IRS Chief Counsel Visited White House Several Times Between 2010 and 2012
The Internal Revenue Service chief counsel William J. Wilkins was revealed by IRS witness Carter Hull at a House Oversight Committee hearing on July 18 as a senior official who would see Tea Party and other conservative organizations' applications for tax exempt status.Wilkins has a long history with the Democratic Party since the early 1980's and was the lawyer who defended President Barack Obama's former preacher Jeremiah Wright in 2008, when the church was under investigation for being in violation of its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. According to visitors logs, Wilkins visited the White House at least nine times since 2010.
The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan describes Thursday's revelations, saying, "It's almost as if -- my words -- the conservative organizations in question were, during two major election cycles, deliberately held in a holding pattern":
What was the chief counsel's office looking for? The letter to Mr. Werfel says Mr. Hull's supervisor, Ronald Shoemaker, provided insight: The counsel's office wanted, in the words of the congressional committees, "information about the applicants' political activities leading up to the 2010 election." Mr. Shoemaker told investigators he didn't find that kind of question unreasonable, but he found the counsel's office to be "not very forthcoming": "We discussed it to some extent and they indicated that they wanted more development of possible political activity or political intervention right before the election period."According to the White House visitors logs Wilkins visited the White House when the President was present. Only one of those times in April of 2012, was it with a smaller group of 11 other government officials or policy advisors as opposed to a large reception. Wilkins also visited the White House for an appointee event and to meet with White House staffers at the Old Executive Office Building.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/19/IRS-Chief-Counsel-Visited-White-House-Several-Times-Between-2010-and-2012
Journalist calls out his newspaper's coverage of IRS scandals
We live in a time of extraordinary media corruption when testimony late last week tying a presidential political appointee to the IRS' suppression of the president's political opposition was widely ignored, except for Fox News and the conservative talk radio and internet ghetto. But at least one brave journalist in the MSM is speaking up about the disgraceful suppression of an important story of political corruption of the highest order.
Mike Hashimoto, an editorial writer of the Dallas News, is bothered by this media corruption. He posted a blog Friday, calling out his employer and AP:I have to admit, I'm stumped. Either something fairly important happened yesterday in Washington, or as readers of The Dallas Morning News might say, "I have no idea what you mean."
He lays out what happened, linking to a Fox News account and citing Peggy Noonan's excellent explanation of the importance of testimony by Carter Hull, retired 48 year veteran of the IRS, who fingered the chief counsel, William Wilkins. Wilkins is one of two presidential appointees at the IRS, the other being the commissioner. He serves at the pleasure of the president, and is emphatically not a career staff member, contrary to initial lies given by the Obama administration.
Hashimoto looks at his own paper's coverage and concludes:We had a story on the hearing that included not a single mention of Carter Hull or William Wilkins, the IRS chief counsel appointed by that guy in the White House. (Honestly, I can't even find our print story on our website, but it was a slightly shorter version of this Associated Press dispatch.)
Like I said, I'm stumped. It's as if our story (the AP version) exists in a parallel universe from what would seem to be the bigger news.
Perhaps this will sort itself out over the weekend. Or maybe this whole IRS thing never happened.
We have to relentlessly target and personalize this media scandal. A fundamental responsibility to report on corruption is being shirked by most of the media. If community organizers funded by foundations were available on the right, there would be demonstrations in front of the New York Times, NBC, the WaPo and other media disgraces. Staff members would be hounded in public to either support of denounce their employers' suppression of a major story.
An information war is underway. Our side lacks the financial and organizational muscle the Gramsci-inspired left has built up. But one thing we do have on our side is truth.
Hats off to Mike Hashimoto. Now are there any honest journalists at the WaPo, NYT or NBC?
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/07/journalist_calls_out_his_newspapers_coverage_of_irs_scandals.html#ixzz2ZhmI9LtM
NY food stamp recipients are shipping welfare-funded groceries to relatives in Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Haiti
Food stamps are paying for trans-Atlantic takeout — with New Yorkers using taxpayer-funded benefits to ship food to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found.
The practice is so common that hundreds of 45- to 55-gallon cardboard and plastic barrels line the walls of supermarkets in almost every Caribbean corner of the city.
The feds say the moveable feasts go against the intent of the $86 billion welfare program for impoverished Americans.
Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, called it just another example of welfare abuse.
“I don’t want food-stamp police to see what people do with their rice and beans, but it’s wrong,” Tanner told The Post. “The purpose of this program is to help Americans who don’t have enough to eat. This is not intended as a form of foreign aid.”
The United States spent $522.7 million on foreign aid to the Caribbean last fiscal year, government data show.
