posted April 22, 2014 03:26 PM            

That was quite a victory dance President Obama did Thursday while claiming Obamacare is “working” because eight million people have now supposedly signed up for the health care program. He even indulged in some less-than-subtle mockery of Republicans - and by extension the majority of Americans who have disapproved of Obamacare since before it became law. "The repeal debate is and should be over,” Obama said, taking a dig at Republicans who are “going through, you know, the stages of grief … anger and denial and all that stuff …”

But a president who is viewed by most Americans as less than honest has no business crowing about a victory that remains anything but obvious. And he certainly should not heap insults on people who for four years have profoundly disagreed with him on the wisdom of Obamacare. To put this as “less than honest” is to be charitable. What Fox News found in its most recent public opinion survey was that 61 percent of Americans believe Obama “lies” about important public issues either “most of the time” or “some of the time.” No other president in living memory has conducted himself in a manner that warranted even asking if such a description was appropriate.

“It was the president, not Fox News, who repeatedly and knowingly misled the American people with two infamous Obamacare lies.”

It comes as no surprise today that Obama's defenders are sparing no invective for Fox News in the wake of that survey. But it was the president, not Fox News, who repeatedly and knowingly misled the American people with two infamous Obamacare lies: “You can keep your health insurance if you like it. Period. You can keep your doctor. Period.” For better or worse, Obama will forever be known as the president who chose repeatedly to propagate two falsehoods. Those two lies were profoundly significant because they were designed to hide the truth about how Obamacare would affect the daily lives and health of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Since it became painfully clear in 2013 that Obama had lied about Obamacare since 2009, it has been increasingly difficult for many Americans to continue accepting at face value his statements on other major public issues. In both the Benghazi and IRS scandals, for example, Obama claimed to have known nothing about them until they were reported in the national media.

But if that were true, why has the president's attorney general and so many other of his most prominent appointees withheld thousands of documents subpoenaed by Congress and requested by journalists under the Freedom of Information Act? Are there passages in those withheld documents that make it clear Obama knew much more than he has admitted?

posted May 02, 2014 09:36 AM            

If there's political and/or financial corruption, demoscats will find it and join it.

If there isn't any financial and/or political corruption, demoscats will create it.

Fox News star takes on 'Dirty Harry' Reid
Suggests BLM's land grab from Bundy would provide big return in dollars
Published: 2 days ago

Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro is asserting the federal Bureau of Land Management’s surge of interest in land used by Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy to graze his cattle has more to do with dollars and power projects than any interest in protecting a tortoise that also lives on the land.

In a special commentary on her “Justice with Judge Jeanine” program, she said the man she now calls “Dirty Harry” Reid, the majority leader in the U.S. Senate and a Nevada Democrat, may have had an ulterior motive for the attempted land grab from Bundy: energy projects.

She said if a solar energy project is expected to impact thousands of acres of desert land in the state, federal rules would require a mitigation zone, where animals that may be protected or endangered could be moved from the project site.

As WND reported, the BLM has mentioned Bundy’s cattle and the grazing land he uses in connected with solar power projects.

Pirro said “Dirty Harry” had been watching federal land being transferred and used for shopping malls and other projects for years until the “armed military type agents came in like stormtroopers.”

“You need snipers to move cows, Harry? Really?” she asked.

Pirro explained a solar project proposed on nearby land by a Chinese company with links to Reid would require that mitigation area.

“The BLM actually posted documents designating the mitigation area so that the solar power project can move forward,” she reported. “Unfortunately, that designated mitigation area has cattle on it.

“Harry, in my other life, I did investigations. I presented cases to grand juries,” she said. “Oh, to be a prosecutor again. Oh, to present this to a grand jury. Oh, to put ‘Dirty Harry’ under oath on the witness stand,” she continued.

WND reported a $5 billion solar-power project in the area proposed by the Chinese government and ENN Group had been proposed but was withdrawn.

But there are a multitude of projects still in development, said Fay Andersen, spokeswoman for NV Energy.

“Nevada has one of the highest Renewable Portfolio Standards in the country, determined as a percent of retail energy sales, and requiring the company to achieve 25 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2025,” she explained to WND.

As WND reported, bloggers also made a connection between the Bureau of Land Management’s raid on Bundy’s land and a solar-energy project in southern Nevada financed by the communist Chinese energy firm ENN. It was to be the largest solar farm in the U.S.

