to promote ObamaCare through phone calls to students'
homes, in-class presentations, and meetings with employees eligible
for ObamaCare's taxpayer-covered healthcare, the grant award says.
Unpaid Propagandizers
The
district listed adult education students, part-time, and contract
employees as its target population. Teens will be trained to be
messengers not to those groups, but to their own families, to get more
people enrolled in taxpayer-subsidized healthcare.
If the project is successful, Los Angeles families can expect more use of students to push government-preferred messaging.
"Teens
are part of a 'pilot' program to test whether young people can be
trained as messengers to deliver outreach and limited education to
family and friends in and around their homes," said Gayle Pollard-Terry,
a LAUSD spokesman, in an email. "Teens will be educating adults that
they already know (e.g., family or friends) and not other adults."
'Paid in the Rear'
Grant
recipients like LAUSD will be held accountable by the state for
fulfilling their promised activities for outreach, said Larry Hicks,
another LAUSD spokesman.
"At
a minimum, grantees will be required to submit to Covered California
monthly, quarterly, and annual reports on their activities and progress
towards agreed upon outcomes. If project benchmarks are not met,
grantees may be required to submit additional ad hoc reports upon
Covered California's request. Grantees will also be required to report
any proposed adjustments to their approved outreach and education plan
using the information management system... Additionally, field monitors
will be assigned to grantees to verify their progress," Hughes said.
Disturbing
comparisons with using children and government education facilities to
deliver "government-preferred messaging" in the past and in other
societies today instantly spring to mind. And so do the questions.
If
the parents disagree with Obamacare and their children's message will
the children then be compelled to report them to the "field
monitors...assigned to grantees to verify their progress"?
What
if a parent hangs up on an intrusive government caller or worse not so
politely, or even politely, argues with the "outreach" drone?" Can
parents protest the "use of students to push government-preferred
messaging"? If so, will the parentsr be compelled to attend
parent-school meetings and labelled unfit and abusive?
And
what will happen to the students if they mock their assignment of
"educating adults they already know", or educate their trainers on the
perils of Obamacare, or refuse "to be trained as messengers" or even
just don't do their "homework" as students are wont to do? What if
kids fail at "educating adults they already know"? All of these
outcomes happen every day in homes and schools across America over minor
issues. Will the students be shamed and punished by teachers and/or
the school administration for their failure to do the assignment? Will
the other kids make fun of them?
Perhaps even in California some teachers or administrators will have
doubts about violating the basic education principles of a free society
which prohibit political advocacy of only one viewpoint. If they voice
their concerns about this misuse of the schools or if they too express
concerns about Obamacare will they be fired and sent to special in
service workshops or re education camps, joining protesting parents and
students? What will happen to their children, their families?
Unfortunately, these questions and others similar to them are not far
fetched or speculative. Oh sure, the practices against dissenters will
probably not outwardly mimic those of North Korea, Nazi Germany or
Communist Russia--certainly no parent or student will be executed.
But...
Woe
to those who publicly deviate from politically correct or government
approved thought. Using vulnerable students "to push
government-preferred messaging" though is a new low. And alas, this is
probably not even the lowest of the desperate, all encompassing
government mandates regarding Obamacare, the environment or any other
"government-preferred" thought or action.
More is sure to come.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/06/california_schools_are_turning_into_government_indoctrination_centers.html#ixzz2XWYkT33l
Another White House Play Date with Muslim Jihad
Forget Paula Deen. There are far more dangerous bigots and poisonous
haters spoiling the American landscape. They cook up violent rhetoric
and murderous plots against our troops, our citizens and our allies
24/7. And they have direct access to the White House.
Earlier this week, the indefatigable Investigative Project on
Terrorism blew the whistle on the Obama administration's latest
flirtation with Muslim jihad. Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah bragged on his
website that he had met with Team Obama on June 13. IPT reported that
bin Bayyah was invited by National Security Council official Gayle Smith
"to learn from you and we need to be looking for new mechanisms to
communicate with you and the Association of Muslim Scholars."
Someone associated with bin Bayyah deleted his website reference to
the meeting, but the Internet is forever. The White House has now
'fessed up to the confab. According to Fox News, a senior official spun
the troubling event as a discussion about "poverty, global health
efforts and bin Bayyah's own efforts to speak out against al-Qaida."
Bin Bayyah's moderate Muslim costume shouldn't fool anyone. This
sharia thug, who has worked with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
to boost his progressive-friendly cred, lobbied the United Nations to
outlaw all mockery and criticism of Allah. He raised money to benefit
the terror group Hamas. He is a top lieutenant of Muslim Brotherhood
spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi, who exhorts followers to kill every
last Jew; sanctioned suicide bombings and the killing of our soldiers;
expressed support for executing apostates and stoning gays; and declared
that the "U.S. is an enemy of Islam that has already declared war on
Islam under the disguise of war on terrorism and provides Israel with
unlimited support."