Still, New Yorkers say they ship the food because staples available in the States are superior and less costly than what their families can get abroad.
“Everybody does it,” said a worker at an Associated Supermarket in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn. “They pay for it any way they can. A lot of people pay with EBT.”
Customers pay cash for the barrels, usually about $40, and typically ship them filled with $500 to $2,000 worth of rice, beans, pasta, canned milk and sausages.
Workers at the Pioneer Supermarket on Parkside Avenue and the Key Food on Flatbush Avenue confirmed the practice.
They said food-stamp recipients typically take home their barrels and fill them gradually over time with food bought with EBT cards.
When the tubs are full, the welfare users call a shipping company to pick them up and send them to the Caribbean for about $70. The shipments take about three weeks.
Last week, a woman stuffed dozens of boxes of macaroni and evaporated milk into a barrel headed for her family in Kingston, Jamaica. She said she didn’t have welfare benefits and bought the food herself.
“This is all worth more than $2,000,” she said. “I’ve been shopping since last December. You can help somebody else, someone who doesn’t live in this country.”
A man helping her pack the barrel said: “We’re poor here, and they’re poor. But what we can get here is like luxury to them.”
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/it_on_y22owkLpsldSAjDVC9isjM
Senate Gang Orders Lobbyists to Target House GOP
Their goal is to force the House to act on immigration, but the effort is just irritating everybody.
John McCain and his fellow immigration gangsters called
about 50 business lobbyists to the Capitol with a simple message: Pony
up and fight. Delivering some of his famous “straight talk,” McCain told
them they weren’t spending enough money and were losing the battle for
comprehensive immigration reform. What’s needed, McCain said, was a
national, coordinated campaign to push the House to act on immigration
reform.
“This is a political campaign. We’ve gotta have
communications. We gotta have coordination. We gotta have advertising.
We gotta have a real political campaign with the goal of winning an
agreement from the House to sit down and negotiate with us with a bill.
That’s our goal,” McCain told National Journal.
But the marching orders managed to anger and alienate both
the lobbyists in the room and House Republicans they are supposed to be
targeting. Neither group wants senators telling them how to do their
jobs.
“Wow, these people are really trying to [screw] us,” one House GOP aide said of the meeting.
House Republicans are in no mood to be targeted by McCain,
Democrat Chuck Schumer, and other members of the Senate "Gang of Eight,"
the bipartisan coalition that pushed immigration reform through the
chamber.
“These people are wasting their money. They’re wasting
their time, because the House is going to do what the House is going to
do,” said a House GOP leadership aide.
In an interview, McCain said they’re trying to “persuade” House Republicans.
“It’s not a hardball or attack-ad kind of thing. We’re not trying to alienate any member of the House. The last thing we want to do is alienate any member of the House,” he said. “But we do think that we are not getting our message across in as effective a fashion as we can if we mount a real campaign.”
Supporters of comprehensive immigration reform are losing the grassroots battle to opponents who are describing the Senate bill as amnesty, McCain told the group, according to people in the room. McCain told the lobbyists not to push for the Senate bill, but to advocate for all its component parts.
Sen. Lindsey Graham told the group that if the House passes border security and Dreamer legislation, the Senate could then try to negotiate a comprehensive package with the House during a conference committee, attendees said.
The senators told lobbyists to focus on persuading House Republicans to let legislation come to the floor, even if it they end up voting against it—an attempt to end-run House Speaker John Boehner’s pledge not to bring anything to the floor that doesn’t have support from a majority of Republicans.
Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez added that any final bill would have to include pathway to citizenship. The meeting also included Gang of Eight members Jeff Flake, Michael Bennet, and Dick Durbin. Only GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, who has refused to pressure the House to act, was absent, leading lobbyists to refer to it as the “Gang of Seven” meeting.
The groups attending included FWD.us, the Partnership for a
New Economy, ITI, TechNet, CompTIA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the
National Association of Manufacturers, Bible, Badges, and Business,
Google, Microsoft, Intel, Facebook, Oracle, Cisco, Compete USA,
Americans for Tax Reform, PhRMA, Texas Instruments, IBM, and the
National Restaurant Association, according to people who were there.
At the meeting, the senators gave out a list of about 120
House Republicans who they believe could vote for some kind of reform
and told the lobbyists to target them over the August recess.
The influence class did not greet the suggestion kindly.
“To be hauled up to the Capitol to have a list shoved in my
face—jeez, the thought never occurred to me that we should put a list
together,” one attendee said sarcastically. “It’s of questionable
benefit.
