"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat."
-- Hillary Clinton
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Is Eric Holder Trying to Protect the IRS?
...The aide, Brian Fallon, is a former senior aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and a well-known personality on Capitol Hill. The letter describes Fallon as “audibly shaken” when he realizes his request to leak documents to help get ahead of news stories about them was mistakenly made to the very office he was seeking to undermine. Issa believes the call was intended to be made to Democratic Rep. Elijah Cumming’s staff, the ranking member on the oversight panel, the letter said.
According to the letter, Fallon – who is not named in the letter but confirmed he made the call – asked if the aides could release the IRS scandal documents to “selected reporters” to give Fallon an “opportunity to comment publicly on it.”
Fallon explained to Issa aides that the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs had not permitted him to release the documents to the public and he wanted to get ahead of the story “before the Majority” – meaning Issa – could share it, according to the letter.
Issa aides – who had placed the call on speakerphone – were “caught off guard by the unusual nature of the call and the odd request” and asked Fallon to “e-mail the material for evaluation.”
“At this point,” Fallon “abruptly placed the call on hold for approximately three minutes.” When Fallon returned to the call, “he was audibly shaken. He immediately stated that there was a ‘change in plans’ and that there would be no effort” by DOJ to release the material early....
...The aide, Brian Fallon, is a former senior aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and a well-known personality on Capitol Hill. The letter describes Fallon as “audibly shaken” when he realizes his request to leak documents to help get ahead of news stories about them was mistakenly made to the very office he was seeking to undermine. Issa believes the call was intended to be made to Democratic Rep. Elijah Cumming’s staff, the ranking member on the oversight panel, the letter said.
According to the letter, Fallon – who is not named in the letter but confirmed he made the call – asked if the aides could release the IRS scandal documents to “selected reporters” to give Fallon an “opportunity to comment publicly on it.”
Fallon explained to Issa aides that the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs had not permitted him to release the documents to the public and he wanted to get ahead of the story “before the Majority” – meaning Issa – could share it, according to the letter.
Issa aides – who had placed the call on speakerphone – were “caught off guard by the unusual nature of the call and the odd request” and asked Fallon to “e-mail the material for evaluation.”
“At this point,” Fallon “abruptly placed the call on hold for approximately three minutes.” When Fallon returned to the call, “he was audibly shaken. He immediately stated that there was a ‘change in plans’ and that there would be no effort” by DOJ to release the material early....
‘CATALIST’: Obama’s Database for Fundamentally Transforming America
...During the 2012 election, a producer for a conservative news network received a knock at his door in a key swing state. Two neighbors were standing on his stoop campaigning for Obama. They weren’t there to talk to him — they were there to talk to his wife. They knew that she was employed in a profession which the Obama campaign had decided to microtarget: folks who deliver services to special needs children. The two neighbors were already armed with this personalized information. The Obama campaign didn’t just send a direct mail piece to the target or make a telephone call. Instead, the campaign matched a microtargeted demographic (special needs service providers) with a highly motivated Obama volunteer in close neighborly proximity to the target. Then they armed the neighbor/volunteer with data to visit the target....
...Similarly, the data feeding the central Catalist database are coming from a wide swath of sources. Public records, pollsters, campaigns, non-profits, activist groups, unions, parties, commercial data — scores and scores of sources are feeding the central database data.
For example, when an environmental group does neighborhood door knocking for cash, the results of those contacts are fed into Catalist.
You have your own individual voter file in Catalist. Everyone does. Under that file might be a massive amount of information about you — more than probably exists in any other database in the world. Whom you work for, what car you might drive, donations you have made, assumptions based on your neighborhood, anything in a public government database about you, consumer preferences, partisan preferences, what licenses you have, what you might have said to pollsters on the phone, memberships, how you treated the young left-wing activist knocking on your door a few years ago, and on and on and on.
Each group working with Catalist feeds the central database. Different groups have different types of data about you. Some data relate to economics. Other data relate to politics. Either way, the Borg all work in unison to fill the database with a massive amount of information about every American — and all of it is perfectly legal....
Academic ‘Dream Team’ Helped Obama’s Effort
...“In the way it used research, this was a campaign like no other,” said Todd Rogers, a psychologist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former director of the Analyst Institute. “It’s a big change for a culture that historically has relied on consultants, experts and gurulike intuition.”
When asked about the outside psychologists, the Obama campaign would neither confirm nor deny a relationship with them. “This campaign was built on the energy, enthusiasm and ingenuity of thousands of grass-roots supporters and our staff in the states and in Chicago,” said Adam Fetcher, a campaign spokesman. “Throughout the campaign we saw an outpouring of individuals across the country who lent a wide variety of ideas and input to our efforts to get the president re-elected.”...
...During the 2012 election, a producer for a conservative news network received a knock at his door in a key swing state. Two neighbors were standing on his stoop campaigning for Obama. They weren’t there to talk to him — they were there to talk to his wife. They knew that she was employed in a profession which the Obama campaign had decided to microtarget: folks who deliver services to special needs children. The two neighbors were already armed with this personalized information. The Obama campaign didn’t just send a direct mail piece to the target or make a telephone call. Instead, the campaign matched a microtargeted demographic (special needs service providers) with a highly motivated Obama volunteer in close neighborly proximity to the target. Then they armed the neighbor/volunteer with data to visit the target....
...Similarly, the data feeding the central Catalist database are coming from a wide swath of sources. Public records, pollsters, campaigns, non-profits, activist groups, unions, parties, commercial data — scores and scores of sources are feeding the central database data.
For example, when an environmental group does neighborhood door knocking for cash, the results of those contacts are fed into Catalist.
You have your own individual voter file in Catalist. Everyone does. Under that file might be a massive amount of information about you — more than probably exists in any other database in the world. Whom you work for, what car you might drive, donations you have made, assumptions based on your neighborhood, anything in a public government database about you, consumer preferences, partisan preferences, what licenses you have, what you might have said to pollsters on the phone, memberships, how you treated the young left-wing activist knocking on your door a few years ago, and on and on and on.
Each group working with Catalist feeds the central database. Different groups have different types of data about you. Some data relate to economics. Other data relate to politics. Either way, the Borg all work in unison to fill the database with a massive amount of information about every American — and all of it is perfectly legal....
Academic ‘Dream Team’ Helped Obama’s Effort
...“In the way it used research, this was a campaign like no other,” said Todd Rogers, a psychologist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former director of the Analyst Institute. “It’s a big change for a culture that historically has relied on consultants, experts and gurulike intuition.”
When asked about the outside psychologists, the Obama campaign would neither confirm nor deny a relationship with them. “This campaign was built on the energy, enthusiasm and ingenuity of thousands of grass-roots supporters and our staff in the states and in Chicago,” said Adam Fetcher, a campaign spokesman. “Throughout the campaign we saw an outpouring of individuals across the country who lent a wide variety of ideas and input to our efforts to get the president re-elected.”...
The War on Poverty Has Been a Colossal Flop
...Since its beginning, U.S. taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson’s War on Poverty (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusting for inflation, that’s three times more than was spent on all military wars since the American Revolution.
One third of the U.S. population received aid from at least one welfare program at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient in 2013.
The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs. These programs provide cash, food, housing and medical care to low-income Americans. Federal and state spending on these programs last year was $943 billion. (These figures do not include Social Security, Medicare, or Unemployment Insurance.)
Over 100 million people, about one third of the U.S. population, received aid from at least one welfare program at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient in 2013. If converted into cash, current means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all poverty in the U.S....
...How is this possible? How can the taxpayers spend $22 trillion on welfare while poverty gets worse?
