Michelle Obama’s trip to Ireland cost taxpayers over $7.9 million

By Caroline May
First lady Michelle Obama’s short trip to Ireland cost

taxpayers well over $7.9 million, according to documents released Wednesday.
Air Force documents

obtained via a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act lawsuit reveal that Michelle Obama, the first daughters and their entourage cost taxpayers $7,670,476.80 in flights to, from and around Ireland during their June 17-19 trip in 2013.
Documents from the Department of Homeland Security obtained by the government watchdog via the January 13, 2014 lawsuit further revealed that the total cost for “security and/or other services” for a side trip to Dublin by Michelle Obama and her entourage was $251,161.86. That total included $55,004.85 spent at the Shelbourne Hotel and $70,855.44 at the Westbury Hotel.
The documents reveal that taxpayers spent a total of at least $7,921,638.66 on the first lady’s trip. She departed for the Dublin tour on Air Force Two after accompanying the president on a meeting with Northern Ireland youth.
The most recent travel revelation comes on the heels of a release of additional documents revealing the $1,164,268.60 in flight expenses for the first family’s vacation to Martha’s Vineyard in 2013, the $8,104,224 in flight expenses for their 2013 official trip to Africa and $7,781,361.30 for their 2013-2014 Christmas vacation to Honolulu.

IRS Gave House Oversight Democrats Info on Targeted Conservative Group

Cummings previously denied IRS contact

By CJ Ciaramella

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sent tax documents on a targeted conservative group to Democratic staff on the House Oversight Committee, newly released emails show, despite previous denials by ranking Oversight Democrat Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) that such contact had occurred. Emails released by the GOP-led Oversight Committee show Democratic staff requested information from the IRS’ tax-exempt division on True The Vote, a conservative group that monitors polling places for voter fraud.
Republicans and conservative activists say the IRS tax-exempt division, led by former official Lois Lerner, targeted dozens of conservative groups because of their politics while ignoring similar progressive organizations.
Cummings publicly requested information from True the Vote in October 2012 on its volunteer activities and training.
Five days later, the IRS sent True the Vote a letter requesting the group provide the agency with copies of its volunteer registration forms and additional information on its volunteer activities.
Cummings’ staff requested more information from the IRS about True the Vote in January 2013. The request was channeled from the IRS’ Legislative Affairs office to several other IRS officials, including Lerner.
Three days later, Lerner wrote to her deputy Holly Paz: “Did we find anything?” Paz wrote that she hadn’t heard back, to which Lerner replied: “thanks—check tomorrow please.”
In a February 2014 Oversight Committee hearing, Cummings denied allegations by True The Vote attorney Cleta Mitchell that his staff had worked with the IRS in targeting the group.
“We want to get to the bottom of how these coincidences happened, and we’re going to try to figure out whether any—if there was any staff of this committee that might have been involved in putting True the Vote on the radar screen of some of these Federal agencies,” Mitchell said. “We don’t know that, but we—we’re going to do everything we can do to try to get to the bottom of how did this all happen.”
“What she just said is absolutely incorrect and not true,” Cummings replied.
Cummings has staunchly opposed the Oversight Committee’s months-long investigation of the IRS targeting scandal, arguing it is a waste of time and money.
Oversight chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) and five subcommittee chairmen sent a letter to Cummings Thursday demanding an explanation for his staff’s activities.

Rep. Trey Gowdy: How does Lois Lerner Still Have the Right to Remain Silent?

