Monthly Archives: May 2013
DOJ criminality deepens as report shows targeting of Fast and Furious whistleblower
(NaturalNews) The criminality and illegitimacy of the federal government continues to grow, this time with the disclosure that a former U.S. attorney intentionally released a document aimed at discrediting a whistleblower in the “Operation Fast and Furious” scandal.
A new report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General has confirmed that Dennis Burke, former U.S. attorney for Arizona, leaked a document that was intended to smear John Dodson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Department of Justice agency which launched the operation that saw thousands of semi-automatic, military-style rifles purchased in the U.S. by straw buyers fall into the hands of Mexican drug gangs.
From the report:
On July 8, 2011, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) received information from an attorney representing John Dodson, a Special Agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), concerning the alleged unauthorized disclosure of sensitive ATF information. According to Dodson’s attorney, Dodson had received an e-mail from a Fox News producer asking for comment about excerpts from an internal ATF investigative memorandum that Dodson had drafted and which described a proposed undercover operation for an ATF firearms investigation…
Dodson’s attorney alleged that officials within the DOJ had disclosed the memorandum to retaliate against Dodson for his criticism of the conduct of the firearms trafficking investigation referred to as Operation Fast and Furious. On June 15, 2011, shortly before the alleged unauthorized disclosure, Dodson and other ATF agents had expressed their concerns about Operation Fast and Furious during testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Sorry – it was just a ‘mistake’
The DOJ IG report went on to state that the office launched an investigation shortly after receiving the complaint.
According to details of the investigation, on Aug. 16, 2011, Burke contacted an IG investigative counsel by phone to say he had indeed released the memorandum to the media, adding that the reporter “seemed to be familiar with the contents of the … memorandum before Burke provided it to him,” the report said.
In tracking down the details of the disclosure, investigators solicited sworn statements from 150 of 152 employees who had been identified by the Justice Department as having had access to documents provided to congressional panels looking into the failed operation. Of that figure, the IG’s office singled out five for additional interviews because they had indicated some knowledge of the memorandum’s release.
In its report, the IG concluded that indeed “Burke’s conduct in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to be inappropriate for a Department employee and wholly unbefitting a U.S. Attorney.”
“We are referring to OPR our finding that Burke violated Department policy in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to a member of the media for a determination of whether Burke’s conduct violated the Rules of Professional Conduct for the state bars in which Burke is a member,” the IG report said.
Burke eventually resigned his position as U.S. Attorney following the incident, in August 2011. He became the first major Justice Department official to leave his or her position in the Fast and Furious scandal.
In interviews with congressional investigators after the fact, Burke said he now views his leaking of the memorandum as a “mistake.”
Besides uncovering Burke’s involvement in leaking the document, the IG investigation also turned up emails between senior Department of Justice officials in which they discussed smearing Dodson.
One of those officials was Tracy Scmaler, director of the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs. She resigned her position at DOJ “after emails uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that she worked with left wing advocacy group Media Matters for America to smear whistleblowers and members of Congress and the media who sought to investigate DOJ scandals under Attorney General Eric Holder,” Breitbart News reported.
Rule by executive fiat
Obama is being blamed for many of these scandals and, as president and head of the Executive Branch of government, he is certainly culpable.
But only to an extent.
Granted, Obama has worked overtime to expand the power of the presidency, but he inherited an office whose role had already been enlarged far beyond anything the founding fathers envisioned for the Executive Branch. But Congress is culpable as well, for the Legislative Branch has, over the past century, relegated its lawmaking authority to the plethora of federal bureaucracies it has created.
And the president controls them.
Decrying bureaucracy and advocating for smaller government shouldn’t be a political slogan. It should be a demand of every freedom-minded, liberty loving American. That’s because we are no longer being “represented” by our elected leaders, we are being “ruled” by federal agencies.
That is not the “republican form of government” our Constitution guarantees.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.breitbart.com
http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2013/s1305.pdf
http://www.breitbart.com
LEEVAC Adds Two HOSMAX 310 MPSVs
LEEVAC Shipyards Jennings LLC, of Jennings, LA, a subsidiary of LEEVAC Shipyards, LLC has signed contracts with Hornbeck Offshore Services, LLC, an affiliate of Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. of Covington, LA for the construction of two STX Marine SV 310 Multi-Purpose Supply Vessels; 302’ x 76’ x 26’, 12,070 BHP diesel electric powered MPSV’s.