”
In fact, many of the groups in the room have already
started laying plans for the August recess that include attending
town-hall meetings, pursuing earned and paid media campaigns, and
meeting with lawmakers in their districts. There is no central campaign
structure; rather, the groups are coordinating among themselves in an
attempt to cover as much ground, and have as big an impact, as possible.
Lobbyists were tight-lipped about specifics of their plans,
arguing that they don’t want to tip their hands to opponents. Several
criticized the senators’ decision to hold such a large meeting, saying
it resulted in leaks that have already compromised their thinking and
strategy.
“There’s concern that the Gang of Seven are seen as the
godfathers with the strings,” said another attendee. “Half the
Republicans don’t like their own leadership, and they don’t listen. They
sure as hell don’t want the Senate leadership telling them what to do.”
Senators want the groups to reconvene and report back on July 25.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/senate-gang-orders-lobbyists-to-target-house-gop-20130721
Michigan judge halts Detroit bankruptcy because it dishonors Obama
Angela Corey should have tried this argument with Judge Nelson. 50/50 shot, no?Alternate headline: “Government in Detroit somehow worse than thought.”
Aquilina, who granted the restraining order, clearly was irked.“I know he’s watching this.” She’s essentially threatening to tattle on the governor by faxing a copy of her order to Our National Father, whose dignity is on the line as the fate of America’s most notorious experiment in pure progressive government is decided. They should be grateful she didn’t hold them in contempt under the Dishonoring Obama clause of the Constitution.
Prior to her ruling on Friday, she criticized the Snyder administration and Attorney General’s Office for what appeared to be hasty action to outflank pension board attorneys.
“It’s cheating, sir, and it’s cheating good people who work,” the judge told assistant Attorney General Brian Devlin. “It’s also not honoring the (United States) president, who took (Detroit’s auto companies) out of bankruptcy.”
Aquilina said she would make sure President Obama got a copy of her order.
“I know he’s watching this,” she said, predicting the president ultimately will have to take action to make sure existing pension commitments are honored.
Two things. One: The left has spent much of the day grumbling on Twitter that it’s not fair to make fun of Obama for saying repeatedly last year that he prevented Detroit from going bankrupt when what he meant by “Detroit” was the auto industry, not the municipal government. Aquilina doesn’t seem to find that distinction important. Obama held himself out as the city’s economic savior; to allow it to declare bankruptcy now would make a liar of him, and we can’t have that. Or maybe … she doesn’t grasp the distinction at all?
She also ordered that a copy of her declaratory judgment be sent to President Barack Obama, saying he “bailed out Detroit” and may want to look into the pension issue.That’s from the Detroit Free Press, which helpfully notes that she “has a Democratic background.” Two: The legal basis for the decision is that the Michigan Constitution doesn’t allow the state to reduce public-employee pensions (of course), even though public-employee pensions are what’s driving the bankruptcy. Some bankruptcy experts disagree, but if that ruling stands on appeal, presumably the only solution is a bailout. You don’t think Our Father would go for that, do you? How about congressional Republicans?
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/07/19/michigan-judge-halts-detroit-bankruptcy-because-it-dishonors-obama/
The Downfall of Detroit
It took only six decades of “progressive” policies to bring a great city to its knees.
By Mark SteynBy the time Detroit declared bankruptcy, Americans were so inured to the throbbing dirge of Motown’s Greatest Hits — 40 percent of its streetlamps don’t work; 210 of its 317 public parks have been permanently closed; it takes an hour for police to respond to a 9-1-1 call; only a third of its ambulances are driveable; one-third of the city has been abandoned; the local realtor offers houses on sale for a buck and still finds no takers; etc., etc. — Americans were so inured that the formal confirmation of a great city’s downfall was greeted with little more than a fatalistic shrug.
But it shouldn’t be. To achieve this level of devastation, you usually have to be invaded by a foreign power. In the War of 1812, when Detroit was taken by a remarkably small number of British troops without a shot being fired, Michigan’s Governor Hull was said to have been panicked into surrender after drinking heavily. Two centuries later, after an almighty 50-year bender, the city surrendered to itself. The tunnel from Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, Michigan, is now a border between the First World and the Third World — or, if you prefer, the developed world and the post-developed world. To any American time-transported from the mid 20th century, the city’s implosion would be literally incredible: Were he to compare photographs of today’s Hiroshima with today’s Detroit, he would assume Japan won the Second World War after nuking Michigan. Detroit was the industrial powerhouse of America, the “arsenal of democracy,” and in 1960 the city with the highest per capita income in the land. Half a century on, Detroit’s population has fallen by two-thirds, and in terms of “per capita income,” many of the shrunken pool of capita have no income at all beyond EBT cards.
