Accusation at House Judiciary Committee questioning of Eric Holder: Your conduct has been unacceptable and shameful
**Written by Doug Powers
“Unacceptable” and “shameful.” Those were two words used at today’s House Judiciary Committee questioning of Eric “I only know what I read in the papers” Holder.
It should be noted that those accusations weren’t directed toward Holder, but rather made by him in reference to Rep. Darrell Issa’s line of questioning.
The charge came after an aggressive exchange about Labor Secretary nominee Tom Perez, whom Republicans say acted inappropriately during his time at the Justice Department.
“I am not going to stop talking now,” Holder countered as Issa objected to the attorney general’s attempts to interject.
“It is inappropriate and too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress,” Holder said. “It is unacceptable. It is shameful.”
Meanwhile, the uproar over the Justice Department’s broad secret subpoena of AP records has prompted the Obama administration to attempt to jump-start legislation that would protect reporters from, well, the Obama administration:
The Obama administration sought on Wednesday to revive legislation that would provide greater protections to reporters from penalties for refusing to identify confidential sources, and that would enable journalists to ask a federal judge to quash subpoenas for their phone records, a White House official said.
The official said that President Obama’s Senate liaison, Ed Pagano, called Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who is a chief proponent of a so-called media shield law, on Wednesday morning and asked him to reintroduce a bill that he had pushed in 2009.
Final word:
The guy who pardoned Marc Rich and who runs a DOJ that send 2500 guns to drug cartels just called Darrell Issa “shameful”
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) May 15, 2013
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Steny Hoyer can’t keep his scandals straight
**Written by Doug Powers
Keeping straight all the scandals, cover-ups, obfuscations and excuses for massive DOJ document seizures that are occurring during the watch of the administration that replaced the Bush era with unprecedented levels of transparency and rule of law does tend to be confusing. However, if these guys aren’t careful, at some point they might accidentally start talking about a scandal that the public doesn’t yet know about:
At Rep. Steny Hoyer’s weekly meeting with reporters on Tuesday, the Maryland Democrat was asked if he was concerned about the DOJ seizing phone records from Associated Press journalists working in the House press gallery in the Capitol building.
Hoyer’s answer was well-delivered: Articulate, clear, firm and precise.
One problem: He responded to the wrong scandal.
“The IRS activity was inappropriate, inconsistent with our policies and practices as a country, very concerning, needs to be reviewed carefully,” Hoyer, one of the top-ranking House Democrats, said in response to a question from Fox News’ Chad Pergram about the DOJ. “We need to ensure that this does not happen again, and we need to find out how long it continued, when it was stopped. It is my understanding—there was a front-page story on this at the [Washington] Post—it’s my understanding that [IRS official] Lois Lerner, who was apparently overseeing this, at some point in time found out about this and said …”
When Hoyer named Lerner, Pergram interrupted.
“We’re talking about two things,” Pergram, who apparently had not heard the first mention of the IRS, said from across the table, “You said Lois Lerner and the IRS.”
Another reporter sitting closer to Hoyer, Public Radio International’s Todd Zwillich, learned over and said softly, “He’s talking about the AP story.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, excuse me,” Hoyer said, pausing briefly. “Whatever happened, we need to find out why it happened. But clearly it should not have happened. I don’t know enough about whether there was a warrant sought.”
Maybe the three should be condensed into one big scandal — APBenghazIRS — just so no matter which they’re commenting on, they’ve got the right one.
(h/t Guy Benson)
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Steny Hoyer can’t keep his scandals straight
**Written by Doug Powers
Keeping straight all the scandals, cover-ups, obfuscations and excuses for massive DOJ document seizures that are occurring during the watch of the administration that replaced the Bush era with unprecedented levels of transparency and rule of law does tend to be confusing. However, if these guys aren’t careful, at some point they might accidentally start talking about a scandal that the public doesn’t yet know about:
At Rep. Steny Hoyer’s weekly meeting with reporters on Tuesday, the Maryland Democrat was asked if he was concerned about the DOJ seizing phone records from Associated Press journalists working in the House press gallery in the Capitol building.
Hoyer’s answer was well-delivered: Articulate, clear, firm and precise.
One problem: He responded to the wrong scandal.
“The IRS activity was inappropriate, inconsistent with our policies and practices as a country, very concerning, needs to be reviewed carefully,” Hoyer, one of the top-ranking House Democrats, said in response to a question from Fox News’ Chad Pergram about the DOJ. “We need to ensure that this does not happen again, and we need to find out how long it continued, when it was stopped. It is my understanding—there was a front-page story on this at the [Washington] Post—it’s my understanding that [IRS official] Lois Lerner, who was apparently overseeing this, at some point in time found out about this and said …”
When Hoyer named Lerner, Pergram interrupted.