“These will be the twenty-third and twenty-fourth vessels to be built by LEEVAC for Hornbeck” says Christian Vaccari, President and CEO of LEEVAC.
The SV 310 is a very complex vessel design with unique characteristics integrated into the design by Hornbeck Offshore to meet a number of subsea inspection, repair and maintenance (IMR) support and heavy lift requirements. The vessels will be outfitted with a 250 ton crane provided by Cargotech, and will be powered by four (4) Caterpillar Model 3516C Tier 3 IMO II Marine variable speed diesel propulsion generator sets rated at 2250 kw each. The propulsion drives and thrusters are being provided by Schottel.
“Hornbeck Offshore is pleased to once again be building at LEEVAC” stated Todd Hornbeck, President and CEO of Hornbeck Offshore. ”The team at LEEVAC has delivered the majority of the new vessels that we have constructed since 1997, and we are confident that when delivered, our HOSMAX 310 MPSV’s will continue the string of additions to the HOS fleet from the LEEVAC yard that have historically enhanced our ability to deliver reliable service to our customers, and solid returns to our shareholders.”
Christian Vaccari, President and CEO of LEEVAC went on to say “Exceeding our customer’s expectations by building quality vessels on time and on budget while maintaining an safe work environment is how we preserve long-term relationships with our customers. I am very pleased to see Hornbeck expand their building program with us. This contract will bring our employment count to over 600 jobs in Southwest Louisiana and extend our backlog into early 2016. LEEVAC is currently building two Z-Tech 2400 Class Escort Tugs for G & H Towing Company, one MMC 879 PSV, two LDS 300 DE PSV’s for Tidewater Marine, and two LDS 270 DE PSV’s for Aries Marine.”
GE Power Conversion is the vendor for the integrated electrical system, power management, vessel control, DP-2 systems, machinery alarms, power and propulsion systems. Marine Interior Systems has been selected for the joiner work and Marine Aluminum will be providing the helideck system rated for a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter. The vessel will be built to ABS, USGC and SOLAS classifications. Additionally, will be ABS Classed with the XA1 Offshore Support Vessel (FFV-1) notation for off ship fire-fighting capabilities and SPS (Special Purpose Ship).
Will Obama Take Your 401(K) Retirement Funds?
May 20, 2013
NewsWithViews.com
For almost a year we’ve seen bold headlines that Barack Obama is in the process of taking 401(k)’s, ostensibly to pay down the national debt (created by politicians we elect to office). The same flavor of borrowing against federal employee retirement funds until Congress can borrow more money:
Government reaches debt limit, borrows against federal pension funds
“In a letter to congressional leaders Monday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he is suspending new investments in both the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund (CSRDF) and the Thrift Savings Plan G Fund, which is invested in federal securities. In addition, the department will redeem some of the investments held by the CSRDF, Geithner wrote.
“Federal retirees and employees will be unaffected by these actions,” Geithner said. By law, both funds must be made whole once lawmakers agree to increase the debt limit.
“The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board also Monday stressed that TSP investors will not be harmed. Under a 1987 law, the government is required to repay suspended G Fund investments, including interest, once the debt ceiling is raised and the government can resume borrowing. The board will keep track of what Treasury owes and how much interest the G Fund would have accumulated had the investments not been suspended. “You have an IOU from the federal government for the G Fund,” board chairman Andrew Saul said. “It’s not going to affect them [TSP investors], period.”
It’s easy for Treasury Secretary Geithner to reassure federal employees filching their life long “nest egg” funds is backed by a worthless IOU since it’s not his retirement.
This is known as robbing Peter to pay Paul. Instead of reducing the size of government by eliminating unconstitutional cabinets and agencies, Congress simply borrows more debt from foreign governments. Repayment of those civil service retirement funds is paid with debt. Can you describe anything more irresponsible than that? Try this one: The US Government spends $435,841,200 per hour
Art. II, Sec. II of the U.S. Constitution does not authorize the president to spend or borrow one penny of the people’s money. He can use the ‘bully pulpit’ with his party to move the idea along. But, any such change in existing laws would have to come from Congress. Does that mean Obama won’t try? Nothing is out of the realm of possibility when it comes to the current occupant of the White House.