The recent HBO series Hung recorded the adventures of a financially struggling Detroit school basketball coach forced to moonlight as a gigolo. It would be heartening to think the rest of the bloated public-sector work force, whose unsustainable pensions and benefits have brought Detroit to its present sorry state (and account for $9 billion of its $11 billion in unsecured loans), could be persuaded to follow its protagonist and branch out into the private sector, but this would probably be more gigolos than the market could bear, even allowing for an uptick in tourism from Windsor.
So, late on Friday, some genius jurist struck down the bankruptcy filing. Judge Rosemarie Aquilina declared Detroit’s bankruptcy “unconstitutional” because, according to the Detroit Free Press, “the Michigan Constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees.” Which means that, in Michigan, reality is unconstitutional.
So a bankrupt ruin unable to declare bankruptcy is now back to selling off its few remaining valuables, as I learned from a Detroit News story headlined “Howdy Doody May Test Limits of Protecting Detroit Assets.” For those of you under 40 — okay, under 80 — Howdy Doody is the beloved American children’s puppet, in western garb with a beaming smile and 48 freckles, one for every state, which gives you some idea of when his heyday was. The Howdy Doody Show ended its run on September 24, 1960, which would have made sense for Detroit, too. The city’s Institute of Arts paid $300,000 for the original Howdy Doody puppet — or about the cost of 300,000 three-bedroom homes. Don’t get too excited — you can’t go to Detroit and see him on display; he’s in storage. He’s in some warehouse lying down doing nothing all day long, like so many other $300,000 city employees. Instead of selling him off, maybe they should get him moonlighting as a gigolo and sell it to HBO as Hungy Doody (“When you’re looking for the real wood”). What else is left to sell? The City of Windsor has already offered to buy the Detroit half of the Detroit/Windsor tunnel, perhaps to wall it up.
With bankruptcy temporarily struck down, we’re told that “innovation hubs” and “enterprise zones” are the answer. Seriously? In my book After America, I observe that the physical decay of Detroit — the vacant and derelict lots for block after block after block — is as nothing compared to the decay of the city’s human capital. Forty-seven percent of adults are functionally illiterate, which is about the same rate as the Central African Republic, which at least has the excuse that it was ruled throughout the Seventies by a cannibal emperor. Why would any genuine innovator open a business in a Detroit “innovation hub”? Whom would you employ? The illiterates include a recent president of the school board, Otis Mathis, which doesn’t bode well for the potential work force a decade hence.
Given their respective starting points, one has to conclude that Detroit’s Democratic party makes a far more comprehensive wrecking crew than Emperor Bokassa ever did. No bombs, no invasions, no civil war, just “liberal” “progressive” politics day in, day out. Americans sigh and say, “Oh, well, Detroit’s an ‘outlier.’” It’s an outlier only in the sense that it happened here first. The same malign alliance between a corrupt political class, rapacious public-sector unions, and an ever more swollen army of welfare dependents has been adopted in the formally Golden State of California, and in large part by the Obama administration, whose priorities — “health” “care” “reform,” “immigration” “reform” — are determined by the same elite/union/dependency axis. As one droll tweeter put it, “If Obama had a city, it would look like Detroit.”
After the Battle of Saratoga, Adam Smith famously told a friend despondent that the revolting colonials were going to be the ruin of Britain, “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation” — and in a great city, too. If your inheritance includes the fruits of visionaries like Henry Ford, Walter Chrysler, and the Dodge brothers, you can coast for a long time, and then decline incrementally, and then less incrementally, and then catastrophically, until what’s left is, as the city’s bankruptcy petition puts it, “structurally unsound and in danger of collapse.” There is a great deal of ruin in advanced societies, but even in Detroit it took only six decades.
“Structurally unsound and in danger of collapse”: Hold that thought. Like Detroit, America has unfunded liabilities, to the tune of $220 trillion, according to the economist Laurence Kotlikoff. Like Detroit, it’s cosseting the government class and expanding the dependency class, to the point where its bipartisan “immigration reform” actively recruits 50–60 million low-skilled chain migrants. Like Detroit, America’s governing institutions are increasingly the corrupt enforcers of a one-party state — the IRS and Eric Holder’s amusingly misnamed Department of Justice being only the most obvious examples. Like Detroit, America is bifurcating into the class of “community organizers” and the unfortunate denizens of the communities so organized.