“We’re talking about two things,” Pergram, who apparently had not heard the first mention of the IRS, said from across the table, “You said Lois Lerner and the IRS.”
Another reporter sitting closer to Hoyer, Public Radio International’s Todd Zwillich, learned over and said softly, “He’s talking about the AP story.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, excuse me,” Hoyer said, pausing briefly. “Whatever happened, we need to find out why it happened. But clearly it should not have happened. I don’t know enough about whether there was a warrant sought.”
Maybe the three should be condensed into one big scandal — APBenghazIRS — just so no matter which they’re commenting on, they’ve got the right one.
(h/t Guy Benson)
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Steny Hoyer can’t keep his scandals straight
**Written by Doug Powers
Keeping straight all the scandals, cover-ups, obfuscations and excuses for massive DOJ document seizures that are occurring during the watch of the administration that replaced the Bush era with unprecedented levels of transparency and rule of law does tend to be confusing. However, if these guys aren’t careful, at some point they might accidentally start talking about a scandal that the public doesn’t yet know about:
At Rep. Steny Hoyer’s weekly meeting with reporters on Tuesday, the Maryland Democrat was asked if he was concerned about the DOJ seizing phone records from Associated Press journalists working in the House press gallery in the Capitol building.
Hoyer’s answer was well-delivered: Articulate, clear, firm and precise.
One problem: He responded to the wrong scandal.
“The IRS activity was inappropriate, inconsistent with our policies and practices as a country, very concerning, needs to be reviewed carefully,” Hoyer, one of the top-ranking House Democrats, said in response to a question from Fox News’ Chad Pergram about the DOJ. “We need to ensure that this does not happen again, and we need to find out how long it continued, when it was stopped. It is my understanding—there was a front-page story on this at the [Washington] Post—it’s my understanding that [IRS official] Lois Lerner, who was apparently overseeing this, at some point in time found out about this and said …”
When Hoyer named Lerner, Pergram interrupted.
“We’re talking about two things,” Pergram, who apparently had not heard the first mention of the IRS, said from across the table, “You said Lois Lerner and the IRS.”
Another reporter sitting closer to Hoyer, Public Radio International’s Todd Zwillich, learned over and said softly, “He’s talking about the AP story.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, excuse me,” Hoyer said, pausing briefly. “Whatever happened, we need to find out why it happened. But clearly it should not have happened. I don’t know enough about whether there was a warrant sought.”
Maybe the three should be condensed into one big scandal — APBenghazIRS — just so no matter which they’re commenting on, they’ve got the right one.
(h/t Guy Benson)
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
A brief history of slimy Dem snoops and dumpster divers
A Brief History of Slimy Dem Snoops and Dumpster Divers
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2013
It’s always the “low-level” peon’s fault, isn’t it? When Democrats get caught red-handed abusing government powers and bullying their political enemies small and large, nobody at the top knows nuttin’. The buck stops…in the janitors closet or something.
Here’s what I know: While they pretend to champion privacy rights, top left-wing operatives have routinely ransacked and plundered through the private documents and personal records of conservative groups, business owners and public figures. Through it all, those on the right standing against government tyranny have refused to stand down.
During the Clinton years, senior IRS official Paul Breslan revealed that the administration’s auditors specifically targeted conservative critics. On the hit list: Judicial Watch, Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers, the National Rifle Association, National Review, The American Spectator, Freedom Alliance, National Center for Public Policy Research, Citizens Against Government Waste, Concerned Women for America, and the San Diego Chapter of Christian Coalition.
Steven Miller, one of the Clinton IRS agents who helped conduct those witch hunts in the 1990s, is currently the head of the Obama IRS department that has now admitted it discriminated against tea party groups. Jackboot history repeats itself.
In 1997, far-left Congressman Jim McDermott obtained and leaked an illegally taped phone call involving House GOP leaders to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The New York Times. Far from a low-level underling, McDermott was the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee at the time. Ohio GOP Rep. John Boehner won a $1 million civil lawsuit against McDermott. McDermott’s leak was condemned by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan as “willful and knowing misconduct (that) rises to the level of malice in this case.”
In 2005, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — headed by New York Sen. Charles Schumer — targeted then Maryland GOP Lt. Gov. Michael Steele as he considered a U.S. Senate bid. Two of Schumer’s staffers illegally obtained Steele’s credit report by using his Social Security number, which they got from public documents. They set up a fake email account and then impersonated Steele on a website to filch his financial information.
Democrats framed the sleazy move as the work of junior staffers. But the supervising operative involved, Katie Barge, was senior research director of the DSCC, a former researcher at the George Soros-funded attack group Media Matters for America and a researcher for presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards.