As the dollar continues to lose its purchasing power, many seniors are finding their 401(k) accounts are not going to get them through through their golden years:
“According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, the median household retirement account balance in 2010 for workers between the ages of 55-64 was just $120,000. For people expecting to retire at around age 65, and to live for another 15 years or more, this will provide for only a trivial supplement to Social Security benefits. And that’s for people who actually have a retirement account of some kind. A third of households do not. For these people, their sole retirement income, aside from potential aid from friends and family, comes from Social Security, for which the current average monthly benefit is $1,230.”
Both the White House and the Congress send up ‘trial balloons’ periodically to see how the American people will react to something being bandied about back rooms in the halls of Congress or the Oval Office that directly affect our lives. If the initial response isn’t the desired one, input from think tanks and special interest groups help shape new proposals:
Obama Begins Push for New National Retirement System
“A recent hearing sponsored by the Treasury and Labor Departments marked the beginning of the Obama Administration’s effort to nationalize the nation’s pension system and to eliminate private retirement accounts including IRA’s and 401k plans, NSC is warning.
“The hearing, held in the Labor Department’s main auditorium, was monitored by NSC staff and featured a line up of left-wing activists including one representative of the AFL-CIO who advocated for more government regulation over private retirement accounts and even the establishment of government-sponsored annuities that would take the place of 401k plans.
“This hearing was set up to explore why Americans are not saving as much for their retirement as they could,” explains National Seniors Council National Director Robert Crone, “However, it is clear that this is the first step towards a government takeover. It feels just like the beginning of the debate over health care and we all know how that ended up.”
“A representative of the liberal Pension Rights Center, Rebecca Davis, testified that the government needs to get involved because 401k plans and IRAs are unfair to poor people. She demanded the Obama administration set up a “government-sponsored program administered by the PBGC (the governments’ Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation).” She proclaimed that even “private annuities are problematic.”
“Such “reforms” would effectively end private retirement accounts in America, Crone warns. “These people want the government to require that ultimately all Americans buy these government annuities instead of saving or investing on their own. The Government could then take these trillions of dollars and redistribute it through this new national retirement system.”
Should Americans be concerned about such a move? Very. Congress has created a ‘national’ debt of close to $17 trillion dollars. Unpaid mandates that have to be paid down the road on social security, Medicare and the ‘prescription drug liability’ program total $123.9 trillion dollars. Your share of that debt is a whopping $1.9 million dollars over your lifetime.
Most people have a difficult time wrapping their head around such astronomical numbers. There isn’t any real money to pay those obligations, so where will the money come from? As quoted above: “.. once the debt ceiling is raised and the government can resume borrowing.” What better place to begin borrowing than private pension funds using state of the art accounting methods that endanger everyone’s retirement funds. Nationalize the nation’s pension system and you’ve got the goose that will lay golden eggs…..for about ten days of spending. Then what?
Americans were far better off before government stepped in to “help” them with saving for retirement because anytime the government says “we’re here to help you,” that’s the time to grab your money and run the opposite direction.
The first steps towards nationalizing your retirement are underway. Every “national” program administered by the federal government is a monumental financial disaster. The numbers don’t lie, but politicians do.
We are all victims of the inept, morally irresponsible actions of one Congress after another for decades, yet, we keep reelecting them expecting different results. If you don’t think allowing the federal government to take over the only thing you will have when you finally retire is a good idea, now is the time to let those who represent you in Congress know how you feel. Before they scoop up your life’s savings backed by an IOU. They will owe you all right and it won’t even buy a cup of coffee.
To summarize it all for you.
Lets say you spend 20 plus years in the military and retire at 38 or 40. You receive your pension from the service. Still at a young age you decide to work for government or a private corporation for another 20 years or so. That will entitle you for another retirement pension. Then at age 65 you qualify for Social Security. Politicians call that triple dipping. The time is coming (sooner than you think) you will only be allowed to keep one, all in the name of saving the economy. All a big lie of course, because they created the conditions in the first place. (Called Theses, Syntheses, and Antitheses. Create the problem, offer the solution and walla, you have the desired outcome). Why are they doing this you ask? Simple! Wealth means freedom and independence. A person that’s financially well off can not be controlled, a poor one can. Poor people will do whatever they’re told and look to government for sustenance. That’s Communism. Everybody looks to mother government to take care of them. What the communists (aka: RINO’s, Liberals or Democrats) fear the most is individuals who don’t need the government and can think and care for themselves. I believe the backlash is coming and they are counting on the loyalty of the police to protect the crooks from the angry public demanding justice.