The one good thing that could come out of bankruptcy is if those public-sector pensions are cut and government workers forced to learn what happens when, as National Review’s Kevin Williamson puts it, a parasite outgrows its host. But, pending an appeal, that’s “unconstitutional,” no matter how dead the host is. Beyond that, Detroit needs urgently both to make it non-insane for talented people to live in the city, and to cease subjecting its present population to a public “education” system that’s little more than unionized child abuse. Otherwise, Windsor, Ontario, might as well annex it for a War of 1812 theme park — except if General Brock and the Royal Newfoundland Fencibles had done to Detroit what the Democratic party did they’d be on trial for war crimes at The Hague.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353959/downfall-detroit-mark-steyn
PK'S NOTE: I've read a couple of great comments in articles about this. I'll share them:
"The city in turn needs to face the harsh fiscal reality that it is going to cost a whole lot more to ever barrow money again and there will be a time in the near future because the reality is the city won't fix the fundamental issues that got it here.
The citizens will continue to elect the same type of people it has for the last 50 years. People that promise the world and pass the buck. People that treat the city and it's departments as an open check book for fraud and corruption. It will be interesting to see if the city will continue to lose population as it has or has it bottomed out.
It isn't like people are moving to Detroit in droves, the opposite is true.
It isn't like businesses are moving to Detroit bringing jobs.
It isn't like the school district is producing a work force with basic skills.
The city has a huge entitlement problem.
The tax base is decimated.
The bankruptcy will clean the financial books for the time being but the systemic issues facing the city are still going to be there." - Tim Carroll
"This article could have just as easily been titled, "Pensioners need to face ...". It goes both ways. The creditors did not make the decisions NOT to fund the pension plans, the city did. The city made the decision to keep borrowing money they knew they couldn't pay back. I agree the creditors should have cut the city off long before now, but that's the only mistake the creditors made. In my perfect world all members of Detroit city government both past and present should have their personal assets seized and thrown into jail. The voters who were stupid enough to vote for them should have their personal assets seized as well. Was it Obama who said, "Elections have consequences.". It's time to start making the voters accountable for their choices as well." - Richard Fink
Homeland Security Largely Unaware of Its Own Pricey R&D Investments
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spends millions dollars on
research and development every year even though it is in the dark about
where and how much of these resources are used.GAO found 35 instances worth roughly $66 million in which contracts overlapped with activities conducted elsewhere within DHS.
The DHS pumps more than $1 billion a year into research and development, but does not know how much its components invest in research and development (R&D), according to David Maurer, director of the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) homeland security and justice division.
As part of its “DHS at 10 Years” series examining the effectiveness of the department in the past decade, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee held a hearing Wednesday on DHS’s Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate.
Since it began its operations in 2003, DHS has spent billions of dollars researching and developing technologies used to support a wide rage of missions, including nuclear detectors and screening technology for airline passengers, among others.
S&T was created by Congress to coordinate R&D for DHS and protect the nation by providing federal, state, and local officials with state-of-the-art technology and resources. Although the Directorate conducts R&D, other DHS components, such as the U.S. Coast Guard and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), also have their own R&D programs in support of their respective missions.
The S&T Directorate, the DNDO, and the Coast Guard are the only components that conduct R&D and report budget expenditures to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as part of OMB’s requirements.
A 2009 report by the National Academy of Public Administration noted that S&T had no authority over other federal agencies that conduct homeland security-related research, and as a result increased the risk for duplication among the different DHS components.
The DHS’s lack of a standard definition for R&D or guidance to its components about how to report research activities has made it more difficult for the department to identify its total investment in R&D. According to Maurer, this hampers the agency’s ability to be strategic in its planning.
“Having a common definition will help gain strategic visibility over R&D activities,” Maurer said. “It’s not going to be an easy thing to come up with, but it’s important.”
GAO found 35 instances worth roughly $66 million in which contracts overlapped with activities conducted elsewhere within DHS. In one example of the overlap, GAO found two DHS components awarded five separate contracts that each addressed detection of the same chemical. Currently, there is no process in place at DHS or S&T to prevent overlap or unnecessary duplication.
The good news for DHS is that even though GAO “dug in deeply” to find unnecessary duplication, it did not uncover any, Maurer added. But, he added, GAO only looked within DHS and did not look outside the department for overlap with other government programs.
In 2011, GAO found an additional $250 million spent by other DHS components on R&D.
“That is not necessarily bad if it’s done by design. The problem occurs when it is not done strategically and it is not done intentionally. When that happens it raises the risk of unnecessary duplication, and that’s a problem because you end up wasting money,” Maurer said.
DHS has yet to develop a policy defining who is tasked with coordinating R&D activities at DHS that could help to prevent overlap, fragmentation, or duplication. In June 2012, S&T sent for review to the White House a draft strategy that identified the roles and responsibilities for coordinating homeland security science and technology functions across the U.S. government. As of July, the White House has not yet approved the draft.