The typical family that Census identifies as poor has air conditioning, cable or satellite TV, and a computer in its home.
The answer is it isn’t possible. Census counts a family as poor if its income falls below specified thresholds. But in counting family “income,” Census ignores nearly the entire $943 billion welfare state....
America's new class system
...Once a state where the middle class reigned supreme, the apotheosis of the American Dream, California now has the wealth distribution — and, in some disturbing ways, the political underpinnings — of a Third World country. In Silicon Valley, a group of super-wealthy tech oligarchs live lives of almost unimaginable wealth, while only a few miles away, illegal immigrants live in squalor.
The oligarchs feel free, and even entitled, to choose the direction of society in the name of a greater good, but somehow their policies seem mostly to make the oligarchs richer and more powerful....
...The oligarchs are assisted in their control by what Kotkin calls the "clerisy" class — an amalgam of academics, media and government employees who play the role that medieval clergy once played in legitimizing the powerful, and in implementing their policies while quelling resistance from the masses. The clerisy isn't as rich as the oligarchs, but it does pretty well for itself and is compensated in part by status, its positions allowing even its lower-paid members to feel superior to the hoi polloi.
Because it doesn't have to work in competitive industries, the clerisy favors regulations, land-use rules and environmental restrictions that make things worse for businesses — especially the small "yeoman" businesses that traditionally sustained much of the middle class — thus further hollowing out the middle of the income distribution. But the lower classes, sustained by government handouts and by rhetoric from the clerisy, provide enough votes to keep the machine running, at least for a while....
...Since its beginning, U.S. taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson’s War on Poverty (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusting for inflation, that’s three times more than was spent on all military wars since the American Revolution.
One third of the U.S. population received aid from at least one welfare program at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient in 2013.
The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs. These programs provide cash, food, housing and medical care to low-income Americans. Federal and state spending on these programs last year was $943 billion. (These figures do not include Social Security, Medicare, or Unemployment Insurance.)
Over 100 million people, about one third of the U.S. population, received aid from at least one welfare program at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient in 2013. If converted into cash, current means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all poverty in the U.S....
...How is this possible? How can the taxpayers spend $22 trillion on welfare while poverty gets worse?
The typical family that Census identifies as poor has air conditioning, cable or satellite TV, and a computer in its home.
The answer is it isn’t possible. Census counts a family as poor if its income falls below specified thresholds. But in counting family “income,” Census ignores nearly the entire $943 billion welfare state....
America's new class system
...Once a state where the middle class reigned supreme, the apotheosis of the American Dream, California now has the wealth distribution — and, in some disturbing ways, the political underpinnings — of a Third World country. In Silicon Valley, a group of super-wealthy tech oligarchs live lives of almost unimaginable wealth, while only a few miles away, illegal immigrants live in squalor.
The oligarchs feel free, and even entitled, to choose the direction of society in the name of a greater good, but somehow their policies seem mostly to make the oligarchs richer and more powerful....
...The oligarchs are assisted in their control by what Kotkin calls the "clerisy" class — an amalgam of academics, media and government employees who play the role that medieval clergy once played in legitimizing the powerful, and in implementing their policies while quelling resistance from the masses. The clerisy isn't as rich as the oligarchs, but it does pretty well for itself and is compensated in part by status, its positions allowing even its lower-paid members to feel superior to the hoi polloi.
Because it doesn't have to work in competitive industries, the clerisy favors regulations, land-use rules and environmental restrictions that make things worse for businesses — especially the small "yeoman" businesses that traditionally sustained much of the middle class — thus further hollowing out the middle of the income distribution. But the lower classes, sustained by government handouts and by rhetoric from the clerisy, provide enough votes to keep the machine running, at least for a while....
Stimulus bill enabled billions in waste, exploitation of employees
...The largest government infusion of cash into the U.S. economy in generations – the 2009 stimulus – was riddled with a massive labor scheme that harmed workers and cheated unsuspecting American taxpayers.
At the time, government regulators watched as money slipped out the door and into the hands of companies that rob state and federal treasuries of billions of dollars each year on stimulus projects and other construction jobs across the country, a yearlong McClatchy investigation found.
A review of public records in 28 states uncovered widespread cheating by construction companies that listed workers as contractors instead of employees in order to beat competitors and cut costs. The federal government, while cracking down on the practice in private industry, let it happen in stimulus projects in the rush to pump money into the economy at a time of crisis.
Companies across the country avoided state and federal taxes and undercut law-abiding competitors. They exploited workers desperate for jobs, depriving them of unemployment benefits and often workers’ compensation insurance.
Exactly how much tax revenue was forfeited on stimulus projects isn’t clear. This is: The government enabled businesses bent on breaking the rules. Regulators squandered the chance to right a rogue industry by forcing companies’ hands on government jobs....
...The largest government infusion of cash into the U.S. economy in generations – the 2009 stimulus – was riddled with a massive labor scheme that harmed workers and cheated unsuspecting American taxpayers.
At the time, government regulators watched as money slipped out the door and into the hands of companies that rob state and federal treasuries of billions of dollars each year on stimulus projects and other construction jobs across the country, a yearlong McClatchy investigation found.
A review of public records in 28 states uncovered widespread cheating by construction companies that listed workers as contractors instead of employees in order to beat competitors and cut costs. The federal government, while cracking down on the practice in private industry, let it happen in stimulus projects in the rush to pump money into the economy at a time of crisis.
Companies across the country avoided state and federal taxes and undercut law-abiding competitors. They exploited workers desperate for jobs, depriving them of unemployment benefits and often workers’ compensation insurance.
Exactly how much tax revenue was forfeited on stimulus projects isn’t clear. This is: The government enabled businesses bent on breaking the rules. Regulators squandered the chance to right a rogue industry by forcing companies’ hands on government jobs....
Minnesota's Biggest Obamacare Insurer Leaves Exchange
PreferredOne was the least expensive insurer in the Minnesota's state-run Obamacare exchange last year. It was also the most successful at signing up customers, capturing 59 percent of the state's market for private plans, according to CBS Minnesota.
And now it's leaving the exchange, and the 30,000 people who had enrolled in its coverage.
As Jed Graham from Investor's Business Daily explains, this was due to an unusual feature of Obamacare in Minnesota—the existence of a "basic health program" option for lower-income households. ...
PreferredOne was the least expensive insurer in the Minnesota's state-run Obamacare exchange last year. It was also the most successful at signing up customers, capturing 59 percent of the state's market for private plans, according to CBS Minnesota.
And now it's leaving the exchange, and the 30,000 people who had enrolled in its coverage.
As Jed Graham from Investor's Business Daily explains, this was due to an unusual feature of Obamacare in Minnesota—the existence of a "basic health program" option for lower-income households. ...
Read 8 damning emails from behind the scenes of the Healthcare.gov meltdown
..."Officials at CMS and HHS refused to admit to the public that the website was not on track to launch without significant functionality problems and substantial security risks," the report says. "There is also evidence that the Administration, to this day, is continuing its efforts to shield ongoing problems with the website from public view."
The worst look comes from the internal emails excerpted in the report (including one that from CMS chief Marilynn Tavenner that begins "Please delete this email.") Not many officials lost their jobs in the wake of the Healthcare.gov debacle — CMS CIO Tony Trenkle's resignation was one of the only staff changes immediately following the launch — but this report may change that. Things look especially bleak for Tavenner, who signed the approval saying the site could go live and also reportedly told her subordinates to delete emails in addition to deleting her own, a violation of federal record-keeping rules....