© 2013 Paul Walter – All Rights Reserved
Anonymous Cincinnati IRS official: “Everything comes from the top.”
A story in the Washington Post yesterday about the Internal Revenue Service’s Cincinnati office, which does most of the agency’s nonprofit auditing, clearly contradicted earlier reports that the agency’s targeting of Tea Party groups was the result of rogue agents.
The Post story anonymously quoted a staffer in Cincinnati as saying they only operate on directives from headquarters:
As could be expected, the folks in the determinations unit on Main Street have had trouble concentrating this week. Number crunchers, whose work is nonpolitical, don’t necessarily enjoy the spotlight, especially when the media and the public assume they’re engaged in partisan villainy.
“We’re not political,’’ said one determinations staffer in khakis as he left work late Tuesday afternoon. “We people on the local level are doing what we are supposed to do. . . . That’s why there are so many people here who are flustered. Everything comes from the top. We don’t have any authority to make those decisions without someone signing off on them. There has to be a directive.”
The staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said that the determinations unit is competent and without bias, that it grouped together conservative applications “for consistency’s sake” — so one application did not sail through while a similar one was held up in review. This consistency is paramount in the review of all applications, according to Ronald Ran, an estate-tax lawyer who worked for 37 years in the IRS’s Cincinnati office.
This pretty plainly contradicts the story coming out of the IRS that rogue agents in Cincinnati were responsible:
News of (acting IRS commissioner Steve) Miller’s resignation followed revelations that the IRS has identified two “rogue” employees in the agency’s Cincinnati office as being principally responsible for the “overly aggressive” handling of requests by conservative groups for tax-exempt status, a congressional source told CNN.
Miller said the staffers have already been disciplined, according to another source familiar with Miller’s discussions with congressional investigators. The second source said Miller emphasized that the problem with IRS handling of tax-exempt status for tea party groups was not limited to these two employees.
In related news, I also noted how the Post’s story on the Cincinnati office also appears to contradict what Miller told Congress this week about how many auditors the IRS has covering nonprofit groups. Miller said the figure was between 140-200, but the Post story puts the figure at 900. The Post doesn’t source the figure, but presumably that also came from people the reporters talked with in Cincinnati.
Executive Order 13629: A National Security Hybrid
B.H. Obama has issued 139 executive orders since becoming president. Some are fairly benign; many are deeply troubling, specifically as to the wholesale consolidation of emergency powers into the office of the presidency. The newest executive order is a breathtaking assault on entire sections of Constitution and the rights, freedoms, and liberties of all Americans, carefully hidden within the stultifying and banal language of bureaucratic doublespeak.
On October 26, 2012, eleven days before our national election, with tropical depression Sandy bearing down on thirteen East-Coast states and the Libyan disaster still a smoking morass of obfuscation, cover-ups, and unanswered questions, the White House’s Friday news dump included EO 13629. Titled “Establishing the White House Homeland Security Partnership Council,” this EO should chill the freedom-loving souls of all Americans.
Not surprisingly, the MSM has not mentioned EO 13629 — not anywhere. No mention in the NY Times, the Washington Post, or on any of the alphabet news and cable networks. The blogosphere, liberal and conservative (except Hannity), has had almost no mention of EO 13629. This EO was purposefully buried by the White House and ignored by the alternative press.
Have I got your attention? Then I’ll invite you to leave American Thinker for a couple of minutes and read the EO for yourself (only 1,232 words), and then return here.
All right, show of hands — who almost fell asleep digging through the tons of gravel to find the nasty gems? Yeah, me too. It takes a very close reading of this EO to understand what is actually going on here.