Reid had lobbied heavily for the company’s business, even traveling to China. Reid’s son, Rory Reid, formerly a Clark County commissioner, became a lobbyist for ENN while Sen. Reid’s former senior adviser, Neil Kornze, now leads the BLM.

The project died last year, but the BLM’s library of renewable energy projects revealed it was only one of more than 50 solar, wind and geothermal projects planned for Nevada, California, Arizona and other Western states.

The plan to convert an increasingly large share of Nevada’s public land to renewable-energy projects appears to have been a key motivation for Reid to run a war against coal-burning electric power in Nevada that began during the second term of President George W. Bush.

On March 21, Nevada Business published a photograph showing Reid breaking ground on a project with representatives of the Moapa Band of Paiutes, executives with First Solar Inc. and representatives of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The 250 megawatt Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project is planned to deliver renewable energy to the city of Los Angeles for the next 24 years.

The leaseholder on the Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project is K Road Power, LLC, a New York City-based energy company which employs as business manager Jonathan Magaziner, formerly an associate at the Clinton Climate Initiative of the William J. Clinton Foundation.

Jonathan Magaziner is the son of Ira Magaziner, who served President Bill Clinton in the White House as senior policy adviser for policy development from 1993 through 1998, and is now the chief executive officer and vice chairman of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and chairman of the Clinton Climate Initiative. He also is a board member of the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative.

According to research conducted by investigator reporter Christine Lakatos, First Solar Inc. was an early green investment funded by Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment banking firm that ranked as a top $1 million contributor to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Lakota also documented that First Solar investors include bundlers Bruce Heyman and David Heller, two Goldman Sachs executives who sat on Obama’s 2008 Finance Committee.

Peter Schweizer, on pages 91-92 of his 2011 book “Throw Them All Out,” also lists Michael Ahearn, First Solar’s chief executive officer, as having given generously and exclusively to Democrats. He also pointed out that billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, another Obama bundler, owns a major stake in First Solar.

In March 2012, the Washington Examiner reported First Solar, an Arizona-based manufacturer of solar panels, received in 2010 a $16.3 million subsidy to expand its factory in Ohio. The grant came after a $455.7 million taxpayer-funded loan guarantee awarded by the Export-Import Bank to subsidize the sale of solar panels to two solar firms in Canada.

One of the Canadian firms, St. Clair Solar, was a wholly owned subsidiary of First Solar, so when First Solar was shipping its solar panels from Ohio to a solar farm it owned in Canada, the U.S. taxpayers were subsidizing the “export,” the Examiner said.

In 2012, NV Energy rebuffed pressure by Reid to get behind the $5 billion solar project that ENN Group wanted to build near Laughlin, Nev. Steve Tetreault noted in the Las Vegas Journal-Review in July 2012 that Reid said the envisioned ambitious complex “would start tomorrow if NV Energy would purchase the power,” but the company “has not been willing to work on this and that’s a shame.”

Tetreault said the Senate majority leader’s remarks were the linkage between the Nevada utility and the clean energy project.

Previously, he wrote, the project was aimed at serving utilities in California, but state officials there said they had no interest in importing power from other sources.

“NV Energy is a regulated monopoly,” Reid said, according to Tetreault’s report. “They control 95 percent of all the electricity that is produced in Nevada and they should go along with this.”

The Las Vegas Review-Journal further reported that in response to Reid, an NV Energy spokeswoman said the utility was not in the market for more renewable energy, having exceeded the state’s requirement that 15 percent of its portfolio originate from clean sources.

Tetreault noted Reid has a personal stake in pushing NV Energy to use more solar power. Reid had teamed up with the Chinese firm to invest $8 billion in the U.S. on renewable energy projects in the coming decade. Also, Reid had invited ENN Group’s chairman, Wang Yusuo, to speak at the senator’s clean-energy summit in Las Vegas during the summer 2011.

Chinese pull the plug

In April 2012, Bloomberg reported the Reid-sponsored deal to have ENN Group invest $5 billion in a solar plant and energy-generating farm in Laughlin, Nevada, was on the ropes because Reid and ENN were unable to find a utility company willing to buy the solar energy.

According to Bloomberg, Reid never stopped pressuring California, evidently concerned he would need an alternative if NV Energy could not be convinced.