..."Officials at CMS and HHS refused to admit to the public that the website was not on track to launch without significant functionality problems and substantial security risks," the report says. "There is also evidence that the Administration, to this day, is continuing its efforts to shield ongoing problems with the website from public view."
The worst look comes from the internal emails excerpted in the report (including one that from CMS chief Marilynn Tavenner that begins "Please delete this email.") Not many officials lost their jobs in the wake of the Healthcare.gov debacle — CMS CIO Tony Trenkle's resignation was one of the only staff changes immediately following the launch — but this report may change that. Things look especially bleak for Tavenner, who signed the approval saying the site could go live and also reportedly told her subordinates to delete emails in addition to deleting her own, a violation of federal record-keeping rules....
Liver transplant plan could punish donor-rich South
...UNOS may redraw liver-sharing regions. The new map would result in more donations from Tennessee being shipped to states beyond its existing district, which also includes Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
Vanderbilt’s liver transplant center is one of 60 across the nation that have gone on record against the redistricting proposal. Directors of those centers have signed a letter saying the proposal represents “the most drastic change in liver allocation ever and would significantly disadvantage many areas of the country currently able to serve their patient populations.”
Although he is not on a transplant list, Wyatt is keeping a close watch on the proposal because his doctor has told him he may someday need a new liver. He compares it to political gerrymandering and says areas of the country with low donation rates simply need to get more people to sign up as organ donors.
“What they are wanting to do is take the areas of high donation rates, like the South, and turn them into an organ farm to send them from areas of high donation rates to areas of low donation,” Wyatt said. “That is their proposal in a nutshell.”...
...UNOS may redraw liver-sharing regions. The new map would result in more donations from Tennessee being shipped to states beyond its existing district, which also includes Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
Vanderbilt’s liver transplant center is one of 60 across the nation that have gone on record against the redistricting proposal. Directors of those centers have signed a letter saying the proposal represents “the most drastic change in liver allocation ever and would significantly disadvantage many areas of the country currently able to serve their patient populations.”
Although he is not on a transplant list, Wyatt is keeping a close watch on the proposal because his doctor has told him he may someday need a new liver. He compares it to political gerrymandering and says areas of the country with low donation rates simply need to get more people to sign up as organ donors.
“What they are wanting to do is take the areas of high donation rates, like the South, and turn them into an organ farm to send them from areas of high donation rates to areas of low donation,” Wyatt said. “That is their proposal in a nutshell.”...
Rotherham child-sex victim confronts her alleged abuser in the street... but SHE is arrested by a van load of police
A victim of Rotherham's child sex abuse scandal confronted a man she says groomed her - but was left shocked when she was the one arrested.
The woman was shocked when she saw the man walking through the town's centre on Friday and decided to challenge him over the allegations.
But she was tackled by two police officers and pushed up against a wall during her 'thuggish' arrest, a witness has said....
A victim of Rotherham's child sex abuse scandal confronted a man she says groomed her - but was left shocked when she was the one arrested.
The woman was shocked when she saw the man walking through the town's centre on Friday and decided to challenge him over the allegations.
But she was tackled by two police officers and pushed up against a wall during her 'thuggish' arrest, a witness has said....
Democrats’ Push to Criminalize Dissent
...Democrats pushing the measure to repeal free speech pretend that it is a campaign-finance measure, but the only criteria it establishes for Congress to ban an advertisement — or a book, or a film, or a television show, or a magazine — is that money is expended in an attempt to influence a political outcome. Under those rules, the Ohio Inquisition’s successful move to ban billboards critical of an embattled Democratic congressman would have been totally acceptable under the provisions of a gutted First Amendment.
The Ohio Inquisition, and the Minnesota Inquisition, and Harry Reid’s war on the First Amendment are hardly isolated episodes. Consider that the same Texas prosecutor that has indicted Governor Rick Perry on two felony counts for the so-called crime of exercising his constitutional authority to veto a bill — a bill providing funds to that prosecutor’s office — is now preparing to indict University of Texas regent and whistleblower Wallace Hall, on charges of . . . hmm.
The charges against Mr. Hall are odd even by the standards of Rosemary Lehmberg, the vodka-pickled Texas prosecutor whose videotaped tirade after a DUI arrest — she threatened to have sheriff’s deputies jailed if she was not given special treatment — led to Governor Perry’s veto of funds for her office, on the theory that he could not in good conscience sign off on funding for an agency under such non-credible leadership. Mr. Hall is accused of leaking private information regarding academic records; short of that, prosecutors want to charge Mr. Hall with the crime of leading people to “speculate” about certain information protected by privacy rules. For the record, I should note that, though I never have spoken to the man, the party to whom Mr. Hall is accused of leaking information and whose speculation he is accused of encouraging is me....
...Democrats pushing the measure to repeal free speech pretend that it is a campaign-finance measure, but the only criteria it establishes for Congress to ban an advertisement — or a book, or a film, or a television show, or a magazine — is that money is expended in an attempt to influence a political outcome. Under those rules, the Ohio Inquisition’s successful move to ban billboards critical of an embattled Democratic congressman would have been totally acceptable under the provisions of a gutted First Amendment.
The Ohio Inquisition, and the Minnesota Inquisition, and Harry Reid’s war on the First Amendment are hardly isolated episodes. Consider that the same Texas prosecutor that has indicted Governor Rick Perry on two felony counts for the so-called crime of exercising his constitutional authority to veto a bill — a bill providing funds to that prosecutor’s office — is now preparing to indict University of Texas regent and whistleblower Wallace Hall, on charges of . . . hmm.
The charges against Mr. Hall are odd even by the standards of Rosemary Lehmberg, the vodka-pickled Texas prosecutor whose videotaped tirade after a DUI arrest — she threatened to have sheriff’s deputies jailed if she was not given special treatment — led to Governor Perry’s veto of funds for her office, on the theory that he could not in good conscience sign off on funding for an agency under such non-credible leadership. Mr. Hall is accused of leaking private information regarding academic records; short of that, prosecutors want to charge Mr. Hall with the crime of leading people to “speculate” about certain information protected by privacy rules. For the record, I should note that, though I never have spoken to the man, the party to whom Mr. Hall is accused of leaking information and whose speculation he is accused of encouraging is me....
GAMERGATE: ANGRY FEMINISTS, UNETHICAL JOURNALISTS ARE THE ONES NOT WELCOME IN THE GAMING COMMUNITY
...I'm exaggerating, obviously. But not by much: these bizarre campaigners, deploying a series of disingenuous and morally questionable tactics, such as goading people into making unpleasant remarks and then using those statements to publicly beg for sympathy and cash, have made gamers' lives a misery these last few years.
And yet, to the confusion of the troublemakers, barking orders and concocting bogus allegations of misogyny have not yielded results. Nor have the distraction tactics deployed by journalists sympathetic to the social justice warriors' causes, designed to draw attention away from those journalists' own moral failings -- shortcomings which have been known about for a long time, but which are only now being called out by readers en masse, because industry sites such as Kotaku and Polygon have chosen rather than to defend their industries to attack their readers....
...I'm exaggerating, obviously. But not by much: these bizarre campaigners, deploying a series of disingenuous and morally questionable tactics, such as goading people into making unpleasant remarks and then using those statements to publicly beg for sympathy and cash, have made gamers' lives a misery these last few years.
And yet, to the confusion of the troublemakers, barking orders and concocting bogus allegations of misogyny have not yielded results. Nor have the distraction tactics deployed by journalists sympathetic to the social justice warriors' causes, designed to draw attention away from those journalists' own moral failings -- shortcomings which have been known about for a long time, but which are only now being called out by readers en masse, because industry sites such as Kotaku and Polygon have chosen rather than to defend their industries to attack their readers....