Schumer’s other document plumber, Lauren Weiner, was a DSCC researcher who had worked for Dick Gephardt and the Democratic National Committee. She pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining a credit report and escaped jail time. After she was fired, she earned a journalism degree at the Columbia University School of Journalism.
In 2006, longtime Democratic operative Bob Fertik called on his minions to attempt to obtain the private phone records of prominent conservatives through shady online information brokers. “If money is scarce,” Fertik vowed, “Democrats.com will reimburse you if you buy the records for an important phone number and discover gold when you get the records.”
In October 2008, top Ohio Democrats targeted real plumber Joe Wurzelbacher after he challenged then presidential candidate Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth” radicalism. Helen Jones-Kelley, then director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, ordered underlings to scour government databases for dirt. In addition to pawing through his child-support papers, her agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes.
Jones-Kelley was not just a high-level state official. She was also an Obama campaign donor who volunteered to arrange an event for Michelle Obama and provided the campaign with nearly 20 names of potential donors ahead of a Dayton campaign stop. Three years after resigning, she found herself back on the taxpayer dole with another government job. Corruptocrats protect their own.
Also in 2008, Obama’s allies at a Soros-tied outfit named Accountable America sent out “warning” letters to 10,000 top GOP givers “hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.” Witch hunt leader Tom Matzzie, formerly of Soros-funded MoveOn.org, promised “legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.” Matzzie also advertised a $100,000 bounty for dirt on conservative political groups “to create a sense of scandal around the groups” and to dissuade donors from giving money.
The effort was supported by Judd Legum, founder of Think Progress, which is run by former Clinton scandal manager turned Obama confidante John Podesta‘s Center for American Progress.
During the 2010 midterms, the Obama bully brigade waged a similar campaign against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its donors as payback for the organization’s ads opposing the federal health care takeover. During the 2012 election season, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina declared war on free-market philanthropists Charles and David Koch and private donors to their nonprofit activist group Americans for Prosperity.
As I warned in my column in March 2012, it seemed “no small coincidence” at the time that Team Obama was threatening conservative activists publicly “just as numerous tea party organizations (were) reporting that the Internal Revenue Service (had) targeted them for audits. According to Colleen Owens of the Richmond (Va.) Tea Party, several fiscally conservative activist groups in Virginia, Hawaii, Ohio and Texas (had) received a spate of IRS letters. The missives demand(ed) extensive requests to identity volunteers, board members and … donors.”
The latest confession by Obama IRS officials that they targeted tea party, pro-Constitution and pro-Israel groups isn’t a sign of “rogue” behavior. It’s tyrannical Democratic business as usual.
***
Related:
Mike Ciandella, CNS: Soros Gave $6.1 Million to Groups Linked to Pressure on IRS to Target Conservative Nonprofits
For the Obama administration and the mainstream media, everything’s relative
**Written by Doug Powers
There are very few degrees of separation between the Obama administration and the mainstream media, and not just ideologically. The Obama administration/MSM family tree grows straight up with very few branches. Here are just a few examples:
It was revealed today that CBS News President David Rhodes’ brother is Obama Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, who was instrumental in rewriting the Benghazi talking points. But it gets worse. It is now learned that ABC President Ben Sherwood’s sister, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, is a Special Assistant to Barack Obama on national security affairs. But even this isn’t it! CNN’s deputy bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is the wife of Tom Nides, who until February was Hillary Clinton’s deputy.
To add to the above list, Jay Carney is married to ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman, and word is that Chris Matthews has been wed to a life size cardboard cutout of Barack Obama in MSNBC’s break room for going on five years now.
Video via Newsbusters:
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
HHS Secretary Sebelius to health industry: How about you make a donation to help implement Obamacare?
**Written by Doug Powers
A letter from the head of a government agency soliciting “donations” from companies in the same industry she regulates might as well say “nice little business ya got there — shame if something were to happen to it.”
From the Washington Post:
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has gone, hat in hand, to health industry officials, asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law, two people familiar with the outreach said.
Her unusual fundraising push comes after Congress repeatedly rejected the Obama administration’s requests for additional funds to set up the Affordable Care Act, leaving HHS to implement the president’s signature legislative accomplishment on what officials have described as a shoestring budget.
Over the past three months, Sebelius has made multiple phone calls to health industry executives, community organizations and church groups and asked that they contribute whatever they can to nonprofit groups that are working to enroll uninsured Americans and increase awareness of the law, according to an HHS official and an industry person familiar with the secretary’s activities. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk openly about private discussions.
An HHS spokesperson said Sebelius was within the bounds of her authority in asking for help.
Oh, I see how it works — everybody’s forced by law to board something destined to be a train wreck, and then after the thing’s clanking along at runaway speed, the collection plate is passed to raise money to add more track before it hits the end of the line. Brilliant!