The energy plant “will generate the electricity California must have in just a few years,” Reid said in March, referring to a state mandate requiring 33 percent of a utility’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020. “This project is close to California. It’s within walking distance.”

Reid’s spokeswoman, Kristen Orthman, said the senator was working on introducing ENN to utilities.

Laughlin officials were getting calls every week from investors, job seekers and local business owners wanting to know the status.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” [Clark County Commissioner] Steve Sisolak said at the time. “Everybody is so anxious and wants this project to move forward.”

Then, on June 17, 2013, the Associated Press reported ENN Group dropped its plans to build the $5 billion solar project. ENN officials informed Clark County officials the company was terminating its agreement to purchase 9,000 acres because it was unable to sign up public utilities in either Nevada or California to agree to purchase the solar energy generated.

On June 14, 2013, a Clark County commissioner explained to the Las Vegas Sun: “Alternative energies are still more expensive than fossil fuels and they [ENN] couldn’t get (the costs) down to a point where they could sell any of the power. Even if we had given them an extension for a year or two, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

Bundy’s ‘trespass cattle’

On April 9, the U.S. Senate in a 71-28 vote confirmed Neil Kornze, a former senior adviser to Reid, to head the Bureau of Land Management.

At BLM, an agency Kornze originally joined in 2011, Kornze distinguished himself by spearheading BLM’s “Western Solar Energy” plan that produced the following year a “Final Pragmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for Solar Energy Development in Six Southwestern States.”

The document currently serves as a blueprint for the federal government to “mitigate” the potential environmental impact of the planned Solar Energy Zones, or SEZs.

The government seeks to transform thousands of acres throughout six Southwestern states into alternative habitats to relocate endangered species from private land sold to accommodate renewable-energy projects.

A BLM study titled “Regional Mitigation Strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone, Technical Note 444,” dated March 2014, identifies Bunkerville, Nevada, the site of the Bundy Ranch approximately 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as a mitigation area for the Dry Lake SEZ.

The Dry Lake SEZ, about 15 miles northeast of Las Vegas, encompasses approximately 5,717 acres under management of the Clark County BLM office.

A BLM map identifying the “Bundy Cattle Tresspass Overview,” the area designated by black diagonal lines, also shows cattle from the Bundy Ranch ranging on public land adjoining the Moapa Indian Reservation, site of the previously referenced First Solar project.

A document removed from the BLM website but located in Internet archive files clearly notes complaints that Bundy’s “cattle trespass impacts” include “concern that the regional mitigation strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone utilizes Gold Butte as the location for impacts from solar development, and that those restoration activities are not [possible] with the presence of the trespass cattle.”

Page removed from BLM website on the Bundy Ranch "cattle trespass"

posted May 05, 2014 01:07 PM            

At a hearing on the Benghazi attack and assassination of Ambassador Stevens, Secretary of State Clinton asked, "at this point, what difference at this point does it make?" The various scandals of President Obama's White House continue to unravel, the various lies and deceptions exposed. Speaker Boehner has announced a special select committee to investigate the events leading to the Benghazi assault, lack of military response, and subsequent White House deception; an investigation that nearly all Democrats are treating as purely political. Will investigations into the Obama scandals ever amount to anything? Is this what Mrs. Clinton meant by "what difference"?

During the 2008 primary, the Clinton campaign ran a commercial featuring an important 3:00 A.M. phone call going unanswered. The implication was that Barack Obama would drop the ball at a critical time, too busy with his sleep. The commercial was almost prophetic; its only mistakes being that the phone call came at 3:45 P.M., and President Obama was too busy doing… 20 months later, we still have no definitive answer on that, but it likely had nothing to do with the attack. Tommy Vietor told Fox News that Obama was absent from the situation room, while other staff watched live satellite feed of the attack. That is the same room from which Obama watched the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. Based on White House visitor logs, the current speculation is that Obama was busy preparing for a debate with Mitt Romney, or maybe a trip to Las Vegas for a fundraiser. Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey both testified that they had a single, 30 minute long, prescheduled meeting with Obama at 5:00 P.M., of which the Benghazi attack was only a portion.