Army officer is told not to enter his daughter's high school because he's wearing his uniform
...Baker's wife Rachel Ferhadson says, "Before he was allowed in, the security guard stopped him and said sorry you're not allowed in the school. Security told him men and women in uniform weren't allowed because it may offend another student."...
...Baker's wife Rachel Ferhadson says, "Before he was allowed in, the security guard stopped him and said sorry you're not allowed in the school. Security told him men and women in uniform weren't allowed because it may offend another student."...
Clinton insiders screened Benghazi documents before ARB probe, official says
...As the House Select Committee on Benghazi prepares for its first hearing this week, a former State Department diplomat is coming forward with a startling allegation: Hillary Clinton confidants were part of an operation to “separate” damaging documents before they were turned over to the Accountability Review Board investigating security lapses surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.
According to former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond Maxwell, the after-hours session took place over a weekend in a basement operations-type center at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. This is the first time Maxwell has publicly come forward with the story. …
When he arrived, Maxwell says he observed boxes and stacks of documents. He says a State Department office director, whom Maxwell described as close to Clinton’s top advisers, was there. Though the office director technically worked for him, Maxwell says he wasn’t consulted about her weekend assignment.
“She told me, ‘Ray, we are to go through these stacks and pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front office or the seventh floor in a bad light,’” says Maxwell. He says “seventh floor” was State Department shorthand for then-Secretary of State Clinton and her principal advisors.
“I asked her, ‘But isn’t that unethical?’ She responded, ‘Ray, those are our orders.’ ”...
...As the House Select Committee on Benghazi prepares for its first hearing this week, a former State Department diplomat is coming forward with a startling allegation: Hillary Clinton confidants were part of an operation to “separate” damaging documents before they were turned over to the Accountability Review Board investigating security lapses surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.
According to former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond Maxwell, the after-hours session took place over a weekend in a basement operations-type center at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. This is the first time Maxwell has publicly come forward with the story. …
When he arrived, Maxwell says he observed boxes and stacks of documents. He says a State Department office director, whom Maxwell described as close to Clinton’s top advisers, was there. Though the office director technically worked for him, Maxwell says he wasn’t consulted about her weekend assignment.
“She told me, ‘Ray, we are to go through these stacks and pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front office or the seventh floor in a bad light,’” says Maxwell. He says “seventh floor” was State Department shorthand for then-Secretary of State Clinton and her principal advisors.
“I asked her, ‘But isn’t that unethical?’ She responded, ‘Ray, those are our orders.’ ”...
Obama campaign’s open door to China
...Obama’s campaign refuses to use industry-standard safeguards against online credit-card fraud. For example, some 90 percent of e-commerce companies (and Romney’s site) use Card Verification Value data, which checks those three or four numbers on the back of the credit card to make sure the card user matches the card holder. The Obama site uses it if you want to buy a T-shirt or hat — but not if you make a donation....
...Why suspect so much Chinese giving? Consider the site Obama.com. It’s owned by Shanghai-based Obama campaign bundler Robert Roche. More than two-thirds of its traffic comes from non-US visitors, nearly 90 percent of them Chinese. And visitors there immediately get directed to barackobama.com, where they become part of the fund-raising mill.
Roche, one of Obama’s top advisers on trade with China, runs a Shanghai-based media company called Acorn, Inc. Chinese banks use Acorn for — what else? — credit-card transactions. One has to be very naive to believe those banks chose Acorn on their own, instead of at the behest of the Chinese government — or that none of those transactions involve contributions to the Obama campaign.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time China has seen fit to intrude itself in our electoral process. Who can forget Charlie Trie, the Little Rock restaurateur who channeled money from China’s intelligence service to the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign, or then-Vice President Al Gore gathering all that Chinese cash at a California Buddhist temple?...
...Obama’s campaign refuses to use industry-standard safeguards against online credit-card fraud. For example, some 90 percent of e-commerce companies (and Romney’s site) use Card Verification Value data, which checks those three or four numbers on the back of the credit card to make sure the card user matches the card holder. The Obama site uses it if you want to buy a T-shirt or hat — but not if you make a donation....
...Why suspect so much Chinese giving? Consider the site Obama.com. It’s owned by Shanghai-based Obama campaign bundler Robert Roche. More than two-thirds of its traffic comes from non-US visitors, nearly 90 percent of them Chinese. And visitors there immediately get directed to barackobama.com, where they become part of the fund-raising mill.
Roche, one of Obama’s top advisers on trade with China, runs a Shanghai-based media company called Acorn, Inc. Chinese banks use Acorn for — what else? — credit-card transactions. One has to be very naive to believe those banks chose Acorn on their own, instead of at the behest of the Chinese government — or that none of those transactions involve contributions to the Obama campaign.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time China has seen fit to intrude itself in our electoral process. Who can forget Charlie Trie, the Little Rock restaurateur who channeled money from China’s intelligence service to the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign, or then-Vice President Al Gore gathering all that Chinese cash at a California Buddhist temple?...
Federal Obamacare Officials Once Recognized the Falsity of Their Current Argument about Tax Credits
...most importantly, the original contract does not include any specific language related to technology which would allow consumers, who sign up using the Federal Exchange website, to determine their individual tax credit eligibility, and calculate and display comparative pricing options after any tax credits. . . if the law was intended to provide tax credits to the residents of states included in the Federal Exchange, the HealthCare.gov original design contract would have included functionality to provide tax credits to individuals in these states.
Shortly after Obamacare was enacted, HHS provided guidance documents to states regarding tax credit technology and systems. . .By stating in the introductory paragraph that “IT systems should be simple and seamless in identifying people who qualify for tax credits”, HHS made it clear that tax credits for consumers was one of its highest priorities...
...most importantly, the original contract does not include any specific language related to technology which would allow consumers, who sign up using the Federal Exchange website, to determine their individual tax credit eligibility, and calculate and display comparative pricing options after any tax credits. . . if the law was intended to provide tax credits to the residents of states included in the Federal Exchange, the HealthCare.gov original design contract would have included functionality to provide tax credits to individuals in these states.
Shortly after Obamacare was enacted, HHS provided guidance documents to states regarding tax credit technology and systems. . .By stating in the introductory paragraph that “IT systems should be simple and seamless in identifying people who qualify for tax credits”, HHS made it clear that tax credits for consumers was one of its highest priorities...
Rape and Rotherham
...So instead of looking for ideological vindication in these stories, it’s better to draw a general lesson. Show me what a culture values, prizes, puts on a pedestal, and I’ll tell you who is likely to get away with rape.
In Catholic Boston or Catholic Ireland, that meant men robed in the vestments of the church.
In Joe Paterno’s pigskin-mad Happy Valley, it meant a beloved football coach.
In status-conscious, education-obsessed Manhattan, it meant charismatic teachers at an elite private school.
In Hollywood and the wider culture industry — still the great undiscovered country of sexual exploitation, I suspect — it has often meant the famous and talented, from Roman Polanski to the BBC’s Jimmy Savile, robed in the authority of their celebrity and art.
And in Rotherham, it meant men whose ethnic and religious background made them seem politically untouchable, and whose victims belonged to a class that both liberal and conservative elements in British society regard with condescension or contempt....
...So instead of looking for ideological vindication in these stories, it’s better to draw a general lesson. Show me what a culture values, prizes, puts on a pedestal, and I’ll tell you who is likely to get away with rape.
In Catholic Boston or Catholic Ireland, that meant men robed in the vestments of the church.
In Joe Paterno’s pigskin-mad Happy Valley, it meant a beloved football coach.