By Charlie Spiering
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) challenged the notion that former IRS official Lois Lerner still had the right to remain silent since she had made factual assertions since she invoked her Fifth Amendment right.
Gowdy said that he counted 17 separate factual assertions by Lerner which in his opinion was enough to force her to be cross-examined.
“That’s a lot of talking for someone who wants to remain silent. That’s a lot of talking!” Gowdy thundered. “If you honestly that you can make 17 separate factual assertions and still invoke your right to remain silent, then please tell me what waiver is?”
Lerner, the former Director of the IRS Exempt Organizations at the center of the IRS scandal resigned in September 2013, after coming under fire for targeting additional IRS scrutiny of conservative and Tea Party groups.
Lerner cited her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in a May 2013 House Oversight Committee hearing when she was first called to testify on the matter.
“I have not done anything wrong,” she said during the hearing. “I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations. And I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”

Watchdog: IRS Employees Told Taxpayers to Vote for Obama, Badmouthed GOP

By Guy Benson
As you read this story, bear in mind that this special counsel report exposes conduct that isn't directly related to the IRS targeting scandal. No, these are other bad actors within the agency violating the Hatch Act by abusing their official positions for partisan ends. Add this new information into the Lois Lerner mix (much more on her below), and a very ugly picture of IRS culture emerges. Via the Washington Post:

Internal Revenue Service employees urged callers to vote for President Obama, disparaged Republicans in conversations with taxpayers and wore pro-Obama swag at work during the 2012 election cycle, according to a federal ethics watchdog. The Office of Special Counsel, which reviews whistleblower allegations, highlighted the three cases in an announcement on Wednesday. Federal law, specifically the Hatch Act, prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan campaign activities...OSC said in its announcement that it filed a complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board against an IRS customer-service worker who allegedly encouraged taxpayers to reelect Obama by “repeatedly reciting a chant based on the spelling of [the president's] last name.” “Given the seriousness of the allegations and the employee’s Hatch Act knowledge, OSC is seeking significant disciplinary action,” the watchdog agency said. OSC said an IRS tax-advisory specialist in a separate case will serve a 14-day suspension for promoting partisan political views while assisting a taxpayer during the 2012 election season. The worker admitted to Hatch Act violations after a recorded conversation revealed she had shared anti-Republican opinions with a customer.

So we have one documented case of an IRS worker exhorting customers to re-elect Obama, with another employee dumping on Republicans. It's as if this person were reading off of DNC talking points:

OSC quoted the employee saying: “Republicans already [sic] trying to cap my pension and … they’re trying to take women back 40 years.” The employee added that her mother had always told her voting Republican would hurt the poor and make the rich more wealthy, saying she found the advice to be true, according to OSC. In a third case, the watchdog agency issued “cautionary guidance” to an IRS taxpayer-assistance center in Dallas following allegations that workers wore pro-Obama stickers, buttons and clothing at their jobs and displayed similar screensavers on agency computers. OSC said the items were “commonplace around the office.” Federal employees are not supposed to wear or display partisan items in the workplace, according to OSC.

As unacceptable as the former two examples are, the "commonplace" Obama swag at a major IRS center in Texas is the most indicative of the prevailing atmosphere at the agency. It's no surprise that IRS bureaucrats lean left, but these people have an obligation to serve as apolitical public employees, dispassionately conducting the people's business. What we see instead is a group of vindictive partisans -- from low-level call center operators all the way to the highest echelons of the IRS. Which brings us back to Lois Lerner and crew. Katie wrote extensively about the new email trail strongly suggesting that IRS officials and House Oversight Committee Democrats may have colluded on efforts to harass conservative organization True the Vote in 2012 and 2013. It's unclear whether any private tax information was exchanged, which would be a felony. Such a revelation wouldn't be too far-fetched, though, given that someone at the IRS did precisely that in yet another tentacle of this saga involving a different conservative group. What isn't ambiguous in the emails, however, is that Cummings' strong denials of any contact between his staff and the IRS regarding True the Vote were false. The set of questions Cummings eventually fired off to True the Vote were also strikingly similar to those asked by the IRS

Holder: DOJ Considering Forcing Gun Owners to Wear Electronic Bracelets

By Bryan Preston
Holder told Congress, “I mean, I think that one of the things we learned when we were trying to get passed those common sense reforms last year, Vice President Biden and I had a meeting with a group of technology people and talked about how guns can be made more safe by making them either through fingerprint identification — the gun talks to a bracelet or something you might wear — how the gun can only be used by the person who is lawfully in possession of the weapon.”
“It’s those kinds of things that I think we want to try to explore so that we can make sure that people have the ability to enjoy their Second Amendment rights, but at the same time decreasing the misuse of weapons that lead to the kinds of things that we see on a daily basis,” Holder said.
That wouldn’t stop any gunman on a rampage. But an electronic bracelet would drive up the cost of firearms, make them less reliable, increase a potential crime victim’s response time and might prevent them from being able to respond at all, and might even give the government a means of monitoring gun owners within their own homes. Criminals will just disable the electronics.
So it’s very much in line with this administration’s overall aims of disarming all of us and keeping control of us.