However, according to an HHS spokesperson, Sebelius was within the bounds of ethics because she didn’t necessarily solicit cash donations:
Young said that Sebelius did not solicit for funds directly from industries that HHS regulates, such as insurance companies and hospitals, but rather asked them to contribute in whatever way they can.
So Sebelius may not have been referring to financial contributions. If anybody has any extra stethoscopes lying around or canned goods to donate, the administration will appreciate those just as much — anything to help delay the train wreck at least until after the 2014 election.
(h/t Instapundit)
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Latest reason to love Obamacare: Will result in fewer bad marriages
**Written by Doug Powers
This according to California Democrat Rep. Janice Hahn. I’d agree, provided her reasoning had been that before too long nobody will be able to afford a wedding — but that wasn’t the approach she took.
From Real Clear Politics:
“It’s an interesting angle, to talk about people who really only have jobs for the health insurance as being one angle to that. I had a friend who got married to the wrong person just so she could have health insurance. So, we’ll also have a lot of less bad marriages as a result of this,” Rep. Janice Hahn (D-CA) said at a Small Business subcommittee hearing on Health and Technology on Thursday.
A “friend” eh?
Read more about it in Hahn’s forthcoming book, “Train Wreck Your Way to a Happier Marriage.”
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
House Dem on Benghazi: What’s the big deal here?
**Written by Doug Powers
Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) sees Hillary’s “what difference does it make” and raises her one “what’s the big deal here”:
The father of a SEAL killed in Benghazi said he knew Hillary was lying to him when she told him the attack revolved around the YouTube video. “What’s the big deal here?”
The mother of another victim of the attack said Hillary also told her that the YouTube video was to blame. “What’s the big deal here?”
Greg Hicks testified that he briefed Hillary the night of the attack but she later continued to blame the video. “What’s the big deal here?”
By the way, Hillary Clinton accepted a public service award on the same day as the hearing. Timing is everything.
*****
Krauthammer asks: “Where was the commander in chief in all this?”
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Sebelius asks pediatricians to start helping sign people up for Obamacare
**Written by Doug Powers
If a pledge to “abstain from helping promote a train wreck” isn’t part of the Hippocratic Oath, it should be.
From the Washington Times:
President Obama’s top health official asked the nation’s pediatric groups on Monday to spread the word about benefits within the federal health care law, a plea that coincides with mounting pressure to implement the ambitious overhaul before its main provisions kick in next year.
“Our ability to get more people covered and create healthier families is going to be determined by our ability to educate people and sign them up. And we’re going to need your help,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the Pediatric Academies Societies’ annual meeting in Washington, in remarks prepared for delivery.
The secretary was referring to the Affordable Care Act’s state-based insurance markets, where qualified consumers without employer-based insurance will be able to buy health plans with the help of government tax credits.
That should have said “where qualified consumers without insurance will be mandated to buy health plans.” And they certainly won’t be cheap, in spite of the comical fact that the word “affordable” is in the name of the law (an ironic title not unlike how bald guys are sometimes referred to as “Curly” and tall people as “Shorty”).
A related story from Investors Business Daily:
Retailers are cutting worker hours at a rate not seen in more than three decades — a sudden shift that can only be explained by the onset of ObamaCare’s employer mandates.
Nonsupervisory employees logged an average 30.0 hours per week in April, the shortest retail workweek since early 2010, Labor Department data out Friday show.
Even as retail payrolls have kept rising, with rank-and-file employment up 132,000, or 1%, over the past year, aggregate hours worked have fallen 0.9% over that span.
The average retail workweek was 2% shorter in April than a year earlier, the steepest sustained decline since 1980, an IBD analysis found.
(h/t Weasel Zippers)
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Naturally: California awards billion-dollar high speed rail contract to firm partly owned by Dianne Feinstein’s husband
**Written by Doug Powers
Remember the good old days when Dianne Feinstein would insist her husband remove his name from consideration for government contracts in the state she represents because she didn’t want there to be any appearance of impropriety? Me neither.
From Crazifornia by way of Sister Toldjah:
Out of the entire universe of those who could have won the first phase construction contract for California’s high speed rail boondoggle, who would stand out as the last person who would win it if there were no political patronage.
Put another way, who is the most likely person to win it if there is political patronage?
Both questions have the same answer: Richard Blum, the husband of California senator Diane Feinstein.
So, who won the contract? Blum, of course, as the principle owner of Tutor Perini, the lead firm in the three-firm consortium selected by the California High Speed Rail Authority.
That would help explain headlines like this one from just over a year ago:
Shorter headline: Cha-CHING!