In status-conscious, education-obsessed Manhattan, it meant charismatic teachers at an elite private school.
In Hollywood and the wider culture industry — still the great undiscovered country of sexual exploitation, I suspect — it has often meant the famous and talented, from Roman Polanski to the BBC’s Jimmy Savile, robed in the authority of their celebrity and art.
And in Rotherham, it meant men whose ethnic and religious background made them seem politically untouchable, and whose victims belonged to a class that both liberal and conservative elements in British society regard with condescension or contempt....
UKIP MEP SENT DEATH THREATS AFTER SLAMMING ROTHERHAM COUNCIL OVER CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL
UKIP's Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire, Jane Collins, has reported that she has been on the receiving end of death threats and warnings about her staying away from Rotherham after she attacked the local council for its negligence in the ongoing child abuse scandal....
Researcher who tried to expose Rotherham abuse ‘feared for life after police officers’ threat’
A Home Office researcher whose report into child sexual exploitation problems in Rotherham was ‘suppressed’ more than a decade ago has claimed she was threatened by two police officers.
The researcher claims she was approached by two officers while she was in her car at night, to be told it would be a ‘bad thing’ if the abusers she was investigating found out her home address....
Alimony for Your Eggs
...Mr. Lieberman is asking his client’s soon-to-be-former husband of eight years to pay $20,000 to cover her egg-freezing procedure, medication costs and several years of egg storage. “When they got married, the expectation was they would start a family,” he told me. “Now she might not have the chance much longer.”...
...All of a sudden, fertility has been assigned a value. If the point of a divorce settlement is to take inventory of a couple’s joint life and divide the assets, then that commodity belongs on the negotiating table — alongside vacation time-shares and projected earnings from his and her M.B.A.’s.
In the New Jersey couple’s case, they decided to divorce after undergoing several failed attempts at in vitro fertilization. Mr. Lieberman’s argument is that since fertility treatments were part of the marriage, they should be considered part of the marital lifestyle, which should be maintained as much as possible post-divorce. The only difference is, in the future, she’ll use another man’s sperm....
UKIP's Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire, Jane Collins, has reported that she has been on the receiving end of death threats and warnings about her staying away from Rotherham after she attacked the local council for its negligence in the ongoing child abuse scandal....
Researcher who tried to expose Rotherham abuse ‘feared for life after police officers’ threat’
A Home Office researcher whose report into child sexual exploitation problems in Rotherham was ‘suppressed’ more than a decade ago has claimed she was threatened by two police officers.
The researcher claims she was approached by two officers while she was in her car at night, to be told it would be a ‘bad thing’ if the abusers she was investigating found out her home address....
Alimony for Your Eggs
...Mr. Lieberman is asking his client’s soon-to-be-former husband of eight years to pay $20,000 to cover her egg-freezing procedure, medication costs and several years of egg storage. “When they got married, the expectation was they would start a family,” he told me. “Now she might not have the chance much longer.”...
...All of a sudden, fertility has been assigned a value. If the point of a divorce settlement is to take inventory of a couple’s joint life and divide the assets, then that commodity belongs on the negotiating table — alongside vacation time-shares and projected earnings from his and her M.B.A.’s.
In the New Jersey couple’s case, they decided to divorce after undergoing several failed attempts at in vitro fertilization. Mr. Lieberman’s argument is that since fertility treatments were part of the marriage, they should be considered part of the marital lifestyle, which should be maintained as much as possible post-divorce. The only difference is, in the future, she’ll use another man’s sperm....
The Varieties of Liberal Enthusiasm
...The first signs of the spiritual zeal that would eventually play a significant part in Obama’s election came not from Washington or Chicago but from Hollywood. Our moviemakers are adept at measuring the zeitgeist of the nation—of its liberal half, anyway—and are a powerful force in shaping it. And for more than a decade, they’ve been churning out what critics call “black-angel” movies. These films feature a white protagonist guided to enlightenment by a black character, usually of divine or supernatural origin or, at the very least, in touch with spiritual experiences that the main character lacks. With the black angel’s help, the white hero finds salvation....
...Barack Obama must be elected President of the United States. . . . I have thrown myself into a new world—one in which fluffy chatter and frivolous praise are replaced by a get-to-the-point directness and disciple-like devotion. It’s intense and intoxicating. . . . When I attended my second “Obama Live” fund-raiser last week at New York City’s Grand Hyatt, . . . I was on my feet as Senator Obama entered the room. Fate had blessed me in this moment. . . . In a moment of divine intervention, he saw me, . . . grabbed my hand, and gave that brilliant smile of his. I literally said out loud to the woman next to me who witnessed my good fate, “I’ll never wash this hand again.”...
...The first signs of the spiritual zeal that would eventually play a significant part in Obama’s election came not from Washington or Chicago but from Hollywood. Our moviemakers are adept at measuring the zeitgeist of the nation—of its liberal half, anyway—and are a powerful force in shaping it. And for more than a decade, they’ve been churning out what critics call “black-angel” movies. These films feature a white protagonist guided to enlightenment by a black character, usually of divine or supernatural origin or, at the very least, in touch with spiritual experiences that the main character lacks. With the black angel’s help, the white hero finds salvation....
...Barack Obama must be elected President of the United States. . . . I have thrown myself into a new world—one in which fluffy chatter and frivolous praise are replaced by a get-to-the-point directness and disciple-like devotion. It’s intense and intoxicating. . . . When I attended my second “Obama Live” fund-raiser last week at New York City’s Grand Hyatt, . . . I was on my feet as Senator Obama entered the room. Fate had blessed me in this moment. . . . In a moment of divine intervention, he saw me, . . . grabbed my hand, and gave that brilliant smile of his. I literally said out loud to the woman next to me who witnessed my good fate, “I’ll never wash this hand again.”...
Internal emails: EPA rules part of 'progressive' agenda
Emails between top Environmental Protection Agency officials reveal they saw their fight against global warming as putting them at “forefront of progressive national policy.”
“You are at the forefront of progressive national policy on one of the critical issues of our time. Do you realize that?” former EPA chief Lisa Jackson asked former EPA policy office head Lisa Heinzerling in a Feb. 27, 2009 email.
“You’re a good boss. I do realize that. I pinch myself all the time,” Heinzerling replied that same day to Jackson, who was using an alias email account under the fake name “Richard Windsor.”...
Emails between top Environmental Protection Agency officials reveal they saw their fight against global warming as putting them at “forefront of progressive national policy.”
“You are at the forefront of progressive national policy on one of the critical issues of our time. Do you realize that?” former EPA chief Lisa Jackson asked former EPA policy office head Lisa Heinzerling in a Feb. 27, 2009 email.
“You’re a good boss. I do realize that. I pinch myself all the time,” Heinzerling replied that same day to Jackson, who was using an alias email account under the fake name “Richard Windsor.”...
VA Supervisor Made Her Employees Renovate Her House, Used Gov’t Money To Do It
A former Veterans Affairs supervisor has been sentenced for stealing up to $20,000 of government property, a recent Justice Department release announced.
From 2010 to 2013, 48-year-old Venita Godfrey-Scott directed her employees to use materials and supplies intended for VA medical center upkeep on her own house. These taxpayer-funded home improvement projects included “a deck in her backyard, carpet installation, and various kitchen, bathroom and basement improvements.” She also instructed employees to buy other necessary materials with her government-issued credit card, and had them work on these projects during normal work hours, when they were being paid by the VA.
Godfrey-Scott was a facilities supervisor, responsible for “carpentry, paint, locks, doors, and other minor construction projects,” for the VA Medical Center in West Haven, Conn....