“Going forward, DHS needs to address common definition of R&D — what’s research and development and what isn’t,” Maurer stressed. Better coordination and improved tracking of R&D projects and the costs involved will help with overall strategic visibility, he added.
Dr. Tara O’Toole, undersecretary for science and technology at DHS, said her department is working to implement the GAO’s recommendations, but noted the difficulty of applying them across the different DHS components.
O’Toole also spoke about the effects of sequestration on her agency, saying that DHS has had to hold back on some R&D projects because of the impact of sequestration on funding.
“R&D is particularly disrupted by budgets that go up and down because when you invest in a project it doesn’t bear fruit for several years. Not only does the sequester threaten to cut funding for projects that are not yet completed…it makes it very difficult for us to decide what projects to begin,” O’Toole said.
She pointed out that the uncertainty created by sequestration wears away on morale and quality of the staff working on these projects.
“In R&D when your budget goes down, you don’t just pedal harder and work longer hours; your project goes away, your work goes away,” O’Toole said.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the committee, asked about some of the work DHS is currently doing to improve activities on the border. The undersecretary said her department is working on several programs to assist agents to protect the border. For instance, she said, DHS has recently done analysis that shows procedures can be changed at no cost to reduce the time agents spend processing illegal aliens they pick up to get them back out to the border. On the southern border, ground surveillance is very important because of more tunnel activity. O’Toole said S&T is trying to figure out how to help agents to use the proper technology to locate these tunnels.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) grilled O’Toole about questionable spending on R&D to develop technologies for combating bio-terrorism.
“I’m trying to make the point that we’ve spent billions on a tool to tell us if we’re having a bio-attack and now there seems to be a consensus that we’ve wasted it,” said McCaskill, chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight. “It’s imperative that you have more information on questionable expenditures.”
O’Toole agreed with the Missouri senator that these programs have not gotten sufficient congressional oversight.
McCaskill also focused on O’Toole’s claims that she had no knowledge of former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig’s efforts to persuade the government to determine that antibiotic-resistant anthrax is a threat to the U.S.
According to reports, Danzig’s recommendations influenced DHS’s approval of a plan to purchase and stockpile an antitoxin for drug-resistant anthrax known as raxibacumab, while failing to disclose that he served on the board of the only developer of such a drug, and stood to profit from these contracts.
O’Toole initially eluded the question by saying that DHS does not engage in the development of medical countermeasures, but only in the detection of bio-attacks.
“You’re telling me that in your capacity of responsibility and leadership at the Department of Homeland Security that you have no idea that there has been a serious allegation of a conflict of interest,” McCaskill asked.
After McCaskill’s persistent prodding, O’Toole eventually admitted to having read similar reports about the allegations of conflict of interest, but told the senator: “I don’t believe everything I read.”
O’Toole said she had not been part of the decision to purchase the antitoxin. She also indicated there are technical barriers to developing drug-resistant anthrax, which makes it highly unlikely to be used as a weapon against Americans.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/homeland-security-largely-unaware-of-its-own-pricey-rd-investments/?singlepage=true
Think the NSA snoops? How about Obamacare's data hub?
The notion that thousands of low level bureaucrats are going to have access to the most private and intimate information about your life should worry you.And that's what's going to happen when you buy an insurance policy under Obamacare.
As the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide "electronic, near real-time access to federal data" and "access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information." In these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by, the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous.
They certainly should be; the potential for abuse is enormous. The massive, centralized database will include comprehensive personal information such as income and financial data, family size, citizenship and immigration status, incarceration status, social security numbers, and private health information. It will compile dossiers based on information obtained from the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration, state Medicaid databases, and for some reason the Peace Corps. The Data Hub will provide web-based, one-stop shopping for prying into people's personal affairs.
Not to fear, HHS says, the Data Hub will be completely secure. Really? Secure like all the information that has been made public in the Wikileaks era? These days no government agency can realistically claim that private information will be kept private, especially when it is being made so accessible. Putting everyone's personal information in once place only simplifies the challenge for those looking to hack into the system.Hackers will be the least of our worries. So-called "navigators" who will be assisting people in signing up for the exchanges will have access to our personal information. So we have that to look forward to.
There is talk in Congress of trying to make our information more secure but it's not going to happen. Government needs that info in order to determine what kind of subsidy millions of people are going to get. The fact that so many will have access to it is just one more little goody contained in the Affordable Care Act.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/07/think_the_nsa_snoops_how_about_obamacares_data_hub.html#ixzz2ZhnPprmg
What Now?
Twenty-five years ago I embarked on a personal mission to change the faces sitting in the seats of government. At the time, I had been awakening to the lessons of history and didn't like the direction our country was headed. Like many others, I believed that slugging it out in the political arena was the only way to right the listing ship.I was wrong.