Let’s first look first at paragraph three:
The National Security Strategy emphasizes the importance of partnerships, underscoring that to keep our Nation safe “we must tap the ingenuity outside government through strategic partnerships with the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, foundations, and community-based organizations. Such partnerships are critical to U.S. success at home and abroad, and we will support them through enhanced opportunities for engagement, coordination, transparency, and information sharing.” This approach recognizes that, given the complexities and range of challenges, we must institutionalize an all-of-Nation effort to address the evolving threats to the United States.
A couple of things stand out. The EO quotes “The National Security Strategy,” an Orwellian document released by the White House in May of 2010 that advocates, in so many words, the end of American sovereignty and the ascendancy of a U.N.-based “transnational government.” It’s most famous line includes “We are now moving beyond traditional distinctions between Homeland and National Security.”
What to make of the line “… we must institutionalize an all-of-Nation effort to address the evolving threats to the United States”? What an eerie phrase: “all-of-Nation.” A Google search shows that phrase was also used in the “National Strategy For Biosurveillance,” a tyrant’s Christmas wish list, that was a July 2012 White House document, and Presidential Policy Directive 8, a FEMA directive on National Preparedness from March of 2011. Odd and troubling coincidences, to say the least.
Bottom line: the National Security Strategy encourages partnerships with non-governmental organizations, foundations, and community-based organizations. Got it.
So what exactly is the EO plan for these partnerships?
There is established a White House Homeland Security Partnership Council (Council) to foster local partnerships — between the Federal Government and the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, foundations, community-based organizations, and State, local, tribal, and territorial government and law enforcement — to address homeland security challenges.
The actionable clause: “to address homeland security challenges.” We’ll get to the chest-beating 900-pound gorillas in the room in a moment, but two significant items immediately demand our attention.
Did you notice that “homeland security” was not capitalized? It is usually referred to as the “Department of Homeland Security.” The usage in the EO of homeland as noun, but not a proper noun, is not a mistake. Yellow-highlight that line; we will return to it later. Also, the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are not specified as necessarily being of American origin or even of a pro-American outlook. They could also refer to foreign NGOs, as these are prominent progressive political activist groups that are strongly supported by the American-hating Byzantine bureaucracies of the U.N. and EU.
Let’s move on. Membership of this Council is quite specific and requires a surprisingly narrow skill set:
… the Council shall be composed of Federal officials who are from field offices of the executive departments, agencies, and bureaus (agencies) that are members of the Steering Committee established in subsection (c) of this section, and who have demonstrated an ability to develop, sustain, and institutionalize local partnerships to address policy priorities.
So Council members must come from the field offices of the executive departments and have demonstrated an ability to develop, sustain, and institutionalize local partnerships. Council members, except those whose agency already deals with security issues, evidently are not required to have a background in security, law enforcement, criminal justice, or the judiciary system; all that is required is an ability to develop and institutionalize partnerships. Is the council carefully recruiting government bureaucrats who can train, mold, and imprint a bureaucratic mindset onto these partners for the Council’s purposes? If not, what is meant by “institutionalize”? And why are the recruited members supposed to be selected from “field offices” rather than the usual Potomac swamps?
Closely reading this EO feels like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, blindfolded. Perhaps that was that the intent.
Let’s go on. Okay, these White House Council members are selected by the Steering Committee. Huh? What Steering Committee?
The Steering Committee shall include a representative at the Deputy agency head level, or that representative’s designee, from the following agencies:
(i) Department of State;
(ii) Department of the Treasury;
(iii) Department of Defense;
(iv) Department of Justice;
(v) Department of the Interior;
(vi) Department of Agriculture;
(vii) Department of Commerce;
(viii) Department of Labor;
(ix) Department of Health and Human Services;
(x) Department of Housing and Urban Development;
(xi) Department of Transportation;
(xii) Department of Energy;
(xiii) Department of Education;
(xiv) Department of Veterans Affairs;
(xv) Department of Homeland Security;
(xvi) Office of the Director of National Intelligence;
(xvii) Environmental Protection Agency;
(xviii) Small Business Administration; and
(xix) Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Notice that this Steering Committee and thus the Council has no congressional or judicial representation — i.e., no representation from the other co-equal branches of government. No constitutional checks and balances. The EO sets no term limits, no overview process, and no restraints on policies, authority, and structures. Is it normal for the government to tightly integrate such group into the structure of government itself? Well, yes — on some social and political issues such as voter registration or global warming, as examples. But this EO goes far beyond the accepted governmental role in integrating such organizations because the purpose of this bastardized conglomeration is homeland and national security, not a typical social or political issue. This EO is simply a blank check to build an executive-branch bureaucracy that actually plans to transform and integrate selected extra-governmental NGOs, foundations, and community-based organizations into a robust and unaccountable national security hybrid.