More from Investors Business Daily:
Tutor Perini Corporation (NYSE: TPC), a leading civil and building construction company, today announced that its joint venture’s bid, valued at approximately $985 million, was recently identified by the California High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority) as the “apparent best value” for the design and construction of the initial Madera to Fresno segment of the California high-speed rail system. The Authority’s Board of Directors is expected to approve the design-build contract for this project in the coming weeks. Once the contract is awarded, Tutor Perini’s portion of the contract value will be added to the Company’s backlog.
What is the “apparent best value”? About $35 million per mile of track. But it’s a small price to pay to be able to make the popular Borden to Shafter commute in record time (or maybe not).
Past DiFi coverage:
A question for Dianne Feinstein
DiFi and the culture of corruption
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Dems cave on FAA sequester, pass ‘Reducing Flight Delays Act’
**Written by Doug Powers
Some are saying it’s shameful that the Democrats caved on the FAA sequester rules while leaving other targeted cuts in place. Maybe things would have gone differently if kids in Head Start were old enough to vote and politicians traveled to and from their home districts in Meals on Wheels vans, but that’s not the way things played out:
The White House and Democrats in Congress argued for months against a piecemeal fix to the budget problems caused by the sequester.
But on Thursday, Democrats caved in and agreed to allow the Federal Aviation Administration to keep air traffic control towers running at close to full capacity.
All it took was a few thousand people standing in line at the airport.
The Senate approved a deal late Thursday to ease the FAA’s burden following negotiations among both parties and the White House. The House is expected to take up the bill Friday, just before the congressional weeklong recess, so President Barack Obama can sign it.
While travelers may be relieved, some Democrats worry about saving the FAA while letting other domestic programs across the government suffer under the automatic budget cuts.
I haven’t flown anywhere since the furloughs kicked in, but when I read about airport delays I usually check this FAA site, and it’s usually all green dots. Here’s this morning’s map:
Maybe some here who have traveled by air in the past week or so can weigh in regarding the length of their wait, but if the delays haven’t been as bad as the administration threatened (or maybe “hoped” is a better word), it’s possible the Dems have been victims of their own overexaggeration and are backpedaling on this before increasing numbers of air traveling voters say to themselves, “this isn’t the end of the world.”
The “Reducing Flight Delays Act of 2013″ doesn’t provide additional funding for the FAA — meaning they’re still under the rules of sequestration — but rather allows the Transportation Department to apply the cuts elsewhere. The fact that departments aren’t allowed to do that at their own discretion is the best evidence that somebody wanted control of precisely where the pain is felt kept at the top.
The House will take up the bill today, and it will need a two-thirds majority to pass.
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
House GOP report: Hillary Clinton lied under oath about additional Benghazi security request
**Written by Doug Powers
John Kerry (and no doubt Hillary Clinton) would rather everybody just drop this and move on to more important things, but we won’t. Here’s latest in the Benghazi investigation by way of CNN:
House Republican leaders released a report Tuesday on the deadly terror attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in which they claim former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally signed off on cuts in security at the compound, which they say would contradict her congressional testimony.
The September 11, 2012, attack resulted in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
The 46-page report by Republicans on five House committees cites a request from then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz, sent last March 28 to Clinton asking for additional security resources, and a response dated last April 19 that bears Clinton’s signature.
The April cable from the State Department, according to the GOP report, “acknowledged then-Ambassador Cretz’ formal request for additional security assets but ordered the withdrawal of security elements to proceed as planned.”
The response from the State Department, which the GOP report cites, recommended the agency’s diplomatic security officials conduct “a joint reassessment of the number of (security) agents requested for Benghazi.”
The report cites e-mails from one U.S. embassy employee in Tripoli saying that answer “looks like no movement on the full complement of personnel for Benghazi, but rather a reassessment to bring the numbers lower.”
At a congressional hearing about three months ago, Hillary testified that any requests for additional security in Benghazi never reached her desk:
Dems and a large portion of the mainstream press (with notable exceptions) will continue to try and keep this all swept under the rug through 2016.
Jay Carney’s response? Come on you guys, Hillary signed everything — that doesn’t mean she saw it:
Carney on Benghazi: Sec Clinton signatures on cables coming from State “standard protocol”
— Jim Acosta (@jimacostacnn) April 24, 2013
Also:
“The Administration willfully perpetuated a deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the attacks evolved from a political demonstration caused by a YouTube video. U.S. officials on the ground reported – and video evidence confirms – that demonstrations outside the Benghazi Mission did not occur and that the incident began with an armed attack on the facility,” the report says. “Senior Administration officials knowingly minimized the role played by al-Qa’ida-affiliated entities and other associated groups in the attacks, and decided to exclude from the discussion the previous attempts by extremists to attack U.S. persons or facilities in Libya.”