Members of Committee Hearing Comcast Testimony Received Comcast Money

Every Democrat on the committee has received money from Comcast

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear from Comcast Corp.’s chief executive on Wednesday morning, and many of them, including every single Democrat on the committee has directly received money from the cable giant.
Comcast has announced plans to purchase rival Time Warner Cable, and the merger is raising eyebrows due to the near complete control it would give the company in many media markets.
All but three of the senators in the committee holding the hearing have received campaign contributions from Comcast since the 2008 election cycle, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) has taken at least $24,500 since 2008, including $22,500 during the 2010 cycle in which he was up for reelection.
Even Sen. Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii), who has been on the committee for just over a year, has received money from Comcast.
Here are the Democrats, ranked by seniority on the committee, and the amount of money they have received directly from Comcast since 2008.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.): $25,500;
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.): $12,025;
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.): $41,600
Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.): $34,600;
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.): $22,831;
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.): $32,373;
Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn.): $14,750;
Sen. Chris Coons: (D., Del.): $59,200;
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.): $18,000;
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii): $1,000

The Republican senators on the committee are not an exemption. All but Sens. Mike Lee (R., Utah), Ted Cruz (R., Texas), and Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) have taken money from Comcast, though the numbers are less staggering.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa): $13,000;
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah): $36,750;
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.): $5,200;
Sen. Lindsay Graham (R., S.C.): $6,000;
Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas): $18,000

Taken to the cleaners: U.S. picks up coalition’s $700 million laundry, food, base support tab

Military failed to pass along bills to other countries in Afghanistan

By Jim McElhatton
In a staggering loss of money

even by Pentagon standards, the U.S. military and two contractors left American taxpayers on the hook for more than $700 million in food, laundry and other services that should have been billed to countries that sent troops to Afghanistan.
Coalition countries tacitly agreed to reimburse the Army, but U.S. regional commands in Afghanistan frequently failed to pass along the charges, according to audit records obtained by The Washington Times through the Freedom of Information Act.
The failures, which spanned a 27-month period from 2010 to 2012, included contractors, who didn’t report the costs

of services to coalition forces, and poorly trained military overseers who neglected to enforce key contract terms with the two companies, identified as DynCorp and Fluor.
What’s more, the lapses occurred just as sequestration loomed and Pentagon leaders scrambled to slash spending. Indeed, by one measure, the cost

of Afghanistan-based billing failures represents nearly 60 percent of the $1.2 billion that the Pentagon saved by furloughing 640,450 civilian employees.
The billing problems, detailed in an internal Army Audit Agency report sent to U.S. commanders in Afghanistan last summer, also raise questions about oversight of the Army’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, a multibillion-dollar outsourcing program that uses contractors to support deployed troops.

Many Government Programs Have 10 Agencies Doing Same Job

A new Government Accountability Office report reveals that government programs are often “fragmented, duplicative, overlapping, or just inefficient,” USA Today reports.

The report, by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, identifies 26 new areas where federal government programs are fragmented, duplicative, overlapping or just inefficient. Add that to the 162 areas identified in past reports, and Congress has a road map for saving tens of billions of dollars a year.

For example, there are 10 different Health and Human Services offices that run programs related to AIDS in minority communities. Eleven different agencies are dedicated to researching autism, and the Defense Department has eight agencies searching for prisoners of war and those missing in action.