That's not to say that political war isn't one part of the solution. But now I see that this was only half of the solution, and that the other half is probably even more important. So, the best I could have hoped for was to buy time. But, time for what?
I now see that, like Vietnam, we had lost the war before it started and -- surprisingly -- for the same reason we lost in Vietnam: we had lost the culture. When that occurs, you're finished before you begin. Almost nobody now remembers why we went to Vietnam in the first place. I do. Here we were, 12,000 miles away, supposedly battling the evil of communism -- and all the while its ideals were infesting our society and undermining our way of life here at home.
That's exactly what's going on in the political arena. While we were doing battle against an ever-encroaching tyrannical socialism through political warfare, the masses were being educated by a leftist media, in collusion with a self-serving socialistic education establishment paid for with our tax dollars.
Now, 25 years later, I look back and see what our founders knew from the start: You cannot defeat ideas on a battlefield. You defeat them inside your own culture through ongoing education. Only in this way can you make your culture impervious to invasion. Too many of us never learned about our history until way too late in the game. Unfortunately for us, and the country at large, we relegated the "education" of upcoming generations to the very minds who stand against the American way of life.
So, throughout most of the past 25 years, it never dawned on me that the Vietnam thing was happening all over again. We were winning a few battles, but losing the war. Today, our foes control every major institution in America -- starting with public education -- not to mention a large part of the churches and both political parties. Right under our noses our adversaries have stolen two generations of Americans by undermining children's education on their way to capturing the flag. They've done a great job of it, since most of America and the churches never hear the good news about the great foundational principles responsible for the great nation we once were.
If we would pay attention, we could learn a lot from our adversaries. They've certainly taught me, and now I see that political warfare and education go hand-in-hand. Political warfare fought single-handedly doesn't work. You cannot make godly laws for an ungodly people -- a people who no longer have a common purpose, or history, or umbrella societal code. They will either reject such laws by repeal, or ignore them altogether -- exactly what we are witnessing today in our liberal courts.
Who would have guessed 25 years ago that today we would see legalized homosexual marriage, open marijuana usage, government approved and funded murder of innocent children, and euthanasia? What's most amazing is that these changes in law in many states are being enacted not by the legislatures, but by the people themselves through the initiative process. So, that's a lesson; if you don't have the people with you, you have lost the war before you start.
Again, simple observation reveals so much. Take Iraq or Afghanistan for example: just like Vietnam, wars of independence cannot be won without an accompanying cultural education. In other words, how can you fight for people's liberty, yours or someone else's, or get them to want to, if they have no comprehension of what liberty is in the first place?
Here at home, who would have believed that a government once erected to protect the inalienable right to life and liberty would become its greatest enemy? This would not surprise our founders who had seen it throughout history and feared a civil government that reached outside its proper jurisdiction -- exactly what propelled them into war with King George. A Constitution or rule of law to an ignorant and waffling -minded people has no value.
So, what now?
The biggest threats we face are here at home, not in some foreign land. It isn't about nukes in suitcases, suicide bombers, or other fanatics. All of that is mostly a sideshow, an endless line of boogeymen created to scare you into bigger government. So, also, is global warming and all of the other environmental and ideological attacks ravaging our economy and depleting our property rights. If you've lost the culture, you've already lost the war against terror anyway.
The real war is about people with empty heads and contaminated hearts. Like the Sons of Issachar, we need to understand the times we live in, to know what we should do. We need to take a breath and remember that there is nothing happening that surprises God, nor anything new under the sun.
Second, if we're going to retake the culture, our religious institutions must lead the charge. Our churches must find themselves again. They, and we, need to renew our understanding of just what the real job of the church, what real evangelizing truly is. The Word of God translates into real everyday world living for every generation, or it isn't worth much. That is to say that the Good News of redemption, salvation, forgiveness and -- doing unto others -- was the foundation of the America now lost. It is these principles that are the foundation of all our laws and culture and, therefore, the reason for our past success and prosperity. The more we've wandered away, the more we've ventured into no man's land. Gone are the days when great principles reigned above lawlessness in the land.
Finally, this ...
The principles of our Judeo-Christian heritage are the only road to civil liberty, freedom and prosperity. There is no other path. Without them, liberty cannot possibly be manifested into a civil society. Benjamin Franklin once remarked, "Whosoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world." We did that once as a country and it worked. If the mission of America that began with the Pilgrims was another waypoint on the road to establishing His kingdom on earth, then hope still remains. I never figured it would stop where it has. His kingdom will come about; His will, will be done. Our only choice is whether or not we choose to be a part of it.