Video from CBS News:
Hillary responds to that House report:
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Charles Rangel files lawsuit against House members to overturn censure
**Written by Doug Powers
In December of 2010, the Democrat-controlled House voted 333-79 to make Charlie Rangel the first member in 27 years to be censured. Shortly after that, Rangel delivered his “old, tax evading congressmen never die, they just refuse to be shamed away” speech.
Rangel shouldn’t even still be in Congress, but instead of just being happy to be living proof of a swamp undrained, Charlie’s decided to take it a step further and sue to get his censure overturned:
Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel is suing Speaker John Boehner and six other lawmakers, alleging problems with the House ethics investigation that led to his censure in 2010.
In a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, the New York Democrat alleges “numerous, flagrant, knowing and intentional violations” of his due process rights.
[...]
The lawsuit names Boehner; Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who was chairwoman of the House ethics committee at the time of the censure; and other committee members and staff. The congressman alleges that evidence was withheld by the committee staff.
In the suit, Rangel alleges that he suffered “irreparable harm that cannot be compensated by money damages.” Rangel claims to just want to correct an injustice and isn’t after money, which he has plenty of — thanks to, you know… not paying taxes on stuff for so long.
As Jeff Dunetz pointed out at The Lid, you’ll notice at no point does Rangel claim his innocence.
When Rangel alleges there was “evidence withheld by the committee staff,” we’re not quite sure he Charlie’s referring to material that would have cleared him of the charges, or trying to prove that the committee’s decision should be overturned because there was a whole lot more evidence against him they incompetently forgot to introduce, and as such weren’t fit to judge him.
Considering all the evidence against Rangel, the fact that the ethics panel recommended censure instead of expulsion was in itself proof of a corrupt system. However, Rangel probably won’t take that angle to discredit the committee because it would require arguing that he’s a much more crooked than he was given proper credit for. Or maybe he will — nothing would be surprising.
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Effective ad placement in story about support for Elizabeth Warren presidential run
**Written by Doug Powers
Earlier I was reading a story at the Boston Herald website about the possible political future of Dances With Identity Theft, which is titled “Elizabeth Warren winning support for 2016 White House bid.”
After a couple of paragraphs there was an ad that pops up on a rotating basis, and it fit perfectly with the subject of the story:
When the picture is clicked it goes to a YouTube video about the Mashpee Wompanoag Tribe taking on the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. No word yet on whether Fauxcahontas supports their cause.
Target marketing at its finest.
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Desperate Dem Terry McAuliffe sues Watchdog.org over green tech/cash-for-visas exposé
Welcome to today’s edition of Bully the Messenger. First, I want to take you back to 2001. That’s when I first reported on a little-known cash-for-visas immigration racket known as the EB-5 program. As I wrote 12 years ago, this government racket has morphed into a crony cash cow:
This fraud-ridden scheme was created under an obscure section of the 1990 Immigration Act, signed by Bush’s father. Known as the EB-5 law, it allows wealthy foreigners to purchase green cards by investing between $500,000 and $1 million into new commercial enterprises or troubled businesses. After two years, foreign investors, their spouses, and children all receive permanent resident status – which allows them to contribute to U.S. political campaigns and provides a speedy gateway to citizenship.
Making political access and the privilege of citizenship available to the highest foreign bidder offends the very ideals Bush wants to promote. Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers, a longtime critic of the program, noted: “All you need is green. You do not have to know anything about the poor and huddled masses that Emma Lazarus wrote about…How crassly we demean this precious blessing we call citizenship.”
Supporters of the program claimed it would attract substantial overseas investment to aid struggling American businesses. But the benefits of this economic development plan have gone mostly to former Immigration and Naturalization Service officials, who formed lucrative limited partnerships to cash in on their access.
Here’s how the racket worked: Immigrant investors paid token fees to these partnerships. The partnerships secured promissory notes for the remainder of the foreign investments, which were forgiven after investors received their permanent green cards. Former INS employees, working for these partnerships, aggressively lobbied their old colleagues to accept such bogus financial arrangements. As a result, according to an internal U.S. Justice Department investigative report, “aliens were paying $125K” instead of the required $500,000 to $1million minimum, and “almost all of the monies went to the General Partners and the companies who set up the limited partners.”
A Baltimore Sun investigation last year found “only a tiny fraction of the money ever made it to the companies seeking assistance.” Many of the distressed U.S. firms that the program intended to help have closed because they never received promised funding.
Steven Perlman, a New York City immigration lawyer who sued the government to disclose parts of the internal investigative report, told me last week that the EB-5 program became a “money-making machine.” That wouldn’t have been possible, Perlman notes, without political protection. One INS document indicates that officials worried about keeping “promises to the Hill.” When the agency finally moved to end fraud, “influential Members of Congress protested,” according to the New York Times.