Let us grab the bull by the horns with an ansatz: Obama was told about the attack, he confused it with the protests in Egypt, told his military commanders that they were wrong and it was just a rowdy protest over a video, demanded that no military action be taken, and ordered that he was not to be disturbed about it further. This would explain why the military began to act and then stopped, why Obama received no further updates regarding the attack, and why Secretary Clinton was left to rally civilian security from Tripoli. It explains the origin of the web video obfuscation, the resistance to investigation, and it meets well with Obama's overly rosy view of the Islamic world. Although other explanations might exist, this simple ansatz perfectly explains the events surrounding the attack and subsequent coverup, far better than the other hypotheses explored.

So what if, after all the investigations, the above ansatz is proved? It will become apparent that Obama screwed up, once again, and it will be one more embarrassing mark on his presidency. Certainly, covering it up, apologizing for our free speech, and throwing an innocent man in jail as part of the coverup are far beneath the Office of President, and do constitute high misdemeanors, but among his various scandals, Benghazi sits the least.

Sale of a Senate seat; hostile takeover of two automobile companies and gifting them to political donors; circumvention of department review to issue energy grants to political donors; violation of export restrictions and Mexican sovereignty to fabricate a straw purchase and gun running crisis; strong-arming banks to borrow TARP funds; using the IRS to harass political opposition; the use of executive orders to undermine or undo existing statutes and act as a dictator: these are just a few of Obama's high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Except for the dictates, about which Obama proudly boasts, all of these have been traced back to the White House and various cabinet members.

The only, and Constitution prescribed, option for such high crimes and misdemeanors is impeachment and removal from office, but this option seems far off the radar. Even should the House of Representatives Impeach Obama, it is highly unlikely that enough Senate Democrats would agree that these are crimes or actions serious enough to remove Obama.

So we come back to what Clinton said; moreover, what she was being asked when she said it. Secretary Clinton was berated with demands to explain her failures. Why the request for increased security at Libyan installations was rejected, despite a history of attacks. Why a rescue mission was undertaken only after it was far too late. The committee was rubbing her nose in her and Obama's failings, and it was embarrassing. Not only that, she was the outgoing secretary, and Obama was sworn in for his second term just a few days before. Unless Congress intended to Impeach and remove Obama, the line of questioning served no purpose but to embarrass.

This may explain the general disdain that Democrats have for the various Congressional investigations. Without the possibility of impeaching and removing Obama, it all amounts to nothing but airing dirty laundry. According to Democrats, we should stop investigating Benghazi, because it will only embarrass Obama. We should stop investigating the IRS, because it will only embarrass Democrats. We should stop investigating Fast and Furious, because it will only embarrass Obama and Attorney General Holder. Exposing Obama's lies only makes him look like a liar. Exposing Democrats' crimes only make them appear criminal.

posted May 08, 2014 04:16 PM            

Governor Palin to Law Abiding Democrats: ‘Is This Acceptable To You?’
May 08 2014
Steve Flesher

Sarah Palin
Please take some time to read the fourth in a series of extensive reports Senator Ted Cruz has assembled listing 76 lawless actions of the Obama administration.

Law abiding Democrats: is this acceptable to you?

Some of the actions listed in the report include:

“Falsely portrayed the Benghazi terrorist attack as a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim YouTube video, and then lied about the White House’s involvement.”

“Illegally revealed the existence of sealed indictments in the Benghazi investigation.”

“Ended some terror asylum restrictions, by allowing asylum for people who provided only ‘insignificant’ or ‘limited’ material support of terrorists.”

“Implemented portions of the DREAM Act, which Congress rejected, by executive action.”

“Issued signing statements, refusing to enforce parts of congressional-enacted statutes.”

“Illegally granted businesses a waiver from Obamacare’s employer mandate. Twice.”

“Illegally continued the Obamacare employer contribution for congressional staffs.”

“Illegally delayed the Obamacare caps on out-of-pocket healthcare payments.”

“Illegally delayed Obamacare verification of eligibility for healthcare subsidies.”

“Illegally required people to violate their faith via the Obamacare contraception mandate.”

“As of May 2011, over 50% of Obamacare waiver beneficiaries were union members (who account for less than 12% of the American work force).”

“Ordered Boeing to fire 1,000 employees in South Carolina and shut down a new factory because it was non-union”

“Terminated the pensions of 20,000 non-union Delphi employees in the GM bankruptcy.”