I personally believe, now, that without some providential intervention, we can never get the great ship righted. That's why I believe God will do exactly that. Maybe not by judgment in the traditional way we think, but by natural consequences that occur when you defy His principles over time.
When I look back over the past 25 years, it pains me and I feel tired, even that I have failed. The America we grew up in is long gone and we need to stop using the terminology that says we're "going to save it." The fact is we lost it when we lost the culture, which began decades ago. Politically, we've lost nearly every major battle, and now the war. But we've only truly lost, if we don't learn from it.
Perhaps, this past 100 years is but a step back, before the two steps forward. I hope so, because our children and their children, who for the most part are not paying much attention, are coming upon a rude awakening just over the horizon. I want to help them if I can. They are the ones who will have to rebuild from the rubble. Thank God for redemption.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/decision-makers/more-top-obama-officials-have-graduate-degrees-from-oxford-than-any-public-university-in-the-united-states-20130719
Late Night Libertarians
I’ve already speculated that Jay Leno is a closet libertarian.
If nothing else, the latest batch of jokes, courtesy of News-max, shows
that he’s willing to go after Obama. Which is more than can be said for
some of his competitors.
Jay Leno
- Al-Qaida’s No. 2 man in Yemen was killed this week by a drone strike. He was doing a cover shoot for Rolling Stone and they were able to pinpoint him.
- President Obama told a group of school children that broccoli was his favorite food, and they believed him. Then he told them Obamacare would reduce the deficit and the kids all busted out laughing.
- According to a new study, inactivity can kill you. You can die from doing nothing. Believe me. These findings scare the hell out of the Congress.
- President Obama told a group of school children that broccoli is his favorite food. You know, it’s one thing to lie to the voters, but when you’re lying to kids, come on.
- NSA leaker Edward Snowden says he may seek asylum in Russia. Well, he should really love the freedom and openness of that society.
- According to The Washington Post, the NSA has been monitoring phone calls and emails of people in Mexico. So apparently it’s not enough to spy on American citizens, they feel they have to spy on FUTURE American citizens as well.
- Now that marijuana is legal in the state of Colorado, in Denver they’re talking about taxing it up to 35 percent. Suddenly those drug cartels don’t seem so greedy anymore, do they?
- President Obama is currently on a week-long trip to Africa, where he will promote freedom, democracy, and economic opportunity. I guess he figured it hasn’t worked here — so try it somewhere else.
- The Girl Scouts announced that their pension plan has a $347 million deficit. The Girl Scouts are $347 million in debt, so in addition to teaching girls about camping it also is preparing them for careers in government.
- President Obama gave a big speech on climate change. He believes global warming is getting worse because apparently he’s sweating a lot more during his second term.
- In the middle of all these scandals, President Obama got some good news today. The IRS ruled that he can write off the first half of his second term as a total loss.
As you can imagine, the joke about Obamacare and the deficit resonated with me.
And the joke about taxing marijuana reminds me of what I wrote about the downside to legalization.
David Letterman
- It turns out the Pakistani police pulled Osama bin Laden over for speeding. Pulled him over and wrote the guy a ticket. So listen. I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense about Pakistan being lenient on Osama bin Laden, OK?
Conan
- In an interview about the New York elections, Eliot Spitzer, who you remember was caught frequenting prostitutes, described himself as a feminist. And Anthony Weiner described himself as a photographer.
- President Obama’s approval rating is down to 44 percent. You can tell Obama’s getting desperate because today he gave a speech entitled “Hey, guys, the Twinkie is coming back next week.”
- Detroit quarterback Matthew Stafford signed a new contract paying him $76 million. They’re paying him $62 million just to live in Detroit.
- Pakistan now says Osama bin Laden was able to hide by wearing a cowboy hat. A Pakistani authority said, “I guess he just got lost in a sea of other Muslims wearing a cowboy hat.”
- Republicans are already trying to paint Hillary Clinton as too old to be president. In fact, a new ad claims she’s so old that she could be a Republican.
- In New York, the new front-runner in the New York City mayor’s race is Anthony Weiner. Some analysts say it’s due to name recognition. Actually, I think a few people recognize more than just his name.
Jimmy Fallon
- Political experts say that Eliot Spitzer’s decision to return to politics could hurt Anthony Weiner’s chances of becoming mayor. Or as Spitzer put it, “See? I’m making things better already.”
- Political experts are saying Joe Biden needs to start doing more fundraising if he wants to run for president in 2016. A lot of people are saying they’d definitely donate to a Biden campaign. Most of them are Republicans, but still.
If you want more Weiner jokes, click here.
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2013/07/21/late-night-libertarians-n1645576
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