A former Veterans Affairs supervisor has been sentenced for stealing up to $20,000 of government property, a recent Justice Department release announced.
From 2010 to 2013, 48-year-old Venita Godfrey-Scott directed her employees to use materials and supplies intended for VA medical center upkeep on her own house. These taxpayer-funded home improvement projects included “a deck in her backyard, carpet installation, and various kitchen, bathroom and basement improvements.” She also instructed employees to buy other necessary materials with her government-issued credit card, and had them work on these projects during normal work hours, when they were being paid by the VA.
Godfrey-Scott was a facilities supervisor, responsible for “carpentry, paint, locks, doors, and other minor construction projects,” for the VA Medical Center in West Haven, Conn....
Sunday, September 07, 2014
IRS SAYS IT HAS LOST EMAILS FROM 5 MORE EMPLOYEES
...On Friday, the IRS said it has also lost emails from five other employees related to the probe, including two agents who worked in a Cincinnati office processing applications for tax-exempt status....
...On Friday, the IRS said it has also lost emails from five other employees related to the probe, including two agents who worked in a Cincinnati office processing applications for tax-exempt status....
Rotherham Whistleblower 'Sent On Diversity Training For Saying Most Abusers Were Asian'
A researcher was sent on a diversity awareness course - and faced the sack - for raising the alarm about the appalling abuse of children in Rotherham and the fact most of the perpetrators were of Pakistani descent, it has been reported.
Some 1,400 children were abused between 1997 and 2013 in the South Yorkshire town, including cases of them of being made to witness brutal rapes, being covered in petrol and threatened with being set alight, according to a devastating report last week.
Many of the victims were young girls in care of the council - which was accused of "blatant" failures in not dealing with the problem.
The researcher, who was seconded to Rotherham Council from the Home Office in 2002, spoke to BBC Panorama anonymously and said she was told she must "never, ever" again mention the fact they most of the abusers were Asian men....
..."And her other response was to book me on a two-day ethnicity and diversity course to raise my awareness of ethnic issues."...
A researcher was sent on a diversity awareness course - and faced the sack - for raising the alarm about the appalling abuse of children in Rotherham and the fact most of the perpetrators were of Pakistani descent, it has been reported.
Some 1,400 children were abused between 1997 and 2013 in the South Yorkshire town, including cases of them of being made to witness brutal rapes, being covered in petrol and threatened with being set alight, according to a devastating report last week.
Many of the victims were young girls in care of the council - which was accused of "blatant" failures in not dealing with the problem.
The researcher, who was seconded to Rotherham Council from the Home Office in 2002, spoke to BBC Panorama anonymously and said she was told she must "never, ever" again mention the fact they most of the abusers were Asian men....
..."And her other response was to book me on a two-day ethnicity and diversity course to raise my awareness of ethnic issues."...
Whatever Happened To Global Warming: Now come climate scientists’ implausible explanations for why the ‘hiatus’ has passed the 15-year mark.
...On Sept. 23 the United Nations will host a party for world leaders in New York to pledge urgent action against climate change. Yet leaders from China, India and Germany have already announced that they won’t attend the summit and others are likely to follow, leaving President Obama looking a bit lonely. Could it be that they no longer regard it as an urgent threat that some time later in this century the air may get a bit warmer?
In effect, this is all that’s left of the global-warming emergency the U.N. declared in its first report on the subject in 1990. The U.N. no longer claims that there will be dangerous or rapid climate change in the next two decades. Last September, between the second and final draft of its fifth assessment report, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change quietly downgraded the warming it expected in the 30 years following 1995, to about 0.5 degrees Celsius from 0.7 (or, in Fahrenheit, to about 0.9 degrees, from 1.3).
Even that is likely to be too high. The climate-research establishment has finally admitted openly what skeptic scientists have been saying for nearly a decade: Global warming has stopped since shortly before this century began. First the climate-research establishment denied that a pause existed, noting that if there was a pause, it would invalidate their theories. Now they say there is a pause (or “hiatus”), but that it doesn’t after all invalidate their theories.
Alas, their explanations have made their predicament worse by implying that man-made climate change is so slow and tentative that it can be easily overwhelmed by natural variation in temperature—a possibility that they had previously all but ruled out.
When the climate scientist and geologist Bob Carter of James Cook University in Australia wrote an article in 2006 saying that there had been no global warming since 1998 according to the most widely used measure of average global air temperatures, there was an outcry. A year later, when David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London made the same point, the environmentalist and journalist Mark Lynas said in the New Statesman that Mr. Whitehouse was “wrong, completely wrong,” and was “deliberately, or otherwise, misleading the public.”
We know now that it was Mr. Lynas who was wrong. Two years before Mr. Whitehouse’s article, climate scientists were already admitting in emails among themselves that there had been no warming since the late 1990s. “The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998,” wrote Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia in Britain in 2005. He went on: “Okay it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.”
If the pause lasted 15 years, they conceded, then it would be so significant that it would invalidate the climate-change models upon which policy was being built. A report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) written in 2008 made this clear: “The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more.”
Well, the pause has now lasted for 16, 19 or 26 years—depending on whether you choose the surface temperature record or one of two satellite records of the lower atmosphere. That’s according to a new statistical calculation by Ross McKitrick, a professor of economics at the University of Guelph in Canada....
...On Sept. 23 the United Nations will host a party for world leaders in New York to pledge urgent action against climate change. Yet leaders from China, India and Germany have already announced that they won’t attend the summit and others are likely to follow, leaving President Obama looking a bit lonely. Could it be that they no longer regard it as an urgent threat that some time later in this century the air may get a bit warmer?
In effect, this is all that’s left of the global-warming emergency the U.N. declared in its first report on the subject in 1990. The U.N. no longer claims that there will be dangerous or rapid climate change in the next two decades. Last September, between the second and final draft of its fifth assessment report, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change quietly downgraded the warming it expected in the 30 years following 1995, to about 0.5 degrees Celsius from 0.7 (or, in Fahrenheit, to about 0.9 degrees, from 1.3).
Even that is likely to be too high. The climate-research establishment has finally admitted openly what skeptic scientists have been saying for nearly a decade: Global warming has stopped since shortly before this century began. First the climate-research establishment denied that a pause existed, noting that if there was a pause, it would invalidate their theories. Now they say there is a pause (or “hiatus”), but that it doesn’t after all invalidate their theories.
Alas, their explanations have made their predicament worse by implying that man-made climate change is so slow and tentative that it can be easily overwhelmed by natural variation in temperature—a possibility that they had previously all but ruled out.
When the climate scientist and geologist Bob Carter of James Cook University in Australia wrote an article in 2006 saying that there had been no global warming since 1998 according to the most widely used measure of average global air temperatures, there was an outcry. A year later, when David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London made the same point, the environmentalist and journalist Mark Lynas said in the New Statesman that Mr. Whitehouse was “wrong, completely wrong,” and was “deliberately, or otherwise, misleading the public.”
We know now that it was Mr. Lynas who was wrong. Two years before Mr. Whitehouse’s article, climate scientists were already admitting in emails among themselves that there had been no warming since the late 1990s. “The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998,” wrote Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia in Britain in 2005. He went on: “Okay it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.”
If the pause lasted 15 years, they conceded, then it would be so significant that it would invalidate the climate-change models upon which policy was being built. A report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) written in 2008 made this clear: “The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more.”
Well, the pause has now lasted for 16, 19 or 26 years—depending on whether you choose the surface temperature record or one of two satellite records of the lower atmosphere. That’s according to a new statistical calculation by Ross McKitrick, a professor of economics at the University of Guelph in Canada....