This history lesson and context is important because a dozen years later, the program still exists largely un-policed and continues to set off alarm bells. The Franklin Center’s invaluable Watchdog.org reported earlier this month that an enviro start-up founded by Terry McAuliffe has raised the eyebrows of Virginia officials over its use of the EB-5 program. Documents from Virginia Economic Development Partnership authorities obtained by Watchdog.org and others expressed “grave doubts” about the company’s plan to raise capital through extension of the EB-5 program into their region.
“We are concerned that the financing plan does not fit the rules for the EB-5 program,” one official wrote. Investors would not receive the visas they thought they would receive, he noted, and this would give Virginia a “black eye.” He raised additional red flags about the financing and conflict-of-interest problems of the deal:
GreenTech Automotive Inc. is now suing Watchdog.org for an alleged $85-million loss after publication of two articles about the company. Full complaint is here (pdf).
“Specifically, as a direct and express result of the articles published by Defendants … investors are wavering in their commitment to provide $25 million in investments already promised to GTA,” the lawsuit said. “GTA…intended to raise $60 million in capital, (and) is now in significant danger as a direct result of the loss of investor confidence in GTA arising from the publication of Defendants’ articles.”
Question: Why isn’t GreenTech slapping Virginia officials with such an outlandish lawsuit? Hint: They work for the administration of liberal Democrat Gov. Tim Kaine.
Given the pre-existing concerns about financing expressed by the Virginia economic development officials, the idea that Watchdog.org’s articles are to blame for investors’ “wavering…commitment” smacks of desperation and demagoguery.
And yes, stark intimidation.
Jason Stverak, president of Watchdog’s parent company the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, said the lawsuit is baseless.
“As Watchdog explained in clarifications and updated versions of the articles posted on April 5, these articles were not intended to – and did not – accuse GreenTech of fraud,” Stverak said. “We are confident that GreenTech’s claims are without merit and we will continue to report on this important story.”
GTA counts among its allies Hillary Clinton’s brother, Anthony Rodham, who shares an office with GTA and is CEO of Gulf Coast Funds Management, an EB-5 center that raises visa-investor money for GTA. McAuliffe also was chief fundraiser for Clinton’s presidential bid. Bill Clinton made a high-profile visit to the company last year.
The lawsuit, accusing Watchdog of defamation and interference with business relations, was filed Monday in Mississippi where GTA says it plans to build an auto plant. On April 1 and 3, Watchdog detailed the travails of McAuliffe’s car company funding and challenges to enter the marketplace by next year. The lawsuit also names two web sites that ran the Watchdog story, one in Chinese.
In response to McAuliffe’s 2009 request for public support of GreenTech Automotive in his home state of Virginia, then-Gov. Tim Kaine’s administration expressed “grave doubts” about the project’s viability, according to documents obtained by Watchdog.org, National Review and Washington Post.
Question: Does McAuliffe, who is running for governor in Virginia, really want to follow through on this crass bullying attempt? Legal discovery is a two-way street, pal.
Says Stverak: “They want to shut us up…They grossly miscalculated because we will not be silent and we will continue to report on this and any story that is important to the public. Are we scared? No, we have truth on our side and facts to back up our story.”
I stand with the Franklin Center. Every blogger, citizen journalist, and limited-government/new media activist should. When political operatives can’t stand the sunlight, they reach for the litigation duct tape.
Related coverage: Human Events, Legal Insurrection, Hot Air, National Review, Richmond Times Dispatch, Wall Street Journal.
Previous EB-5 columns/posts:
1/2001 American citizenship for sale?
8/ 2007 American citizenship for sale
1/2009 Buy a house, get citizenship?! Yes, it’s true
9/2011 The Cash-for-Visas Program
See — Obamacare is already creating jobs
**Written by Doug Powers
The Affordable Care Act will be made a bit more expensive because evidently those who sign up will have to be issued a taxpayer-provided personal red tape sherpa to help them navigate the treacherous and unpredictable “pass it to find out what’s in it” landscape:
Tens of thousands of health care professionals, union workers and community activists hired as “navigators” to help Americans choose Obamacare options starting Oct. 1 could earn $20 an hour or more, according to new regulations issued Wednesday.
The 63-page rule covering navigators, drawn up by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, also said the government will provide free translators for those not fluent in English — no matter what their native language is.
“The proposed requirements would also include that such entities and individuals provide consumers with information and assistance in the consumer’s preferred language, at no cost to the consumer, which would include oral interpretation of non-English languages and the translation of written documents in non-English languages when necessary to ensure meaningful access,” said the regulations.
The rules also addressed conflict of interest and other potential issues that navigators could face as the public’s first stop on the Obamacare trail.