“Implemented a moratorium on offshore drilling after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill without statutory authority, and continued to enact new versions after federal courts repeatedly invalidated the moratorium.”

“Government agencies are engaging in ‘Operation Choke Point,’ where the government asks banks to ‘choke off’ access to financial services for customers engaging in conduct the Administration does not like—such as ‘ammunition sales.’”

“Had SWAT teams raid a Gibson guitar factory and seize property, on the purported basis that Gibson had broken India’s environmental laws—but no charges were filed.”

You can access the full report here:
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/files/documents/The%20Legal%20Limit/The%20Legal%20Limit%20Report%204.pdf
http://conservatives4palin.com/2014/05/governor-palin-law-abiding-democrats-acceptable.html

posted May 23, 2014 08:58 AM            

Obama confidantes targeted over election tampering
Emanuel, Messina named in suit charging illegal White House influence
15 hours ago

A scandal that erupted for Barack Obama in the run-up to the 2010 elections, when his administration was frantically trying to stave off the advance of tea-party candidates who eventually gave control of the U.S. House to the GOP, is back in the news.

It centers on allegations that then-White House staffers Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina tried to use their official positions to influence at least two congressional elections.

Judicial Watch released word Thursday that it filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to obtain government records regarding a June 15, 2010, request for an investigation into actions by Emanuel, now Chicago’s mayor, and Messina.

Using a government position to influence an election could be a criminal violation of the Hatch Act, Judicial Watch said.

The organization alleges that in 2009, Emanuel, then White House chief of staff, and Messina, then deputy chief of staff, “on behalf of the Obama administration” used their positions “to affect the outcome of federal elections.”

Federal law says a federal employee may not “use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affect the result of an election.”

The alleged undue influence took place in the re-election campaigns of Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania and Sen. Michael Bennet in Colorado.

The inquiry was sparked when Sestak told CNN in May 2009 that he was going to challenge Sen. Arlen Specter in a Democratic primary, a contest he eventually won.

According to Judicial Watch, White House Counsel Robert Bauer admitted the administration’s intense interest in the race.

He wrote in a White House memo that “efforts were made in June and July of 2009 to determine whether Congressman Sestak would be interested in service on a presidential or other senior executive branch advisory board, which would avoid a divisive Senate primary.”

Even former President Bill Clinton was called in to raise the possibility of executive branch positions for Sestak, the report said.

In Colorado, a state lawmaker, Andrew Romanoff, planned to go up against Bennet in a primary. But according to the Associated Press, Messina allegedly called Romanoff to suggest his time would be better spent working for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Romanoff himself released an email from Messina that listed three positions that “would be available” should Romanoff suddenly change his mind about the Senate primary, which Bennet eventually won.

But Emanual became Chicago’s mayor and Messina went to work for Democratic interests, and so Carolyn Lerner, from the OSC office, announced the complaints were closed.

Judicial Watch’s complaint notes that the government failed to “take any action” during the time when Emanuel and Messina were government employees. It also questioned whether the Obama aides should get a pass on an investigation just because they changed jobs.

“It is shameful that the Office of Special Counsel, which is supposed to enforce corruption and transparency laws, is covering up this Obama bribery scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is corrupt and illegal to offer federal jobs to help political campaigns as the Obama White House did (with the help of the ethically challenged Bill Clinton).”

WND reported at the time the case developed that there also were allegations the White House employees not only offered the jobs but also colluded and conspired on a story to cover up their actions.

At that point, Judicial Watch filed a congressional ethics complaint targeting Sestak after the Democrat confirmed he was offered a post.

Sestak had said publicly he was offered the job if he would agree to withdraw from a Senate primary campaign against Specter. Sestak stated he declined the offer and subsequently won the nomination.

But Judicial Watch’s complaint said Sestak changed his story after he consulted the White House.

The ethics complaint said: “The record of statements made to the media suggests that Congressman Sestak and Obama White House officials conspired to cover up the facts of a job offer made to Congressman Sestak in an effort to avoid criminal sanctions for violation of the Hatch Act and other federal laws. And by so doing they may have engaged in a criminal conspiracy.”

Democrats who at that time were the majority in the U.S. House used a Judiciary Committee vote to block a resolution of inquiry into the case.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., had asked for the move because federal officials are barred from offering anything of value, such as a job, in exchange for a partisan political decision, such as bowing out of a campaign for office.