As jihad watchdogs have reported, the administration has rolled out
the red carpet for dozens of Muslim Brotherhood officers, flacks and
sympathizers. IPT noted last year: "White House visitor logs show that
top U.S. policy-makers are soliciting and receiving advice from people
who, at best, view the war on terrorism as an unchecked war on Muslims.
These persons' perspectives and preferred policies handcuff law
enforcement and weaken our resolve when it comes to confronting
terrorism."
No kidding. Another Qaradawi cheerleader, Hisham al-Talib, was
welcomed last spring at the White House by Obama's Office of Faith-Based
and Neighborhood Partnerships. Four days later, White House officials
welcomed a foreign delegation of the radical sharia-enforcing Muslim
Brotherhood from Egypt. As I reported previously, al-Talib is an
Iraqi-born Muslim identified by the FBI as a Muslim Brotherhood
operative and a major contributor to the left-wing Center for
Constitutional Rights, the group of jihadi-sympathizing lawyers who
helped spring suspected Benghazi terror plotter Abu Sufian bin Qumu from
Gitmo.
Al-Talib is also a founding member of the SAAR Foundation and the
International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). FBI and Customs
officials believe SAAR/SAFA laundered money for a plethora of violent
Muslim terrorist groups, from Hamas and Hezbollah to al-Qaida and the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Investigative journalist Patrick Poole
reported recently that the Obama DOJ dropped planned prosecutions of
IIIT leaders including al-Talib, despite being "targeted and repeatedly
named in the 2003 U.S. Customs Service search warrant application by
Customs Agent David Kane targeting the SAAR Foundation/SAFA Group terror
finance network."
IIIT was also a demonstrated unindicted co-conspirator in the feds'
Holy Land Foundation terror financing case and supported convicted
terror aides Sami al-Arian and Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi. Al-Amoudi was the
first president of the Islamic Society of Boston mosque, where Boston
bomber jihad brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, used to worship.
We need a zero tolerance policy for jihadist infiltrators and
coddlers in Washington. Let's make the most transparent administration
ever live up to the hype. I suggest the White House be required to raise
the black flag of Islamic jihad at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue every time
President Obama welcomes these treacherous visitors.
Even better: Let's take a page from Kanye West and project the names
of all the Ikhwan-linked goons who are allowed to darken the White House
doorstep onto the side of the Old Executive Office Building for all to
see -- along with their most infamous hate videos and fatwas against
Jews, infidels, gays, women and U.S. soldiers. No more play dates with
Muslim jihad behind closed doors. Light 'em up.
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/06/28/another-white-house-play-date-with-muslim-jihad-n1629534/page/full
Hillary Gets 'Liberty Medal' After Lying About Benghazi
What do you receive for getting four Americans killed in Benghazi, including our ambassador? Just ask Hillary Clinton.
On
September 10--exactly a day short of one year after she and Obama
allowed their own officials to die in real time--Clinton will be awarded
the National Constitution Center's Liberty Medal.
"The
Liberty Medal recognizes individuals who have furthered the ideals of
freedom, democracy, and equality, often against great odds," said
National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen. "Hillary
Clinton has devoted her life to expanding opportunities for 'We the
People' not just in this country but around the globe."
As
the 67th Secretary of State, Clinton broke national and global
barriers. She was the first First Lady to serve in a presidential Cabinet...As
Secretary of State, Clinton advocated for "smart power" in foreign
policy, elevating diplomacy and development and repositioning them for
the 21st century--with new tools, technologies, and partners, including
the private sector and civil society around the world.
Here's
"smart power" in action. During a Senate hearing, after the 2012
election, Senators asked the Secretary of State whether she had read
cables coming from Benghazi requesting security; Clinton drew a blank. She replied, "With specific security requests, they didn't come to me; I had no knowledge of them."
If
anyone is still wondering how a woman who lied to Congress and left
four Americans dead can be honored with a liberty award look no further
than the Chairman of the National Constitution Center, Jeb Bush.
Former
Secretary Clinton has dedicated her life to serving and engaging people
across the world in democracy...These efforts as a citizen, an
activist, and a leader have earned Secretary Clinton this year's Liberty
Medal.
Tell me, Governor Bush, what does Ambassador Stevens get for making the ultimate sacrifice? How about Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty? Will
the families of the dead be present for Hillary's award? I am sure they
will have a few words about Hillary's skill, courage, and dedication in
supporting those who serve our country and put their lives on the line.
Since when does letting Americans die and then lying about it deserve a medal?
In
the cesspool where corrupt politicians like Hillary and Jeb hang out,
the more you mess up, the more you get rewarded! Recently, sex
addict Bill Clinton received the Father of the Year award and a
President who proved he gets off on drone strikes managed to pick up a
Nobel Peace Prize before anyone realized he was a hawk.
So
just ignore Hillary's terrible record as Secretary of State and ignore
the ambassador and staff she failed to protect. Remember, that
"Hillary Clinton has devoted her life to expanding opportunities for 'We
the People' not just in this country but around the globe."
Cosmo gets ObamaCare makeover: Feminist magazine to promote new healthcare law
Readers of the magazine Cosmopolitan are in for a shock this
fall when their sex advice columns, trendy fashion spreads, and magical
makeover solutions will be crowded out by feature stories promoting
ObamaCare.