Americans need to be continually vigilant — this EO could swiftly metatasize and do untold damage to our nation and its people. Anyone else think that this EO is flagrantly unconstitutional? It gets worse.
The Council shall be chaired by the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism …
That would be John Brennan, a veteran CIA apparatchik, Obama’s loyal terrier, and America’s current “terrorism and drone” czar. Brennan supports reaching out to the “moderate elements” of Hezb’allah and has an exceptionally rocky relationship with the truth and reality in discussing this administration’s Middle East policies.
And more bad news:
At the invitation of the Chair, representatives of agencies not listed in subsection (c) of this section or other executive branch entities may attend and participate in Steering Committee meetings as appropriate.
That is Washington bureaucratese for the Obama czars. So, will the Steering Committee be well-represented with Obama’s hand-picked czars? Why not? No one will be looking.
Finally, what is the stated mission of the Council?
… advise the Chair and Steering Committee members on priorities, challenges, and opportunities for local partnerships to support homeland security priorities, as well as regularly report to the Steering Committee on the Council’s efforts …
And what are the homeland security priorities this Administration seeks to implement? In web searches through some nasty swamps, using homeland with a lowercase h, I stumbled on this site. An answer, not surprisingly, was found in a report from a George Soros-supported foundation, the Center for American Progress. This all but forgotten February 2008 report, “Homeland Security Policy Priorities for the Next Administration and Congress,” includes this “Key Action” item that was pretty interesting.
Create a civilian homeland security corps.
Finally the penny drops.
We recall this quote from Obama’s July 2, 2008 speech:
We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.
Let’s turn our attention to the pair of 900-pound gorillas sitting in the room, and why they are important.
First, our immediate concern should reflect that this EO’s bastardized security hybrid is hardly unique in modern history. The German Schutzstaffel, the infamous SS, and the Soviet KGB, Committee for State Security, both began as hybrid security organizations. They were deliberately created outside traditional governmental roles, exclusively for the consolidation and implementation of power on behalf of a single individual. We should not forget that Americans and their forefathers have experienced and soundly rejected such authoritarian abuses, such as the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism. But only the naive can believe that such a breakdown could not happen here in 21st-century America.
Second, the list of NGOs, foundations, and community-based organizations ripe for “institutionalization” would likely read like a Democratic who’s-who of hard-left organizations. Is there any doubt that this administration and its czars would seek partnerships with La Raza, ACORN and its renamed offshoots, Move On, PETA, the Center for American Progress, Media Matters, CAIR and other Islamic organizations, the Sierra Club, AFL-CIO, the SEIU, and the AFT and CTA?
As these groups may become institutionalized into a national security hybrid, new orders will come down from the council, and information will flow up to Washington.
The new homeland security corps primary mission would likely become the monitoring and reporting of unacceptable political and social activities — city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, house by house.
Could this corps become a latter-day Gestapo, heavily armed with cell-phone technology, linked databases, personal tablets, and bio-identification card readers?
We all can read this EO. Some may have different interpretations of what they have read. Considering the well-established trend of B.H. Obama’s cold disregard of constitutional checks and balances, and both the longstanding desire and a short-term need to create a White House framework for a domestic-security apparatus, EO 13629 may be forever linked in history with such infamous documents such as the Wannsee Protocol and the recently revealed files of the Spanish Inquisition.
Obamacare Tax Dollars Pouring Into ACORN, MoveOn, LaRaza…
photo of Kathleen Sebelius, HHS Secretary
Your Obamacare tax money is being poured into community organizations so they can enroll the uninsured in Obamacare. The obvious end-result is that they will enroll people into the Democratic Party as well.
The Senate immigration bill does the same thing. It pays community organizations to educate immigrants on their path to citizenship and to the Democratic Party.