At the time, the White House released a statement that it had investigated allegations officials there acted improperly and found nothing wrong.
[URL=http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/obama-confidantes-targeted-for-alleged-election-tampering/]http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/obama-confidantes-targeted-for-alleged-election-tampering/[/UR L]

Isn't it just great the O'Bomber White House investigated itself...and discovered they hadn't done anything wrong?

posted May 28, 2014 09:11 AM            

O'Bomber is using taxpayer money to bribe health insurance companies to hold down insurance premium rate increases. The Marxist Messiah isn't doing this bribing in the public interest. If the Marxist Messiah had any regard for the "public interest" he would never have dreamed up the O'BomberCare scam.

No, it's not the public interest O'Bomber is concerned about; it's the coming November elections. O'Bomber doesn't want those insurance premium rate increases announced this summer...right before the fall elections.

Obama Care
Bribery, ObamaCare Style
05/21/2014

Bailouts: Last Friday, the Obama administration quietly expanded an insurance industry bailout program that it publicly insisted never existed. In exchange, Obama wants a big political favor from insurers.

Last week, the administration promised insurers it would use "other sources of funding" to protect their profits "in the unlikely event" that ObamaCare costs more than expected.

The language was buried in a 435-page regulatory filing that only the industry would normally care about. But it caught the eye of the Washington Examiner's Philip Klein on Friday.

The bailout story got legs this week when the Los Angeles Times followed suit, noting that the regulatory change could "potentially make billions of additional taxpayer dollars available to the insurance industry."

Keep in mind that only a few weeks ago, White House officials were denying that any such bailout existed in ObamaCare. The "risk corridor" program at issue, a White House budget spokesman said in March, was merely a "safety valve for consumers and insurers" transitioning to a "brand new market."

It was, the administration promised, there only to protect insurers temporarily, as a way to encourage them to join ObamaCare, and was just like the one used in the Medicare Part D drug benefit program.

Besides, they said, the ObamaCare risk corridor program would be self-financing, with overly profitable insurers paying in so money-losing ones could take out.

But in his latest budget, Obama proposed setting aside $5.5 billion for the program, just in case. The Times makes clear: Obama expects something big in return.

The expanded guarantee comes, the paper says, "as part of an intensive administration effort to hold down premium increases for next year, a top priority for the White House as the rates will be announced ahead of this fall's congressional elections."

In short, Obama is offering the industry virtually unlimited taxpayer bailout money, in hopes that it will return the favor and avoid politically damaging rate hikes, at least until after November's mid-term elections.

Left unsaid in all this is the fact that the only reason such bailouts are needed in the first place is because ObamaCare tries to replace basic market forces that normally govern the insurance industry with a vast array of complex and costly cross subsidies.

posted June 25, 2014 09:21 AM            

The IRS lost Lois Lerner's emails AND the emails of the other IRS employees engaged in targeting groups opposed to O'Bomber. Never mind that those emails were under subpoena by congressional investigating committees.

Move on, nothing to see here!

IRS Wanted Lois Lerner Emails To Disappear
06/23/2014

Scandal: The IRS canceled a contract with an email storage contractor weeks after Lois Lerner reported lost personal files and before other IRS officials had their hard drives crash as Tea Party-targeting investigations began.

Timing is everything, the saying goes, and sometimes the timing of events is also very curious, as in the case of the lost emails of Lerner and at least six other officials at the very same time the IRS canceled its contract to back up and preserve those emails as required by federal law.

Lerner's computer supposedly crashed in June 2011, an alleged event the IRS concealed from the American public and congressional investigators for two years.

This event, which cannot be verified because her hard drive has since been destroyed and recycled, occurred just 10 days after House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Dave Camp first wrote a letter asking if the IRS was engaging in targeting of nonprofit groups.

This shouldn't have been a problem because, as the Daily Caller reports, the IRS had a contract beginning in 2005 with Sonasoft, an email-archiving company based in San Jose, Calif.

The company advertises that it provides "Email Archiving Done Right" and "Point-Click Recovery" and in a 2009 tweet boasted: "The IRS uses Sonasoft to back up their servers, why wouldn't you choose them to protect your servers?"