Venezuelan Socialist Party swaps God for Chavez in new prayer
..."Our Chavez who art in heaven, the earth, the sea and we delegates," red-shirted delegate Maria Estrella Uribe recited on Monday at the PSUV party Congress.
"Hallowed be your name, may your legacy come to us so we can spread it to people here and elsewhere. Give us your light to guide us every day," she said in front of an image of Chavez.
"Lead us not into the temptation of capitalism, deliver us from the evil of the oligarchy, like the crime of contraband, because ours is the homeland, the peace and life forever and ever. Amen. Viva Chavez!" she exclaimed to applause....
..."Our Chavez who art in heaven, the earth, the sea and we delegates," red-shirted delegate Maria Estrella Uribe recited on Monday at the PSUV party Congress.
"Hallowed be your name, may your legacy come to us so we can spread it to people here and elsewhere. Give us your light to guide us every day," she said in front of an image of Chavez.
"Lead us not into the temptation of capitalism, deliver us from the evil of the oligarchy, like the crime of contraband, because ours is the homeland, the peace and life forever and ever. Amen. Viva Chavez!" she exclaimed to applause....
Video: Dead American jihadi once worked at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport
This exclusive last night from the local Fox affiliate in the Twin Cities certainly will shake up anyone who’s flown through our international airport, which includes my whole family and all of my friends out here. One of the two Americans confirmed to have been killed while fighting for ISIS turns out to have had a pretty good job here in the US that he left behind — cleaning commercial passenger jets at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport....
This exclusive last night from the local Fox affiliate in the Twin Cities certainly will shake up anyone who’s flown through our international airport, which includes my whole family and all of my friends out here. One of the two Americans confirmed to have been killed while fighting for ISIS turns out to have had a pretty good job here in the US that he left behind — cleaning commercial passenger jets at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport....
NEW EMAILS: IRS Obtained Donor Lists For ‘Secret Research Project’
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) improperly obtained donor lists from nonprofit groups as part of a “secret research project” being run by Lois Lerner and other officials.
IRS official David Fish revealed the “secret research project” in a June 27, 2012 email to Lerner’s direct subordinate Holly Paz, according to emails released Thursday by the nonprofit group Judicial Watch, which obtained the emails in a pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
“Joseph Urban [IRS Technical Advisor, Tax Exempt and Government Entities] had actually started a secret research project on whether we could, consistent with 6104, argue that [REDACTED],” Fish wrote.
“Joe was quite agitated yesterday when I told him what we were doing. (He was involved when the initial question was raised, but we didn’t continue reading him in),” Fish continued. “At one point he started saying that this was a decision for Steve Miller–I told him we were already doing it, and that I didn’t know whether Lois had already talked to Nikole [Flax, former IRS Chief of Staff to IRS Commissioner Steve Miller] about this. Would not be surprised if he already started working on Lois.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” Paz replied. “The decision was made by Steve, based on advice from P and A. [Procedure and Administration].”...
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) improperly obtained donor lists from nonprofit groups as part of a “secret research project” being run by Lois Lerner and other officials.
IRS official David Fish revealed the “secret research project” in a June 27, 2012 email to Lerner’s direct subordinate Holly Paz, according to emails released Thursday by the nonprofit group Judicial Watch, which obtained the emails in a pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
“Joseph Urban [IRS Technical Advisor, Tax Exempt and Government Entities] had actually started a secret research project on whether we could, consistent with 6104, argue that [REDACTED],” Fish wrote.
“Joe was quite agitated yesterday when I told him what we were doing. (He was involved when the initial question was raised, but we didn’t continue reading him in),” Fish continued. “At one point he started saying that this was a decision for Steve Miller–I told him we were already doing it, and that I didn’t know whether Lois had already talked to Nikole [Flax, former IRS Chief of Staff to IRS Commissioner Steve Miller] about this. Would not be surprised if he already started working on Lois.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” Paz replied. “The decision was made by Steve, based on advice from P and A. [Procedure and Administration].”...
Statutory rape victim forced to pay child support
...Nick Olivas became a father at 14, a fact he wouldn't learn for eight years.
While in high school, Olivas had sex with a 20-year-old woman. As he sees it now, she took advantage of a lonely kid going through a rough patch at home.
State law says a child younger than 15 cannot consent with an adult under any circumstance, making Olivas a rape victim. Olivas didn't press charges and says he didn't realize at the time that it was even something to consider.
The two went their separate ways. Olivas, now 24 and living in Phoenix, graduated from high school, went to college and became a medical assistant.
Then two years ago, the state served him with papers demanding child support. That's how he found out he had a then-6-year-old daughter....
...Olivas said he owes about $15,000 in back child support and medical bills going back to the child's birth, plus 10 percent interest. The state seized money from his bank account and is garnisheeing his wages at $380 a month....
Before declaring that there’s a ‘rape epidemic’ in the US, has anybody bothered to check the actual data? Apparently not
...From 1972 to 1992, the rate of rapes in the US almost doubled from 22.5 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants in 1972 to a peak of 42.8 in 1992. Then for the next 21 years, the rate declined in almost every year, and fell to a 41-year low of 23.6 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants in 2013 (based on January-June data), the lowest rate since 1972. Also note that the current rate of 23.6 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants means that there would be approximately 23.6 rapes per 50,000 women, or 1 in about 2,100....
...Nick Olivas became a father at 14, a fact he wouldn't learn for eight years.
While in high school, Olivas had sex with a 20-year-old woman. As he sees it now, she took advantage of a lonely kid going through a rough patch at home.
State law says a child younger than 15 cannot consent with an adult under any circumstance, making Olivas a rape victim. Olivas didn't press charges and says he didn't realize at the time that it was even something to consider.
The two went their separate ways. Olivas, now 24 and living in Phoenix, graduated from high school, went to college and became a medical assistant.
Then two years ago, the state served him with papers demanding child support. That's how he found out he had a then-6-year-old daughter....
...Olivas said he owes about $15,000 in back child support and medical bills going back to the child's birth, plus 10 percent interest. The state seized money from his bank account and is garnisheeing his wages at $380 a month....
Before declaring that there’s a ‘rape epidemic’ in the US, has anybody bothered to check the actual data? Apparently not
...From 1972 to 1992, the rate of rapes in the US almost doubled from 22.5 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants in 1972 to a peak of 42.8 in 1992. Then for the next 21 years, the rate declined in almost every year, and fell to a 41-year low of 23.6 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants in 2013 (based on January-June data), the lowest rate since 1972. Also note that the current rate of 23.6 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants means that there would be approximately 23.6 rapes per 50,000 women, or 1 in about 2,100....
What Makes Young Evangelicals Less Conservative? Results of New Study May Surprise You
...White Millennial Evangelicals who did not know any non-Christians or non-whites among their closest associations were more likely than white Millennial Evangelicals with diverse social networks to agree that "religion causes more problems in society than it solves," "under God" should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, and disagree that "it is important for children to be brought up in a religion so they can learn good values." The only exception to this trend is that those with the more homogenous social networks were more likely to believe that one needs to believe in God to be moral.
The authors reasoned that Evangelicals with more exposure to the Evangelical subculture are reacting negatively to that subculture.
"Therefore, we have gathered some evidence that is suggestive about why young Evangelicals are different from their elders — they are reacting negatively to the embattled, political subculture of their parents," they wrote....
New Book Warns of Evangelical Left Influence on Millennials
...“The goal of the Christian Left is to undermine the authority of the Bible by painting inconsistencies in Scripture, which they hope will breed confusion and, at times, doubt. Once the lines of truth are blurred, young Evangelicals start to reconcile their faith with liberal political platforms like same-sex marriage, taxpayer funded abortions and contraception, feminism, pacifism, and big government....