Sebelius did an end-run around Congress last week and solicited funds from organizations like Enroll America to help publicize Obamacare. Enroll America management is purely political. President Anne Filipic is a White House insider who networks with community organizers. She was a DNC official before she worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign in Iowa.
She manages messaging for the very community organizations who are taking our money – ACORN (exposed as corrupt but still functioning), LaRaza (the radical open borders group) and MoveOn (a radical socialist organization) are some of them. Filipic also manages the messaging for 39 Democratic members of Congress.
Obamacare requires these far-left community organization be hired as “navigators” to enroll the uninsured. Union members are also being hired as navigators and we know where they stand.
Please read about this at Investors Business Daily
The corruption doesn’t stop there. Community Organizations like ACORN are also involved in taking our money to set up Obamacare CO-OPs.
Obamacare allows for the establishment of Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP). A CO-OP is a federal program created to assist in the development of non-profit, member-run health insurance issuers. The issuers will offer qualified health plans in the individual and small group markets. Organizations participating in CO-OP programs must be non-profit entities.
Once formed at great expense to the taxpayer, they can put the co-op into the healthcare exchange to compete even though it is known they can’t compete.
Many of the people starting up the exchanges have no experience. One has experience providing the poorest service in New York. [Greta Van Susteren expose April 4]
Co-ops are fatally flawed. They can’t compete with the government-subsidized option and they can’t compete with large insurance companies. Enrollees are in charge of decisions affecting costs – no conflict of interest there. They can succeed if they move beyond what they are and join forces with other co-ops and the moon and the stars are correctly aligned in the heavens.
The government has given co-ops $3.8 billion taxpayer dollars to start up though the failure rate could be about 35% to 40%. No one expects it to be 40% but they’re just mentioning it as a possibility.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform under Darrell Issa would like information on the co-ops to see where our money is going. They asked in February but Sebelius failed to comply. They asked again at the end of March and have greatly expanded their probe
Immediately after Obamacare passed, slews of ACORN-like (Alinsky-style) co-ops formed. Heavily subsidized with tax dollars, the co-ops need not be set up by anyone who has any experience or record of success. With all the rules being thrown out by HHS, they didn’t feel the need to have any rules about this?
One of these co-ops is The Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, an Alinsky-style ACORN group. It formed in August, 2011 at the same time the tax dollar incentive became known.
Obama gave this co-op $56 million to start up their health insurance company even though they have basically no experience in the area.
The Alinsky group is an operation out of Chicago.
…A Saul Alinsky-tied group has been awarded a $56 million federal loan to start up a nonprofit health insurance company — one of several organizations across the country this week tapped to launch a new network of insurers under the sponsorship of the federal health care overhaul.
The Wisconsin group, Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, was awarded the funding on Tuesday. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the group is expected to provide coverage statewide within five years after starting on a smaller scale in early 2014…Read more: FoxNews
If this isn’t ripe for corruption, I don’t know what is. This is what happens when a community organizer becomes president.
BIG BROTHER? IRS and HHS Building Largest Personal Information Database Govt. EVER Attempted
Thursday, May 16, 2013
If this story came from a different source it would immediately be dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theory like birtherism, truthers, or the missing egg salad recipe discussed in Woody Allen’s What’s Up Tiger Lilly? But this story came from the Wall Street Journal and comes on top of the growing IRS scandal and should raise fear in the hearts of most freedom loving Americans. The Internal Revenue Service is working with the Department of Heath and Human Services to great the largest database of the personal information of American citizens ever created by this Government.
This March the IRS Inspector General reiterated that ObamaCare’s 47 major changes to the revenue code “represent the largest set of tax law changes the IRS has had to implement in more than 20 years.” Thus the IRS is playing Thelma to the Health and Human Service Department’s Louise. The tax agency has requested funding for 1,954 full-time equivalent employees for its Affordable Care Act office in 2014.
Instead of going after tax cheats, these bureaucrats will write and enforce tax regulations for parts of the economy in which they have no core competence. For example, do ski instructors or public school teachers count as seasonal workers? How long is a “full time” work week? Is it 40 hours, or 30?
The IRS will also dispense ObamaCare’s insurance subsidies since technically they’re “advanceable” tax credits, i.e., transfer payments made prior to filing a tax return. The IRS will also police the individual mandate-tax to buy health insurance, as well as the business penalties for not offering Washington-approved coverage to employees.