Perhaps this is what IRS Commissioner John Koskinen was referring to when in March testimony before the House Oversight Committee he assured Rep. Jason Chaffetz that the reason requested emails were difficult to provide was that IRS emails "get taken off and stored in servers."

Later we would be told that the emails were lost forever and, as we noted, Koskinen was lying in March, when he said they were somewhere, or in June, when he said they were nowhere to be found. Let us ponder another possibility: that the emails were taken off and stored in Sonasoft servers, emails that would be deleted when the IRS contract for their storage ended. They were not lost, but, in effect, deliberately destroyed.

As John Hinderaker points out on his Powerline blog, it makes sense that Sonasoft might have deleted records it was no longer obligated to keep and that indeed it may have felt it was required to do so.

It also makes sense that the IRS knew and wanted that to happen. That Sonasoft was storing emails from the IRS Tea Party-targeting periods may have been the reason that Lerner mentioned only the loss of "personal files" and not any emails.

Sonasoft's fiscal 2011 contract with the IRS ended Aug. 31, 2011. Eight days later, and about a month after Lerner's computer allegedly crashed, the IRS officially severed its relationship with Sonasoft.

Three months later, IRS official Nikole Flax, who visited the White House more than 30 times, had her computer crash with a similar loss of critical emails, something that afflicted at least half-a-dozen IRS officials in a chain of events that defies logic and the smell test.

Hinderaker has a suggestion that also makes sense: "It wouldn't hurt for a House committee to lay a subpoena on Sonasoft to learn more about the IRS' dealings with that company and make certain that it doesn't still have any IRS records."

posted June 26, 2014 05:06 PM            

Supreme Court delivers stinging rebuke to Obama over his recess appointments
June 26 2014
Doug Brady

The Supreme Court delivered a blow Thursday to President Obama, ruling that he went too far in making recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.

In a unanimous decision, the high court sided with Senate Republicans and limited the president’s power to fill high-level vacancies with temporary appointments. It was the first-ever Supreme Court test involving the long-standing practice of presidents naming appointees when the Senate is on break.

In this case, Obama had argued that the Senate was on an extended holiday break when he filled slots at the NLRB in 2012. He argued the brief sessions it held every three days were a sham that was intended to prevent him from filling the seats.

The justices rejected that argument, though, declaring the Senate was not actually in a formal recess when Obama acted during that three-day window.

Justice Stephen Breyer said in his majority opinion that a congressional break has to last at least 10 days to be considered a recess under the Constitution.

"Three days is too short a time to bring a recess within the scope of the Clause. Thus we conclude that the President lacked the power to make the recess appointments here at issue," Breyer wrote.

Ouch. That had to leave a mark. Not only did the Supreme Court slap King Obama down, but his own appointees joined in liberal Justice Stephen Breyer’s decision. And this despite the fact that self-proclaimed constitutional expert Obama has repeatedly dismissed congressional concerns about his myriad, shall we say, extra-constitutional activities:

And if Congress thinks that what I’ve done is inappropriate or wrong in some fashion, they’re free to make that case. But there’s not an action that I take that you don’t have some folks in Congress who say that I’m usurping my authority. Some of those folks think I usurp my authority by having the gall to win the presidency. And I don’t think that’s a secret. But ultimately, I’m not concerned about their opinions — very few of them, by the way, are lawyers, much less constitutional lawyers.

In Obama’s mind, evidently, being a part-time lecturer at a law school imbued him with vast constitutional wisdom, so much so that he needn’t concern himself with the pedestrian opinions of those who occupy a co-equal branch of government. But, much to Obama’s chagrin, those hayseed Senate Republicans heeded his advice and made their case. And the Supreme Court agreed with them. Unanimously.

posted June 27, 2014 08:39 AM            

“Not every case in which the president has exceeded his authority has made it all the way to the Supreme Court,” Lee, a former law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito, told National Review Online. “The fact that his track record is as bad as it is in the Supreme Court . . . is yet another indication of the fact that we’ve got a president who is playing fast and loose with the Constitution.”

Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas), in arguing that Obama is “lawless,” has kept a tally of the president’s unanimous defeats. ”This marks the twelfth time since January 2012 that the Supreme Court has unanimously rejected the Obama administration’s calls for greater federal executive power,” he pointed out after the release of the recess-appointments ruling.

Cruz issued a report on Obama’s unanimous defeats when the total sat at nine. “If the Department of Justice had won these cases, the federal government would be able to electronically track all of our movements, fine us without a fair hearing, dictate who churches choose as ministers, displace state laws based on the president’s whims, bring debilitating lawsuits against individuals based on events that occurred years ago, and destroy a person’s private property without just compensation,” Cruz wrote in April 2013.

posted July 01, 2014 09:45 AM            

But, the Supreme Court just slapped him silly again. The so called Hobby Lobby case resulted in another loss for O'Bomber's O'BomberCare and a victory for Religious Liberty in America.

Imagine a president so corrupt he believes his legislative edicts trump the enumerated rights spelled out clearly in the 1st ten Amendments to the US Constitution!

posted July 01, 2014 12:46 PM            

What do you call the paedophile priest who preaches against same sex marriage?

And since when does their religion have anything to do with it anyway? They are heavily invested in the very companies that produce birth control products. Where's the outrage there? Those investments return better if people have to pay full price, don't they?

posted July 01, 2014 01:41 PM            

That priest has no right or authority to require anyone to do anything or refrain from doing anything. Why are you making dead bang loser arguments?

"And since when does their religion have anything to do with it anyway? They are heavily invested in the very companies that produce birth control products"

posted July 01, 2014 10:48 PM            

If you knew anything about the stock markets and their institutional buyers you'd know that.

Just more blither, blather, bloviation and bullshiiit from the Socialist left.

But, here's some facts for the O'Bomber droolers and Kool-Aid drinkers.

Hobby Lobby never restricted employees on what birth control methods they used.

Hobby Lobby never said women who use birth control cannot work for Hobby Lobby.

Hobby Lobby never said women who have abortions cannot work for Hobby Lobby.

Hobby Lobby said...there are 20 birth control methods proposed by O'BomberCare. Hobby Lobby accepts 16 of those methods and would include them in insurance policies purchased by Hobby Lobby for employees.

Hobby Lobby opposes 4 methods of birth control put forth by O'BomberCare because those are a form of abortion which violates the religious principles of the owners of Hobby Lobby.

posted July 02, 2014 08:56 AM            

Gee, I count 4, not 3!
(1)Blither
(2)Blather
(3)Bloviation
(4)Bullshiiit

Perhaps instead of breaking into an assisted living facility, your time would be better spent on a 1st grade remedial math class.

posted July 02, 2014 12:40 PM            

..nice diversion tactics jwhop, but I never mentioned them "controlling" their fund managers' choices. That is a bit different from not KNOWING what is being invested in, and they are heavily invested in the very products they consider anti-Christian. Abortion products and IUDs etc etc etc and the info is easily obtained as per the DETAILED LIST in the article.

But it's all good. I know millions of people who are going to stop paying their taxes because they have religious objections to our biggest business (the war machine and its tools) - you've heard that little advice, right, THOU SHALT NOT KILL? Does that apply more to unborn fetuses than to living children, women and civilians?? Only when Terrorists do it, you say? WE are noble and good when we do it in the name of Freedom and Christianity. Check.

This was a put-up job. Their ethics do not extend to refusal to participate in the manufacture of the products they don't want to be SEEN to be offering.

As to Shar'i'a, unknown to most infidel like yourself, it is Family Law. Practiced among the faithful. IE no one is forcing you to take part. Unless of course you step on their religious toes, then you might become a target. But that is their RELIGION! Are you going to defend their right to it?

As you defend Hobby Lobby's right to FORCE women to go elsewhere if they want those products but not others deemed Acceptable?

posted July 03, 2014 10:00 AM            

These funds do not give a detailed list of their current holdings. They may reveal SOME but not a detailed list. Further, they can change their holdings at any time...sell off some and buy others; without any notification whatsoever.

If anyone wants control over their investments, then they have to manage their own investments. However, for a 401K pension fund, that would be total folly. The risk of managing a company 401K pension fund would be acute...from a legal standpoint as well as financial. Hobby Lobby is not in the "investment business".

Now, for all the whining, screeching, shrieking, howling leftists here:

Hobby Lobby agreed to include 16 out of the 20 birth control methods included in O'BomberCare. The 4 they reject are abortion chemicals...as in the "Morning after pill".
If Hobby Lobby employees want 1 of those 4, then go to the drug store and buy your own.