“Turning this ready-made list of cuts into savings is one of the best ways Congress can regain the trust and confidence of the American people,” said Tom Coburn, who wrote the legislation requiring the annual report. “At the end of the day, there are no shortcuts around the hard work of oversight and identifying and eliminating waste.”
The duplication reports are now in their fourth year, but Congress has been slow to act. The Obama administration has at least partly implemented 83% of GAO’s recommendations, while Congress has taken up 52%, said Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, who will testify about the GAO’s findings Tuesday at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. […]
“One of the most troubling things in GAO’s report is the number of agencies that have no idea just how much taxpayer money they are spending on their programs,” said House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif. He’s sponsored legislation, the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, that would require the government to better track spending data from Congress to an agency to its ultimate recipient. The bill passed the House 388-1 last year and is awaiting a vote in the Senate.

Getting Your Neighbor's Mortgage Off Your Lawn

By Amy PayneDid you know you are probably responsible for your neighbors’ mortgage payments?
What?
Heritage expert Norbert Michel explained:

Nearly all new residential mortgages are currently being guaranteed by Fannie [Mae] or Freddie [Mac] because these companies buy mortgages from banks and then sell investments backed by the mortgages. And because the Federal government guarantees these investments, taxpayers foot the bill when people default on their mortgages.

And what good have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—and all their taxpayer backing—done?
“The U.S. does more to promote homeownership than most countries, but we’ve barely increased ownership, and total costs of owning a home have spiked,” Michel said.
FACT: Fannie and Freddie have received billions in subsidies, but the homeownership rate is only 1 percentage point higher than it was in 1968. >>> Get more facts >>>
Meanwhile, we’ve written about how the Treasury is keeping Fannie and Freddie off the books—and hiding billions in taxpayer guarantees in the process.
Heritage experts have warned that a bill sponsored by Sens. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) would ultimately leave many of these problems intact.

The Johnson-Crapo bill adds to another attempt by Sens. Bob Corker (R–Tenn.) and Mark Warner (D–Va.) to create a new federal regulator.
“Between these Senate bills and the Dodd–Frank Act, the federal government is close to completely taking over the housing finance market,” said Heritage’s Michel and John Ligon. “Taxpayers—and consumers—deserve much better.”
Other lawmakers are intent on getting government out of the mortgage-backing business.
In an interview with Foundry Senior Contributor Genevieve Wood, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) talked about sponsoring legislation that would phase out Fannie and Freddie.
“They represent the single largest bailout in America’s history, almost $200 billion coming out of the pockets of working men and women in America,” Hensarling said. He added that the government’s “virtual monopoly on housing finance” means that “Washington elites now control who can receive a mortgage and who can’t.”
“You shouldn’t have a government-induced system that puts people into homes that, ultimately, they cannot afford to keep,” Hensarling said. “That’s not good for anybody.”
Heritage experts have projected that closing Fannie and Freddie “will relieve taxpayers of future bailouts and likely result in lower mortgage debt, higher personal income and savings, lower home prices, and lower monthly mortgage payments.” It’s time to get the government off our lawns.

Ruby Ridge Redux?

By Rick Moran

Two hundred armed federal agents have virtually surrounded a ranch in southern Nevada whose owner is defying a court order to keep his cattle from grazing on federal lands.

.....Someone is going to get hurt due to the stupidity and incompetence of the BLM in carrying out the court order. Didn't these idiots learn anything from Ruby Ridge? Then as now, the government had the law on their side. But the criminally negligent manner in which the law was enforced led to a completely avoidable tragedy.

Bundy is not in the right. He spouts nonsense about "preemptive rights" that do not exist in precedent or the law. He refuses to pay grazing fees while every other rancher who grazes on federal land must do so. Bundy is losing his cattle because he is defying the law and the courts - no matter his reasoning or claims to the contrary. The BLM is enforcing a law passed by Congress, and enforcing a court order that Bundy is not challenging. It's hard to see how Bundy has any kind of a legal case to continue to defy the law.

Beyond that, we have the spectacle of the Bureau of Land Management overreacting in a situation that calls for tact and diplomacy, not snipers targeting his family. I hardly think 200 armed agents are necessary to enforce this court order. It's pure intimidation on the part of the feds,

Cooler heads on both sides must prevail or another avoidable tragedy will occur.