To monitor compliance with these rules, the IRS and HHS are now building the largest personal information database the government has ever attempted. Known as the Federal Data Services Hub, the project is taking the IRS’s own records (for income and employment status) and centralizing them with information from Social Security (identity), Homeland Security (citizenship), Justice (criminal history), HHS (enrollment in entitlement programs and certain medical claims data) and state governments (residency).
The data hub will be used as the verification system for ObamaCare’s complex subsidy formula. All insurers, self-insured businesses and government health programs must submit reports to the IRS about the individuals they cover, which the IRS will cross-check against tax returns.
Even without the IRS news of the past few days this database of personal information was a frightening thought. When you include this IRS scandal, and the long history of politicians of both parties using the IRS to go after their political opponents, it is clear that the Internal Revenue Service has too much power.
The IRS is a legal governmental bully. This government agency is not much different than the loan shark’s enforcer going from “client to client” threatening broken limbs (or worse). The Internal Revenue’s major method of enforcement is intimidation.
Now with the extra responsibility of enforcing Obamacare, and its new growing database of American’s personal information the IRS will grow in power and weapons for intimidation. Their growing power goes against everything for which this country stands. As Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security
There is no suggestion here that there should be an uprising to overthrow the government of the United States, but perhaps it’s time to “overthrow” the Internal Revenue Service for their long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism.
The IRS was formed by an act of congress, it was given awesome powers by acts of congress, it can be tamed by an act of congress. I call for congress to act immediately to enact legislation to cut the power of the IRS making strict rules about what they can and cannot do (under penalty of law). Further more I call on the House of Representatives to stop funding any IRS expansion due to Obamacare. The House has the power of the purse.. so why are they waiting?
Related articles
- SCAM ALERT: IRS Warns Of Pervasive Telephone Scam (wctv.tv)
- IRS’s Lerner illegally sent conservative group data to FEC: Watchdogs (canadafreepress.com)
- Small Business Partnerships to Be Priority of IRS Exams: Taxes – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
- Powhatan man warns of elaborate IRS phone scam (wtvr.com)
- Shh! Lame St. Media Sleeping Over New IRS Scandal Findings (deadcitizensrightssociety.wordpress.com)
Mexico: Pemex Awards Cal Dive $188 Mln Worth of Offshore Contracts
Cal Dive International, Inc. has been awarded two additional contracts from Pemex Exploración y Producción that are expected to generate combined total revenues of approximately $188 million.
The first contract is for the procurement, installation and commissioning of 47 kilometers of 20 inch subsea pipeline and associated tie-ins to an existing platform. This contract is expected to generate revenues of approximately $129 million and will utilize two of the Company’s vessels as well as a third party vessel. The offshore construction is expected to commence in the third quarter 2013 with a portion of the work expected to be performed during the first quarter 2014.
The second contract is for the procurement, installation and commissioning of nine kilometers of two medium diameter subsea pipelines and associated tie-ins to existing platforms. This contract is expected to generate revenues of approximately $59 million and will utilize a third party vessel and a Company dive support vessel. The offshore construction for this contract is expected to commence in the fourth quarter 2013 and is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter 2014. On a combined basis, approximately 50% – 60% of the contracts are expected to be performed during 2013.
Quinn Hébert, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cal Dive, stated, “With the $63 million Pemex contract we announced in March, total contract awards with Pemex this year currently stand at $250 million. These awards increase our total Company backlog to over $400 million, our highest level in five years. We believe these awards demonstrate Pemex’s confidence in Cal Dive as a reliable contractor. These recent contract awards not only secure work for the second half of 2013, but also provide significant visibility for the first half of 2014 when our domestic business is historically slow due to the winter work season. Also, we continue to bid for additional work in Mexico that would mostly benefit our 2014 results.”
Cal Dive International, Inc., headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a marine contractor that provides an integrated offshore construction solution to its customers, including manned diving, pipelay and pipe burial, platform installation and salvage, and light well intervention services to the offshore oil and natural gas industry on the Gulf of Mexico OCS, Northeastern U.S., Latin America, Southeast Asia, China, Australia, West Africa, the Middle East and Europe, with a diversified fleet of surface and saturation dive support vessels and construction barges.
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