The Obama administration has recruited the magazine to promote its
controversial bill to its 18 million readers via feature stories
beginning this fall, as the bill takes effect.
The magazine will continue its coverage of the Affordable Care Act into 2014.
With a readership heavily targeting women between 17 and 38 years of age, Cosmo is an ideal publication for the administration to popularize ObamaCare’s “free” birth control, as well as other aspects of the law dealing with reproduction.
Cosmo’s editor-in-chief, Joanna Coles, explains the
introduction of public policy and fiscal impacts of health care
decisions to its pages saying, “This stuff is really important. It’s
life-changing for a lot of people.”
The content change is not restricted to its glossy pages. Cosmo’s social media outlets will be peppered with the information about the bill as well.
Another hot topic that Coles anticipates covering is the introduction
of insurance exchanges and subsidies, which will be made available in
October. Financial publications such as Forbes are reporting these exchanges will increase insurance premiums for American consumers.
ObamaCare has also been criticized for its Individual mandate, which
penalizes those who are not compliant, and for forcing taxpayers to pay
for abortions. Many companies across America have already filed lawsuits
with the Health and Human Services abortifacient contraception coverage mandate.
The Obama administration has stated it is also trying to get
professional athletes to promote ObamaCare, reportedly contacting both
the NFL and the NBA.
Several hundred Planned Parenthood clinics are promoting the bill, which is forecast to swell the abortion provider's revenues, as well.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cosmo-gets-obamacare-makeover-feminist-magazine-to-promote-new-healthcare-l
The U.S. government is about to spend more than $771 million on
military aircraft that the Afghan people “lack the capacity to operate,”
according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan
Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The Department of Defense says that it is moving forward with the
purchase despite SIGAR’S warning that the planes will go to waste.
SIGAR only discovered the DOD’s plans while performing an audit of its Afghan Special Mission Wing (SMW).
“SIGAR is recommending that DOD suspend all activity under the
contracts awarded for the 48 new aircraft until capacity issues are
properly addressed,” it said in a press release Friday morning.
SIGAR additionally discovered that “DOD awarded $553 million to
Rosoboronexport, a Russian government agency, after receiving SIGAR’s
recommendations that moving forward was imprudent,” according to the
release.
Lt. Col. James Gregory, a Pentagon spokesman, told the Washington Free Beacon
that it does “not concur with the SIGAR report recommendation” and that
a delay in shipment is not in the United States’ security interests.
SIGAR’s audit of SMW found that the planes are not useful because the
Afghans have hired illiterate and untrained pilots to fly them.
The Afghan forces have experienced “difficulty finding recruits who
are literate and do not have associations with criminal/insurgent
activity,” according to the audit.
“Only seven pilots are qualified to fly with night vision goggles,
which is necessary for most counter-terrorism missions,” SIGAR reported.
The SMW program also has poor U.S. government oversight, leading to
waste and problems in sustaining what the DOD believes is a critical
project in post-war Afghanistan.
“NATO and DOD do not have a plan with milestones and dates for
achieving full strength for the SMW to justify the fleet size,” SIGAR
reported, noting that most maintenance projects are still performed by
the United States.
“DOD performs 50 percent of maintenance and repair and 70 percent of
critical maintenance and logistics management for SMW and does not have a
plan for transferring these functions to the Afghans,” SIGAR said.
The United States still intends to spend $109 million per year
despite the flaws, “for oversight, maintenance, training, and logistics
support for the next several years,” according to SIGAR.
These deeply entrenched problems have contributed to the program’s slow growth.
“SMW had less than one-quarter of the 806 personnel needed to reach
full strength and during the length of the audit made no tangible
growth,” SIGAR found.
In addition, the “Afghan Ministries of Defense and Interior do not
have an agreement on the SMW command and control structure, impacting
growth and capacity,” according to SIGAR.
SIGAR predicts that once the United States fully exits Afghanistan in
the coming year the Afghans will not be prepared to maintain or operate
the planes.
Gregory said delaying the shipment of planes until SIGAR’s performance criteria are met “would not be in our national interest.”
“Delaying contract award pending agreement between the ministries on
transition of SMW administrative control would unacceptably delay our
efforts to develop the SMW into a capable force,” Gregory said.
“The contract for the PC-12 [planes] was signed on Oct. 13, 2012, and
the contract for the Mi-17 [planes] was finalized on June 16, 2013,” he
said.
The SMW is still a relatively new creation, meaning that improvement efforts are already underway, the official said.
“The SMW was formally established less than a year ago and
sustainment efforts, including training, are presently underway,”
Gregory said. “Delivery of the aircraft in question will take place over
the next eighteen months. This will include training on how to operate
and maintain the aircraft and associated equipment.”
“DOD has been implementing or has agreed with implementing the other
recommendations in the report, which will help avoid the adverse outcome
that it warns against,” he added.
http://freebeacon.com/us-to-spend-771m-on-planes-afghans-cant-use/