Nevada Governor Blasts Feds’ ‘First Amendment Area’ in Bundy Dispute

By Paul Joseph Watson

Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval has inserted himself into the escalating standoff between cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and federal officials by blasting the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over their creation of a ‘First Amendment Area’ outside of which free speech is banned.

The ‘First Amendment Area’ set up by BLM agents is a crudely taped off piece of land inside which supporters of Bundy, who is engaged in a long running dispute with feds over grazing rights on a 600,000 acre expanse in northeastern Clark County, are allowed to express their free speech.

However, protesters have completely ignored the area, instead staging large demonstrations on Bundy’s ranch. The only presence inside the ‘First Amendment Area’ are signs which read “1st Amendment is not an area” and another that states, “Welcome to Amerika – Wake Up” alongside a hammer and sickle logo.

“Most disturbing to me is the BLM’s establishment of a ‘First Amendment Area’ that tramples upon Nevadans’ fundamental rights under the U.S. Constitution,” said Sandoval in a statement. “To that end, I have advised the BLM that such conduct is offensive to me and countless others and that the ‘First Amendment Area’ should be dismantled immediately.”

“No cow justifies the atmosphere of intimidation which currently exists nor the limitation of constitutional rights that are sacred to all Nevadans. The BLM needs to reconsider its approach to this matter and act accordingly,” asserted the Governor.

Inside the White House’s Secret Campaign to Scapegoat Israel

Top diplomats planted anti-Israel reports in lead up to peace talk collapse

By Adam Kredo

The Obama administration has been waging a secret media war in capitals across two continents blaming Israel for the recent collapse of peace talks with the Palestinians, according to former Israeli diplomats and Washington, D.C. insiders familiar with the peace process.
Multiple sources told the Washington Free Beacon that top Obama administration officials have worked for the past several days to manufacture a crisis over the reissuing of housing permits in a Jerusalem neighborhood widely acknowledged as Israeli territory.
Senior State Department officials based in Israel have sought to lay the groundwork for Israel to take the blame for talks collapsing by peddling a narrative to the Israeli press claiming that the Palestinians were outraged over Israeli settlements, the Free Beacon has learned.
These administration officials have planted several stories in Israeli and U.S. newspapers blaming Israel for the collapse of peace talks and have additionally provided reporters with anonymous quotes slamming the Israeli government.
The primary source of these multiple reports has been identified as Middle East envoy Martin Indyk and his staff, according to these insiders, who said that the secret media campaign against Israel paved the way for Secretary of State John Kerry to go before Congress on Tuesday and publicly blame Israel for tanking the talks.
The Palestinians didn’t even know they were supposed to be abandoning negotiations because of these housing permits, which are actually old, reissued permits for areas everyone assumes will end up on the Israelis’ side of the border anyway,” said one senior official at a U.S. based pro-Israel organization who asked to remain anonymous because the Obama administration has in the past retaliated against critics from inside the pro-Israel world.
“Then Martin Indyk started telling anyone who would listen that in fact the Palestinians were angry over the housing issue,” the source said. “Eventually, the Palestinians figured out it was in their interest to echo what the Americans were saying.”
Indyk, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Clinton administration, as well as in several other roles, was appointed by Obama to act as the U.S. special envoy for peace negotiations.
One former Israeli diplomat familiar with Indyk’s tactics said that he is a crass political player who has a history of planting negative stories about Israel in order to undermine the Netanyahu government and bolster his hand in the talks.
...Another Washington-based source familiar with the talks said that Kerry’s peace team has a track record of trashing Israel anonymously.
“It’s one of the worst-kept secrets in Jerusalem that Kerry’s team leaks anti-Netanyahu quotes and claims to the Israeli press—not that is should be a mystery why Israeli reporters based in Israel keep producing anti-Bibi quotes from ‘American officials,’” the source said.
“But just imagine the outrage if the roles were reversed and Bibi had a team on the ground in D.C. trashing Obama to the Washington Post on background,” the source said.