...White Millennial Evangelicals who did not know any non-Christians or non-whites among their closest associations were more likely than white Millennial Evangelicals with diverse social networks to agree that "religion causes more problems in society than it solves," "under God" should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, and disagree that "it is important for children to be brought up in a religion so they can learn good values." The only exception to this trend is that those with the more homogenous social networks were more likely to believe that one needs to believe in God to be moral.
The authors reasoned that Evangelicals with more exposure to the Evangelical subculture are reacting negatively to that subculture.
"Therefore, we have gathered some evidence that is suggestive about why young Evangelicals are different from their elders — they are reacting negatively to the embattled, political subculture of their parents," they wrote....
New Book Warns of Evangelical Left Influence on Millennials
...“The goal of the Christian Left is to undermine the authority of the Bible by painting inconsistencies in Scripture, which they hope will breed confusion and, at times, doubt. Once the lines of truth are blurred, young Evangelicals start to reconcile their faith with liberal political platforms like same-sex marriage, taxpayer funded abortions and contraception, feminism, pacifism, and big government....
Rotherham: A Quintessentially Liberal Scandal
...You don’t have to imagine the outcry that would ensue, because something similar to what I describe above (with the possible exception of the petrol dousing) happened only recently, when hundreds of schoolgirls were kidnapped by the Islamist Boko Haram group in Nigeria. The international outrage was unanimous, and when the Nigerian authorities appealed for help the response was swift, with President Obama sending troops and drones to hunt for the girls; meanwhile his wife and various celebrities lent their support to a facile and self-indulgent social media campaign to “Bring Back Our Girls.”...
...Other than the starkly different locations and the fact that Boko Haram is a recognized terrorist group, the notable difference between the two episodes is that the Nigerian schoolgirls were black, and the Rotherham abuse victims were white...
Do The Rapes of Rotherham Tell a Tale of Conquest?
...What Rotherham puts me in mind of is the behavior of the conqueror. One of the terrible after-effects of invasion and war has been the subjugation of the women, the rape of wives and daughters, the seed of the conqueror, inserted into a culture and a society — yet another tactic meant to subdue and eradicate.
And yet, there has been no old-fashioned “invasion” and no “war” in the southern part of Yorkshire. This conquering was invited, and it was invited throughout Europe, where Rotherham will be discovered to have been replicated. Why wouldn’t it be? Who in Europe would dare to prosecute?
Rotherham will not be the last “conquest”. There are radical Islamists — not “observant” mind you, just radical — living in the West and determinedly unassimilated to it, on every continent....
Obama Invents ‘Immigration Rights’ For Foreigners
President Barack Obama believes that many foreigners have a right to immigrate into the United States, regardless of what Americans prefer, say immigration experts.
The evidence emerged from the president’s mouth on Labor Day, as Obama was urging his supporters to vote in November, despite the struggling economy.
“Cynicism is a bad choice… Hope is what gives young people the strength to march for women’s rights, and worker’s rights, and civil rights, and voting rights, and gay rights and immigration rights,” Obama told union supporters gathered Sept. 1 in Milwaukee, Wisc.
That “immigration rights” phrase “implies that some people have the right to move here,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center of Immigration Studies....
U.S. Hikes Fee To Renounce Citizenship By 422% Over the last two years, the U.S. has had a spike in expatriations. It isn’t exactly Ellis Island in reverse, but it’s more than a dribble. With global tax reporting and FATCA, the list of the individuals who renounced is up. For 2013, there was a 221% increase, with record numbers of Americans renouncing. The Treasury Department is required to publish a quarterly list, but these numbers are under-stated, some say considerably.
The presence or absence of tax motivation is no longer relevant, but that could change. After Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin departed for Singapore, Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey introduced a bill to double the exit tax to 30% for anyone leaving the U.S. for tax reasons. That hasn’t happened, but taxes are still a big issue for many....
Breaking: Obama to delay immigration action until voters can’t punish Democrats for it
...Abandoning his pledge to act by the end of summer, President Barack Obama has decided to delay any executive action on immigration until after the November congressional elections, White House officials said.
The move is certain to infuriate immigration advocates while offering relief to some vulnerable Democrats in tough Senate re-election contests.
Two White House officials said Obama concluded that circumventing Congress through executive actions on immigration during the campaign would politicize the issue and hurt future efforts to pass a broad overhaul...
...You don’t have to imagine the outcry that would ensue, because something similar to what I describe above (with the possible exception of the petrol dousing) happened only recently, when hundreds of schoolgirls were kidnapped by the Islamist Boko Haram group in Nigeria. The international outrage was unanimous, and when the Nigerian authorities appealed for help the response was swift, with President Obama sending troops and drones to hunt for the girls; meanwhile his wife and various celebrities lent their support to a facile and self-indulgent social media campaign to “Bring Back Our Girls.”...
...Other than the starkly different locations and the fact that Boko Haram is a recognized terrorist group, the notable difference between the two episodes is that the Nigerian schoolgirls were black, and the Rotherham abuse victims were white...
Do The Rapes of Rotherham Tell a Tale of Conquest?
...What Rotherham puts me in mind of is the behavior of the conqueror. One of the terrible after-effects of invasion and war has been the subjugation of the women, the rape of wives and daughters, the seed of the conqueror, inserted into a culture and a society — yet another tactic meant to subdue and eradicate.
And yet, there has been no old-fashioned “invasion” and no “war” in the southern part of Yorkshire. This conquering was invited, and it was invited throughout Europe, where Rotherham will be discovered to have been replicated. Why wouldn’t it be? Who in Europe would dare to prosecute?
Rotherham will not be the last “conquest”. There are radical Islamists — not “observant” mind you, just radical — living in the West and determinedly unassimilated to it, on every continent....
Obama Invents ‘Immigration Rights’ For Foreigners
President Barack Obama believes that many foreigners have a right to immigrate into the United States, regardless of what Americans prefer, say immigration experts.
The evidence emerged from the president’s mouth on Labor Day, as Obama was urging his supporters to vote in November, despite the struggling economy.
“Cynicism is a bad choice… Hope is what gives young people the strength to march for women’s rights, and worker’s rights, and civil rights, and voting rights, and gay rights and immigration rights,” Obama told union supporters gathered Sept. 1 in Milwaukee, Wisc.
That “immigration rights” phrase “implies that some people have the right to move here,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center of Immigration Studies....
U.S. Hikes Fee To Renounce Citizenship By 422% Over the last two years, the U.S. has had a spike in expatriations. It isn’t exactly Ellis Island in reverse, but it’s more than a dribble. With global tax reporting and FATCA, the list of the individuals who renounced is up. For 2013, there was a 221% increase, with record numbers of Americans renouncing. The Treasury Department is required to publish a quarterly list, but these numbers are under-stated, some say considerably.
The presence or absence of tax motivation is no longer relevant, but that could change. After Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin departed for Singapore, Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey introduced a bill to double the exit tax to 30% for anyone leaving the U.S. for tax reasons. That hasn’t happened, but taxes are still a big issue for many....
Breaking: Obama to delay immigration action until voters can’t punish Democrats for it
...Abandoning his pledge to act by the end of summer, President Barack Obama has decided to delay any executive action on immigration until after the November congressional elections, White House officials said.
The move is certain to infuriate immigration advocates while offering relief to some vulnerable Democrats in tough Senate re-election contests.
Two White House officials said Obama concluded that circumventing Congress through executive actions on immigration during the campaign would politicize the issue and hurt future efforts to pass a broad overhaul...
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