It is still not clear how many navigators will be required. California, however, provides a hint. It wants 21,000.
That could be an expensive proposition. The proposed rules, now open for public comment, suggest an estimated pay of $20-$48 an hour.
Chances are your Obamacare application sherpa (look for the Union label) will also need a sherpa:
Applying for benefits under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul could be as daunting as doing your taxes.
The government’s draft application runs 15 pages for a three-person family. An outline of the online version has 21 steps, some with additional questions.
Seven months before the Oct. 1 start of enrollment season for millions of uninsured Americans, the idea that getting health insurance could be as easy as shopping online at Amazon or Travelocity is starting to look like wishful thinking.
At least three major federal agencies, including the IRS, will scrutinize your application. Checking your identity, income and citizenship is supposed to happen in real time, if you apply online.
That’s just the first part of the process, which lets you know if you qualify for financial help. The government asks to see what you’re making because Obama’s Affordable Care Act is means-tested, with lower-income people getting the most generous help to pay premiums.
Once you’re finished with the money part, actually picking a health plan will require additional steps, plus a basic understanding of insurance jargon.
Oh come on, what could possibly be difficult to understand about this?
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Dem proposal: $10k fine for gun owners who don’t have liability insurance
**Written by Doug Powers
If some Democrats have their way, armed guards at schools will be replaced by a more effective deterrent: Insurance salesmen:
A contingent of liberal Democrats in Congress is proposing a new federal gun control idea: mandatory liability insurance for gun owners.
When New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney introduced the legislation last month with eight other Democrats, she boasted that it is “the first bill to require liability insurance of gun buyers nationwide.”
Maloney’s “Firearm Risk Protection Act” requires gun buyers to have “a qualified liability insurance policy” before they are able to legally purchase a firearm.
[...]
Others who have signed on as co-sponsors of the legislation include: Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Massachusetts Rep. Michael Capuano, Virginia Rep. Jim Moran, Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush, Massachusetts Rep. Nikki Tsongas, Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch and Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer.
What are the odds that a crazed individual bent on killing as many people as possible will re-think his plan because he doesn’t want that “lack of liability insurance” fine?
That said, some are trying to make an argument for precisely what Maloney is attempting to legislate:
It’s an idea that seems to be gathering a bit of steam. At Forbes.com, John Wasik lays out the logic behind treating firearm deaths as a market externality to be compensated via insurance, as we do with cars: “Those most at risk to commit a gun crime would be known to the actuaries doing the research for insurers… An 80-year-old married woman in Fort Lauderdale would get a great rate. A 20-year-old in inner-city Chicago wouldn’t be able to afford it. A 32-year-old man with a record of drunk driving and domestic violence would have a similar problem.” Robert Cyran and Reynolds Holding write that mandatory liability insurance is a measure that could pass Supreme Court muster where other restrictions might fail: “[T]here’s a strong argument that damage caused by firearms gives the government a ‘compelling interest’ to require insurance, the test for infringing a constitutional right.”
Designing a system so 20-year-olds in inner-city Chicago can’t afford a constitutional right? If Republicans were saying this I’m guessing more than a few people would have major problems with it.
Also, car insurance comparisons don’t address how the Dem idea for mandatory liability insurance for gun owners would help prevent another Newtown or Aurora, not that I expected them to. Prevention of such horrible crimes was what this discussion was supposedly about, right? My car insurance policy doesn’t prevent crimes such as the theft of my vehicle — it only covers the loss — and the insurance doesn’t prevent the stolen car from then being used to run into a school bus. Interesting how some “solutions” to problems so often involve making those who have nothing to do with the problem pay up anyway.
In a related story:
FACT: Nearly 40% of all gun sales don’t require a background check under current law. #DemandAction
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 28, 2013
FACT: That’s not a fact. Three Pinocchios.
More on gun insurance:
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Totally Objective AP: Virginia GOP passed voter ID law after more modest law failed to prevent Obama from winning
**Written by Doug Powers
The folks at the Associated Press do have their moments“:
Republican majorities in the Virginia House and Senate pushed the bill to passage one year after a more modest GOP-sponsored voter identification law failed to prevent President Barack Obama from winning Virginia for the second presidential election in a row and a Democratic U.S. Senate victory.
Funny how the AP (this writer and their layers of editors) don’t seem to have a problem assuming that the intent of voter ID laws is to disenfranchise a group of voters rather than just to keep people ineligible to vote from doing so, but these same “objective reporters” would consider it an act of journalistic malpractice to assume that Dem pushes against voter ID laws are attempts to make it easier to cheat.
The MSM’s bias is often easiest to spot when it comes to noticing who usually earns the benefit of the doubt.
(h/t Weasel Zippers)
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe