Category: Freedom of Information


Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official at the eye of the storm over the improper scrutiny of conservative groups, Pleads the Fifth.

Filed under: bureaucracy, Corruption, Freedom, Freedom of Information, Fundamental Rights, Government, Government Overreach, Harassment, Hypocrisy, Indoctrination, Lack Of Transparency, Loot and Pillage, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Secrecy, Special Interests, Taxation, Unethical — Leave a comment
May 22, 2013

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IRS official to plead the Fifth before House Oversight Committee

By Peter Schroeder and Bernie Becker – 05/21/13 08:30 PM ET

Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official at the eye of the storm over the improper scrutiny of conservative groups, will refuse to answer questions from the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

Through her attorney, Lerner stated her intention to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights after being called to testify.

“She has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation, but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course,” her attorney, William W. Taylor III wrote in a letter to Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).Her refusal to testify is the latest roadblock slowing lawmakers’ efforts to get to the bottom of the targeting of Tea Party groups.

Lerner, the head of the IRS’s exempt organizations division, was clearly going to be pressed by lawmakers about the honesty — or otherwise — of her previous responses before Congress on whether the IRS had targeted Tea Party groups.

She has already apologized for the imbroglio, but the Justice Department has launched a criminal probe into the matter. Lawmakers have repeatedly contended that IRS officials, including Lerner, misled Congress about its existence.

“We’re going to review with her what road she led us down previously,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), before news broke of Lerner’s refusal. “To be able to go back and review with her what she said previously versus what she might say on Wednesday, that’s going to make for an interesting exercise in contradictions.”

Both parties have criticized Lerner for being less than forthcoming with Congress. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) has called for her resignation, after she did not disclose the targeting in response to a direct question from the lawmaker at a hearing — two days before she publicly apologized for it.

A spokesman for the Oversight Committee noted that Issa has issued a subpoena to compel Lerner to appear before his panel Wednesday, even if she refuses to answer questions.

“The committee has a Constitutional obligation to conduct oversight,” said spokesman Ali Ahmad. “Chairman Issa remains hopeful that she will ultimately decide to testify [Wednesday].”

But if Lerner stonewalls Congress, it would exacerbate the frustration lawmakers feel about being stymied by tax collectors.

Wednesday’s hearing will mark the third in less than a week in which lawmakers have probed current and former IRS officials, but members are still searching for answers to a few critical questions. How did the IRS come to adopt the practice of singling out Tea Party groups for added scrutiny? What was the motivation behind filtering out the groups: partisan politics or poor judgment?

Current and former IRS officials at the top of the agency have so far been unable or unwilling to answer those questions, and lawmakers on the Oversight Committee had hoped Lerner could finally shed light on the matter.

After all, she was the IRS official who first thrust the matter into the spotlight, apologizing at a legal conference a week and a half ago for the improper targeting. And the report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) on the practice found that she directed IRS employees to stop using explicit Tea Party criteria in identifying tax-exempt applications for further scrutiny, back in June 2011.

Read Full Article Here

 

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IRS Official Invokes 5th Amendment During Congressional Hearing On Scandal, Napolitano Cavuto

Massteaparty Massteaparty·

 

 

 

 

 

Published on May 22, 2013

MS. Lerner May Have Waved Her 5th Amendment Right By Making Statement During Congressional Hearing
IRS Official Invokes 5th Amendment During Congressional Hearing On Scandal – Napolitano Cavuto

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Clash over the seriousness of AP leak continues as the depth DOJ’s secret subpeona is revealed

Filed under: bureaucracy, Corruption, Freedom, Freedom of Information, Government, Government Overreach, Hypocrisy, Invasion Of Privacy I, Lack Of Transparency, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Secrecy, Special Interests, Surveillance, The American Constitution, Unconstitutional — Leave a comment
May 20, 2013

AP, DOJ clash over seriousness of leak that prompted phone records seizure

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calls on a reporter during a news conference at the Justice Department on Tuesday.

By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

Justice Department and Associated Press officials clashed Tuesday over leaked classified information that led the government to seize AP phone records, with Attorney General Eric Holder saying it “put the American people at risk” and the news organization’s chief executive insisting it delayed publishing its story until it was assured “national security concerns had passed.”

The day of back-and-forth public sallies came as new details emerged about negotiations between the AP and U.S. officials over the unauthorized release of classified information on a foiled bomb plot in Yemen, information that apparently triggered the investigation.

“This was a very, very serious leak,” Holder said at a news conference. “I’ve been a prosecutor since 1976 – and I have to say that this is among, if not the most serious, in the top two or three most serious leaks that I’ve ever seen. It put the American people at risk – and that is not hyperbole.”

Holder defended the secret subpoena for about two months of AP phone records on 20 separate telephone lines without prior notice as a necessary step, saying that trying to find the source of the leak “required very aggressive action.”

Holder’s comments and a letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole defending the seizure of the AP records – without notifying the news organization until last week –  drew a stern response from AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt. He  blasted the action as “overbroad under the law,” saying  that “more than 100 journalists work in the locations served by those telephones.”

“Rather than talk to us in advance, they seized these phone records in secret, saying that notifying us would compromise their investigation,” Pruitt said in a statement late Tuesday. “They offer no explanation of this, however.

 

Read Full Article Here

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DOJ’s secret subpoena of AP phone records broader than initially revealed

Information has emerged  in the Justice Department seizure of Associated Press phone records as well as the news that reporter for Fox News is now a target of a leak investigation concerning North Korea.  NBC’s Michael Isikoff reports.

By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

The Justice Department’s secret subpoena for AP phone records included the seizure of records for five reporters’ cellphones and three home phones as well as two fax lines, a lawyer for the news organization tells NBC News.

David Schulz, the chief lawyer for the AP, said the subpoenas also covered the records for 21 phone lines in five AP office lines — including one for a dead phone line at  office in Washington that had been shut down six years ago. The phone lines at four other offices – where  100 reporters worked — were also covered by the subpoenas, Schulz said.

Although AP had given general information about the subpoenas last week, it provided new details Monday about the number of cell and home phone records as it considers possible legal action against the Justice Department.

 

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Why Obama Will Survive the Equivalent of Five “Watergate Scandals”

Filed under: bureaucracy, Complacency / Apathy, Conspiracy Theories, Extreme Political Correctness, Fraud, Freedom, Freedom of Information, Fundamental Rights, Government, Government Overreach, Guns, Hypocrisy, Irrational Violence, Lack Of Transparency, Legislation, Main Stream Media Manipulations/Lies, Military Maneuvers, Murder, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Provocation / Incitement, Psy - Ops, Secrecy, Security, Self_Defense / Crime Prevention / Security, Special Interests, Surveillance, Terror Plots / Suspects, The American Constitution, Unethical, Unmanned Drones, War Crimes, War on terror, Weaponry / Armament — 5 Comments
May 18, 2013

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Funny Obamas

Dave Hodges
Activist Post

Mark Twain once talked about history not necessarily repeating, but he noted that history sure does rhyme.

Richard Nixon was unable to survive one direct hit upon his administration, namely, the Watergate scandal. Conversely, Obama is facing five scandals which dwarf Watergate in terms of criminality, abuse of power, malfeasance of office and outright treason.

The damage inflicted upon the American people by the criminal syndicate occupying the White House is unparalleled in American history. Yet, Obama is going to survive and this article will describe how Obama is this century’s version of the famous escape artist, Houdini.

The Alternative Media Is Doing Its Job

In Part One of this series, I detailed how various researchers have determined that it only takes 10% of the population to passionately hold to an ideal for the ideal to reach critical mass and go viral. I also described how the knowledge that this country is being run by a criminal syndicate is taking hold and we have likely passed the 10% threshold as evidenced by the fact that America is outraged by (1) Benghazi-Gate; (2) IRS-Gate; (3) AP Spy-Gate; (4) Whistleblower-Gate; and even (5) Fast and Furious is beginning to make a second pass. The alternative media is being so effective that it is forcing the MSM to jump off Obama’s ship and claim they do not support him any longer (e.g. MSNBC Chris Mathews).

The Calm Before the Storm

Even the great fence-sitter, Glenn Beck, is beginning to throw words around like “impeachment” in reference to Obama. And this is coming from a man who cannot decide if he is in the MSM or the alternative media. Remember, according to Beck, 9/11 is exactly as the Bush administration claims it was, an al-Qaeda venture. This is the same al-Qaeda that we are allegedly fighting in Afghanistan while supporting in Syria in our effort to oust Assad.
Regardless of the pedigree of many reporters who are now hinting at the fact that we are witnessing the last days of the Obama administration, the President himself seems unbelievably calm.

Obama is calm because he knows that he is going to survive the largest onslaught of simultaneous scandal exposures in our country’s history. There has never been a time in our history in which a sitting president has been besieged with this much exposed fodder aimed at his removal. If Watergate forced Nixon to resign, Obama should have been crushed by the comparative weight of his scandals and he should have already exited the White House. Why hasn’t this happened?

Sacrificial Lambs Buy Time

It is not likely that the Mafioso inhabitant presently residing in the White House will ever leave office prematurely. In fact, I think it is likely that Obama may not leave the Oval Office in 2016 as well.

If this were 1974, I would be advising Obama to pack his bags and I would also be advising him that he should be begging Joe Biden to grant him a pardon for his criminal acts including the facilitation of the murder of Ambassador Stevens. Make no mistake about it, Obama will survive these crises. However, Holder and possibly even DHS director, Janet Napolitano, may not.

Undoubtedly, Obama will offer up the head of Eric Holder as a sacrificial lamb and he will be gone by Labor day, if not much sooner, and this will buy Obama time to enact his endgame strategies which will negate the five Watergate wolves trying to break through his door.

Holder’s departure will bring celebrations in the alternative media and their followers will be dancing in the streets. We will also smell blood and want more removals. But the head of the president will never be touched despite the fact that all of us will soon be screaming for Obama’s scalp. It will just never happen.

What Will Save This President?

There is one game-changing event which will suddenly and irreversibly negate the momentum that the alternative media has achieved in terms of exposing and removing this criminal administration from power.

In the last eight months, I have repeated the mantra that most of what drives this government today is the preservation of the Petrodollar on behalf of the Federal Reserve. I have also detailed how Iran is selling its oil to Russia, China and India for gold, thus threatening the preeminence of the Petrodollar in which the other countries of the world must first purchase dollars from the Federal Reserve for the “privilege” of purchasing oil. This process provides the only backing that our dollar possesses.

Iran, China, Russia and India are destabilizing the dominance of our currency. Before you cheer the fact that the Federal Reserve is about ready to take a much-deserved bloodbath, please realize that you have a job to go to every Monday morning because of this one-sided arrangement and it is all about to end unless Iran can be toppled.

Why Syria?

Have you yet figured out why Obama will survive these crushing scandals and assume power in this country in a manner only reserved for such despots as Stalin? The road to Obama’s immediate survival runs through Damascus.

On the surface, Syria seems so very insignificant on the global chessboard. However, the key to invading Iran and seizing their oil fields is to first control Syria, because the occupation of Syria is an insurmountable checkmate against Russian ground troops’ intervention.

If the US takes over the Syrian revolution that we started through our al-Qaeda proxy forces, the US will gain a huge tactical advantage in the Middle East. The installation of short- and medium-range missile batteries in Syria will serve as a deterrent and a blocking mechanism for Russian ground troops’ ability to intervene in Iran.

If Russia allows the US to control Syria, Russia will lose any chance of preventing a US/NATO takeover of Iran. Russia and China have heavily vested themselves in gold. If Iran is stopped from selling its oil for gold, China, Russia and India will have wasted an enormous amount of the respective GNP’s in acquiring gold. And the acquisition of gold will be for naught if the US is about to re-establish the dominance of the Petrodollar as the world’s reserve currency through a successful invasion of Iran.

For awhile, it appeared as if Russia did not have the stomach for WWIII and they were going to let us topple Assad without so much as a whimper. I have been shocked as I have watched Russia apparently acquiesce to an impending takeover of Syria by US-led forces. However, recent Russian events make it clear that WWIII is on the horizon.

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The World is Biotech’s reasearch lab and Humanity it’s guinea pigs : Roundup ready seeds not working out for you ? No Problem we have seeds that emit even more pesticides.

Filed under: Bioethics, Chemicals, Crimes, Diseases, Environmental, Food Safety, Fraud, Freedom of Information, Fundamental Rights, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), Genetics, Geo Engineering, Government Overreach, Greed, Health, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Indoctrination, Legislation, Medical Research, Nutrition, Poisons in Our Foods, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Science, Secrecy, Special Interests, Wildlife — 2 Comments
May 15, 2013

Biotech’s next big disaster: seeds that emit multiple pesticides

image source

Jon Rappoport
Activist Post

Tom Laskawy, writing at Grist, points out how the next generation of GMOs is following in the track of present disasters:

“…the growing pest and weed problems for GMOs have caused farmers to turn to seeds that are coated with a different pesticide—a neonicotinoid. If that name rings a bell, it’s because these pesticides… have been implicated in the increasing epidemic of bee deaths.

“And that’s aside from the evidence that biotech’s ‘next big thing’ —seeds that emit multiple pesticides—may be doomed to fail. An international team of researchers, including USDA and biotech scientists, found what they termed ‘cross-resistance’ to these pesticides in [predatory] bugs exposed to the next-generation GMO seeds. Evidence, in other words, that GMO seeds are hitting a bug-covered wall.” The seeds don’t knock out the plant pests.

Yet the venerable journal Nature recently urged patience, because just over the next hill, the biotech giants will surely succeed in bringing us better GMO crops.

This reveals an underlying assumption about technology: when scientists discover a new way of doing things, it can never be retracted; it will eventually work well; improvements will come.

That false assumption sustains a tremendous amount of false science, as well as profits, of course, for the companies involved.

“Wait, better developments are being made.”

If scientists can shoot genes into plants, that’s a step that can never be taken back. It’s automatically a sign of progress. To admit defeat would be equivalent to admitting science can be wrong.

This is the insanity we are dealing with.

We’ve seen it in the field of psychiatric drugs, all of which carry heavy toxicity. If you push a researcher up against the wall, where he has to admit problems with the drugs, he’ll say, “But we’re working on next-generation chemicals. It’ll be different. We’re just starting to understand how the brain really works. Be patient. Help is on the way.”

In recent days, we’ve seen the US National Institute of Mental Health and its British counterpart defect from orthodox psychiatry in the interpretation of what a mental disorder is. Some people have taken this as a positive development. But that’s not the case.

The defectors intend to push brain research to new dangerous heights. Even though they have no baseline for “normal brain activity,” they are racing along the track of discovering “abnormal chemical imbalances.” In other words, their better science is no science at all.

They will invent new names for mental disorders, and there will be more drugs to treat patients, and the whole edifice will be founded on lies.

In the field of gene research, scientists are advancing on a road of manipulation of the human genome. This, they say, is yielding one breakthrough after another. New humans, better humans, more talented and healthy and intelligent humans will be the result.

But really, this translates into: we can shift genes around, we can substitute new genes for old genes, we can silence genes and provoke dormant genes to express themselves—therefore, we have to keep doing it. It’s science. We have to expand our work.

No they don’t. In the same way they don’t have to build even more destructive H-bombs, they don’t have to play roulette with the human body and brain.

Just because medical researchers can come up with new chemo drugs that kill cells and destroy immune systems, it doesn’t mean they have to.

Despite failures along every front of GMO-crop production, despite the fact that predictions of higher crop yields and reduced use of pesticides and herbicides have failed to materialize, Monsanto pushes on.

Monsanto lies and pretends their work is an enormous success. Their researchers, many of whom know the catastrophic failure they are dealing with, nevertheless keep going, keep telling themselves that this is science, and therefore it will ultimately succeed.

Translation: The seven billion people of earth are the guinea pigs in a vast corporate experiment.

Technocrats who envision trans-humans, a combine of brain and computerized brain, pin faith on the idea that, since brains can be hooked up to machines, they should be. It’s “scientific progress,” and therefore it has to happen.

All this used to be called scientism, a massive overreach of misplaced faith, but now the word is largely defunct. It was too accurate. It nailed the obsession and showed how crazy it was.

Years ago, I was invited to give a lecture to an atheist group in Los Angeles. The topic was HIV research, because I had written a book about it, AIDS INC.

I described the line of HIV research, and made a detailed case for the fact that researchers had never proved HIV caused a condition that was being called AIDS.

My analysis was met with strong opposition. The group was unhappy.

No problem. But it turned out their unhappiness was based on the notion that I was attacking science itself. And since they believed that’s what I was doing, they were angry because, get this, if I was against science, I must be for God. And they were atheists.

Therefore, I had to be wrong.

Their reaction mirrored 19th century attitudes about the rise of science. Its proponents felt they’d finally found an antidote to religion, and therefore, anyone who criticized science on any terms (e.g, flawed reasoning, bad data, bogus experiments) must be demanding a return to the Church, the Inquisition, and burning at the stake.

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Porn troll case prompts ISPs to fight to protect customer IDs

Filed under: BlackMail, bureaucracy, Collection of Personal Data, Fraud, Freedom, Freedom of Information, Fundamental Rights, Government, Internet ID, Internet Neutrality, Internet News, IT, Legislation, Loot and Pillage, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Security, Security — Leave a comment
May 13, 2013

John P. Mello Jr. @jpmello
  • May 12, 2013 12:35 PM
Several major ISPs embroiled in a copyright lawsuit with an adult film copyright holder are appealing a ruling in the case that could permit hundreds of innocent subscribers to be harassed by copyright trolls.

The reversal was requested in papers [PDF] filed last week in the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia by Cox Communications; Bright House Networks, which is owned by Time Warner; and Verizon.

Wants subscriber names

In the case—AF Holdings v. Does 1-1058 and Cox Communications, et. al.—the copyright holders allege that 1058 “John Does” engaged in file-sharing through BitTorrent of a sexually explicit film.

As part of the discovery process in the case, AF Holdings wants Cox and the other ISPs to turn over to them personal information on the John Does. The order came from a federal district court judge, Beryl A. Howell, a former lobbyist for the RIAA and Senate staffer who worked on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a federal law aimed to protect the rights of copyright holders in cyberspace.

beryl howell federal district court judge
Judge Beryl A. Howell

The ISPs are asking the appeals court to overturn Howell’s decision ordering the disclosure of subscribers’ names as part of evidence discovery.

According to the ISPs, AF Holdings and its attorneys aren’t interested in obtaining the names of the alleged infringers to pursue their case in court, but in order to squeeze settlement money from the subscribers.

 

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United Nations Ambassador John Bolton adds his voice to several others who believe the growing Benghazi scandal could lead to the “unraveling” of the Obama administration.

Filed under: bureaucracy, Corruption, Excessive Use Of Force, Fraud, Freedom of Information, Fundamental Rights, Government, Government Overreach, Harassment, History, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Ineptitude, Lack Of Transparency, Loot and Pillage, Murder, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Provocation / Incitement, Psy - Ops, Rule Of Law, Secrecy, Security, Special Interests, Terror Plots / Suspects, Unethical, War Crimes — 11 Comments
May 7, 2013

File:Senate in session.jpg

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If  Bill Clinton’s lying about  an indiscretion that  took place in the  White House led  to  Impeachment   proceedings.  Then how can  anyone justify not taking the  same  course of  action  on a  lie and the  cover up of  the  death  of 4 American citizens???

The  consensus thus far had been that  Obama’s  failure to follow through on  campaign promises  was not an  impeachable offense.  The  reason  being that campaign  promises  are  meant to  be  broken  as  they are  just a  means  to an end.  In other words  they  will say  whatever the people  want  to  hear to   get  elected.  The comparison made  on  many  occasions is  that one  cannot compare   what  Clinton did  to  what Obama had  done because   Clinton  lied to  the  People directly  and  under  oath.  Well one wonders what the  excuses will be  now.  Since  Obama and his   administration have  lied at  every turn to   whitewash  the part they played in the death  of  4  Americans.  They  have lied to t he  people directly and they  have lied to   Congress.  I believe under oath is a definite factor to the  latter, is it  not ,  or am  I  mistaken ?

Now going a bit  further  we can couple the cover up  with the  slow and  nefarious enroachment  of the Federal government  upon the Constitutional rights of the  American People. Not only by proxy through pressure or self interest via the  Congress. But also personally via  Executive  orders.  Obama has slapped The People  in the  face  every time he  has sidestepped Congress and or signed  an  order infringing upon  our  rights.  Being a Constitutional  Attorney  apparently has   given him  the delusion that  he can   re-write  it as he  sees fit to mold the Nation to  a  more  acceptable America  than the Founding  Fathers envisioned. 

If the manner in  which  he  has blatantly  lied, forfeited ,calculatedly  twisted the truth and  the  opportunities to utilize  them for the unfolding of a very  personal agenda.  Is not enough, If the statistics of the vanishing middle class as we  watch the growing numbers of working poor and  wealthy  divide  this  Nation.  If  the   looming class  wars and economic devastation are  not enough  .  Then   I  would like someone to tell  me exactly   what  would be  enough to  bring  this man to  heel and remove him  from power!!

~ Desert Rose ~

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Huckabee: Benghazi Scandal Will Cost Obama His Presidency

 

Image: Huckabee: Benghazi Scandal Will Cost Obama His Presidency

 

Tuesday, 07 May 2013 11:25 AM

By Sandy Fitzgerald and Kenneth Hanner

 

 

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Influential Republicans are setting their sights on toppling the Obama administration as evidence of a cover-up over the assault on the Benghazi consulate gets stronger.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is now openly talking about impeachment, saying he does not believe Barack Obama will survive the remaining 3½ years of his presidency.

Urgent: ObamaCare Is About to Strike — Are You Prepared?

“When a president lies to the American people and is part of a cover-up, he cannot continue to govern,” Huckabee said on his radio show Monday.

“As the facts come out, I think we’re going to see something startling. And before it’s over, I don’t think this president will finish his term unless somehow they can delay it in Congress past the next 3½ years.”

Huckabee isn’t alone in his belief that Obama could be toppled. The pressure is growing just as Congressional hearings on the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks that left four Americans dead are due to start on Wednesday.

Rep. Darrell Issa of California, who will chair those hearings as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said he intends to make the president “come clean.”

“The administration has made a claim that for classified reasons they changed the story,” Issa told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “We believe right now that may be the biggest lie of all, and we intend on making the president come clean as to, quote, ‘What the classified reasons are that would justify lying to the American people.’”

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina added to the onslaught against the administration’s handling of the assault.

“Political manipulation is rampant here,” said Graham in an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “The dam’s about to break on Benghazi.”

And former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton told Newsmax’s Steve Malzberg on Monday that he too believes the growing scandal could lead to the “unraveling” of the Obama administration.

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Sibel Edmonds on the Boston Bombing: The US roots of “Chechen” terrorism

Filed under: bureaucracy, Conspiracy Theories, Corruption, Extreme Political Correctness, Fraud, Freedom of Information, Government, Government Overreach, History, Hypocrisy, Indoctrination, Irrational Violence, Lack Of Transparency, Main Stream Media Manipulations/Lies, Military Maneuvers, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Provocation / Incitement, Psy - Ops, Secrecy, Security, Special Interests, Terror Plots / Suspects, Unethical, War on terror, Wars and Rumors of War, World News — 1 Comment
May 4, 2013

Published on Apr 23, 2013

SHOW NOTES AND MP3: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=7316

FBI whistleblower and BoilingFrogsPost.com editor Sibel Edmonds joins us to discuss the recent Boston bombing hysteria and the potential geopolitical implications of the American public’s “discovery” of Chechen terror. We discuss Sibel’s work exposing the US/NATO roots of so-called Chechen terrorism, and what the FSB’s involvement in this twisted tale might mean in terms of future Russian-US relations.

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The companies in charge of nuclear waste clean up at the Hanford Site hold contracts with the fed that offer no incentive for reporting problems, a dangerous climate in light of radioactive leaks, according to one of the nation’s top nuclear policy experts.

Filed under: bureaucracy, Clean up, Contamination, Corporate Assault on Our Lives And Our Health, Freedom of Information, Government, Greed, Hypocrisy, Ineptitude, Nuclear, Nuclear Plant Incidents, Nuclear Power Truths, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Psy - Ops, Radiation, Secrecy, Security, Special Interests, Unethical — 1 Comment
May 3, 2013

Bonus money trumps safety at Hanford, experts say

by SUSANNAH FRAME / KING 5 News

Posted on May 2, 2013 at 9:37 PM

Updated today at 10:42 AM

The private companies working to clean up nuclear waste at the Hanford Site operate under contracts with the federal government that don’t reward them for reporting problems, creating a dangerous financial incentive that could delay responses to leaks of highly radioactive waste, according to one of the nation’s top nuclear policy experts.

“Reporting leaks in high-level waste tanks has been frowned upon at this site for decades,” said Bob Alvarez, a former presidential adviser on nuclear policy. “There’s this whole dynamic that is built up where people are totally discouraged from raising concerns, especially those that I call have a show-stopping nature to them, such as leaking high-level radioactive waste tanks.”

KING 5 reported last month that one private company working at the Hanford Site discounted for nearly a year mounting evidence of a leak in 241-AY-102, a double-shell tank holding hundreds of thousands of gallons of some of the most radioactive and chemically contaminated waste in the world.

“I think the Department of Energy and the contractors who work for them are riddled with honest, decent, hardworking, competent people, and I don’t mean to paint everyone with this brush,” said Alvarez. “The problem is that a lot of these competent, conscientious people are stuck in a corrupt system that needs to be fundamentally changed.”

On August 1, 2012, ten months after the first indicator that Tank AY-102 was leaking, the company — Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) — initiated a regularly scheduled video inspection during which workers spotted suspicious material on the floor of the tank’s annulus, the hollow space between the two walls of the tank.

Two-and-a-half months later — 12 months after the first leak indication — WRPS and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) confirmed and made public the leak in 241-AY-102. During that delay, deadly waste continued to leak into the space separating the tank’s inner and outer shells.

Contracting policies used by the government could explain that delay, said Alvarez, now a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.

“Why are these contractors doing what they’re doing? It’s all purely economically motivated, of course.”

Contractors like WRPS are eligible for performance-based incentive money and award fees for finishing certain projects on time and on budget as outlined in their agreements with the government. During the months that red flags warned that Tank AY-102 was leaking, WRPS specifically stood to earn the most bonus money for completing work transferring nuclear waste from underground single-shell tanks at Hanford’s C Farm.

Alvarez and other experts who spoke with KING 5 said investigating and reporting the leak in AY-102 earlier on could have jeopardized the C Farm work, as WRPS may have had to shift resources — personnel and equipment — to deal with it.

“Where reward is given for only presenting good news, not bad news, then you have these problems. It’s just that simple,” Alvarez said. “It boils down to making money in a way where there’s the least amount of hassle to it.”

A leaking tank would certainly be one of those hassles, Alvarez added. “It’s a big time hassle because then it requires you to change priorities. It requires a rethinking of what you’re doing. It requires real soul searching about the competence of your work and maybe losing (bonus) money and maybe losing your contract.”

WRPS secured a $23 million bonus from the DOE for work performed in the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2012 — nearly the same time period that numerous red flags pointing to a leak in AY-102 were discounted by the company. The $23 million was 98 percent of the available award money for the year and one of the biggest bonuses ever paid to WRPS. (In the previous year the company was awarded a $33 million bonus, or 99 percent of the potential amount the federal government could have awarded it.)

“We have a very serious problem with Hanford and we always have with the Energy Department and its contractors where the incentive to get a contract performance award, your cash award, for doing something at the end of the year outweighs the safety and environmental considerations,” said state Rep. Gerry Pollet (D-Seattle), who also serves as executive director of the citizen watchdog group, Heart of America Northwest.

He added, “Very clearly they were aimed at getting their award money, their bonus, which would have been jeopardized by saying ‘Hey! We have a leak over here.’”

Dept. of Energy not answering

KING 5 asked the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of River Protection, if the payment structure discourages contractors from coming forward with problems. The reporters also asked if the federal government has methods in place to encourage the companies they hire to investigate and report set backs. Media professionals from the DOE didn’t answer.

WRPS response

The company denied that it ignored evidence of the AY-102 leak. WRPS declined KING 5 requests to interview President Mike Johnson or any other official on camera, and insisted that all its decision-making about AY-102 was based on sound science and concern for worker safety.

“Experience gained over decades of tank farm operations led us to believe that a small amount of rainwater, not waste, was collecting in the AY-102 annulus.  This was based on recent heavy rainfall, the discovery of water intrusion pathways, known low levels of radioactive cross-contamination between the primary tank and the annulus, and readings from the leak detection system,” wrote a WRPS representative in a statement to KING 5 last month.

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Where Is The Recovery?If you think that the latest employment numbers are good news, you might want to look again. In April 2013, 58.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job.

Filed under: bureaucracy, Economic News, Extreme Political Correctness, Financial, Fiscal Irresponsibility, Fraud, Freedom, Freedom of Information, Fundamental Rights, Government, Greed, Hypocrisy, Ineptitude, Jobs, Lack Of Transparency, Loot and Pillage, Main Stream Media Manipulations/Lies, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Poverty / Homeless, Psy - Ops, Rising Costs, Secrecy, Security, Special Interests, Taxation, Unethical — Leave a comment
May 3, 2013

 

The Recovery Act

The story of the economic recovery package (photos)

Posted by Macon Phillips on February 16, 2009 at 03:33 PM EDT
As President Obama says, the economic recovery package is just one of three “legs of the stool” — a milestone, but an early one, the very beginning of the long process of fixing the economic crisis we inherited.
Tomorrow we’ll mark the end of that beginning, as President Obama travels to Denver, CO to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that the House and Senate approved last Friday.
Over the past few weeks, the President spent some time with Americans across the country who are hurting because of this crisis. And the team has been working around the clock, meeting with House members, Senators, and governors — Democratic and Republican alike — to build and pass the recovery package.
Along the way, White House photographer Pete Souza, whose job it is to visually document everything the President does, has captured some pretty incredible behind-the-scenes images. It’s a glimpse of the President and of the White House that you don’t usually get to see.
Flip through the photo gallery below — then take a look at the finished product and offer your thoughts.

See More  Here

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Where Is The Recovery? A Higher Percentage Of Americans Had Jobs Three Years Ago

By Michael, on May 3rd, 2013

  

Where Is The Recovery?If you think that the latest employment numbers are good news, you might want to look again.  In April 2013, 58.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  But three years ago, in April 2010, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  Well, you may argue, that is not much of a difference.  And that is precisely my point.  The percentage of Americans that have a job fell like a rock during the last recession.  It dropped from about 63 percent all the way down to below 59 percent, and it has stayed below 59 percent for 44 months in a row.  So where is the recovery?  This is the first time in the post-World War II era that the employment-population ratio has not bounced back after the end of a recession.  So anyone that tells you that we are experiencing an employment recovery is lying to you.  Yes, the U.S. economy added 165,000 jobs last month.  But it takes nearly that many jobs just to keep up with population growth.  The truth is that we are just treading water.

So why has the unemployment rate been going down?  Well, it is because the government has been pretending that millions upon millions of unemployed Americans “don’t want jobs” anymore.  In fact, an astounding 9.5 million Americans have “left the workforce” since Barack Obama took office.

Some in the mainstream media have started calling them “missing workers”.  But whatever label you want to use, the reality of the matter is that they are really hurting.  They are part of the reason why food stamp enrollment has soared from 32 million to more than 47 million while Barack Obama has been in the White House.

If you still believe that the employment market is getting better, just look at the following numbers.  The percentage of working age Americans with a job has been sitting at about the same level for four years in a row…

April 2008: 62.7 percent

April 2009: 59.8 percent

April 2010: 58.7 percent

April 2011: 58.4 percent

April 2012: 58.5 percent

April 2013: 58.6 percent

So why is everyone getting so excited over the latest numbers?  When you step back and look at what has happened to the employment-population ratio over the past decade it really is quite horrifying…

Employment-Population Ratio 2013

So exactly what part of that chart are we supposed to get excited about?

Yes, I suppose that we should be thankful that the percentage of Americans with a job has not continued to decline over the past few years.  Unfortunately, the next major wave of the economic collapse is rapidly approaching and that is going to make our employment crisis far worse.

A recovery was supposed to already happen by now.  Now we are running out of time before the next major downturn strikes.

 

Read Full Article Here

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Reform & Fiscal Responsibility

 

President Obama has led the way on structuring the government to live within its means through a balanced approach that protects key priorities and ensures that everyone pays their fair share.
Learn more

Five Things You SHould Know
1.

In 2011, President Obama signed a bipartisan compromise that cut nearly $1 trillion in spending over the next decade, reducing discretionary spending to its lowest level as a share of the economy since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president while protecting job-creating investments like education and research. Learn more

2.

As part of President Obama’s plan to create a 21st regulatory system, government agencies have identified over 580 proposals to reduce regulatory costs and streamline federal regulations. Just a fraction of those reforms will save more than $10 billion over the next five years and eliminate tens of millions of hours of paperwork. Learn more (PDF)

3.

The Affordable Care Act provides new tools to help crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare, Medicaid and other health care programs. Already, the number of individuals charged with criminal fraud increased from 797 in 2008 to 1,430 in 2011. Learn more (PDF)

4.

The Buffett Rule is a principle of tax fairness that asks everyone to pay their fair share by making sure that no household making more than $1 million each year pays a smaller share of in their income in taxes than a middle class family pays. Learn more

5.

The Campaign to Cut Waste is hunting down and eliminating misspent tax dollars across the federal government, already identifying $3 billion in information technology cost reductions, shutting down hundreds of duplicative data centers, and getting rid of excess federal real estate. Learn more

 

Read More  Here

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Noam Chomsky : ”The one thing that did surprise me is his (Obama) attack on civil liberties. They go well beyond anything I would have anticipated, and they don’t seem easy to explain.”

Filed under: Black Ops, bureaucracy, Collateral Damage, Conspiracy Theories, Corruption, Costs of War, crime, Depravity, Excessive Use Of Force, Extreme Political Correctness, Fraud, Freedom, Freedom of Information, Fundamental Rights, Government, Government Overreach, Greed, Harassment, History, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Indoctrination, Irrational Violence, Lack Of Transparency, Loot and Pillage, Military Maneuvers, Murder, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Power Struggle, Provocation / Incitement, Psy - Ops, Rule Of Law, Secrecy, Security, Special Interests, Surveillance, Terror Plots / Suspects, The American Constitution, Unconstitutional, Unethical, Unmanned Drones, War Crimes — 7 Comments
May 3, 2013

Obama’s Ties to CIA May Explain His Totalitarian Views

 

By Sherwood Ross

 Veterans Today

In a recent interview, Noam Chomsky said he never expected much of President Obama, adding, ”The one thing that did surprise me is his attack on civil liberties. They go well beyond anything I would have anticipated, and they don’t seem easy to explain.”

Maybe the reasons for Obama’s transformation from a Chicago law professor into a world-class totalitarian thug is that he is a creature of the Central Intelligence Agency; that both his parents were CIA payrollers; that the CIA financed his college education and gave him his first job afterwards—-so that we may well have a president beholden to this international criminal organization, an agency that has left a trail of blood, turmoil, and assassinations around the globe.

According to the May 6th The New Yorker, when General James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asked at an Obama Situation Room meeting why the U.S. was building a second air force in the form of a CIA drone attack fleet, Obama told him, “The CIA gets what it wants.” That Obama holds this view is reinforced by Cameron Munter, President Obama’s former ambassador to Pakistan. Munter questioned whether the drone strikes in Pakistan weren’t having a blowback effect on the Pakistani public. Writing in the magazine, Steve Coll says Munter learned under Obama: “It was what the CIA believed that really counted.”

Reporter Coll says America’s drone war is a major factor in why U.S. relations with Pakistan have “collapsed.” Today, he writes, “the U.S. has surpassed India as the most hated nation in Pakistan.” Coll adds, “Obama seems unwilling to confront the possibility that drone strikes may be creating more enemies than they’re eliminating.”

So far, the drone strikes are believed to have killed 3,000 people, not one of whom got a fair trial in the American tradition. The attacks are being made in countries where the U.S. has never officially declared war: besides Pakistan, in Somalia, Yemen, and even in the Philippines. Obama has turned the whole world into an American shooting gallery.

 

Read Full Article Here

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