[WHITEHOUSEDOSSIER] With scandal swirling about the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama may be considering an extended exit from Washington this summer, fleeing for weeks to the Obamas' traditional summer haven, Martha's Vineyard.
According to the Boston Globe, "Michelle Obama and the children may be on the island for an extended period." But the president would hardly be suffering by comparison. He may come up on weekends and then stay for two weeks at the end of the summer, the Globe reports.
The White House has not commented on the Obamas' vacation plans.
The Obamas are said to be eying a house in Farm Neck on the Vineyard. If they land there, the president will have easy access to the lovely Farm Neck Golf Club and Cafe. Here's the view from the tee on the third hole.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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My suggestion- a country that has no extradition treaty w/ the US. And possibly no regular diplomatic relations either.
I understand North Korea is very nice this time of decade....
#9
Usually with a women far younger than the man.
Funny. Barry doesn't look a whole lot younger.
Farm Neck? Is that snob for redneck?
I imagine its more seperation from the trial; she has a future in government to cultivate. Besides, the help will work the garden and DC is just blah for such crust. I'll tell ya, if I had a full time job where I could be called in anytime, and I spent all my free time at the golf course, it would not be a trial seperation. Its just as well Madame Deficit travels to Plaisirs de l'ile enchantee while Barry builds his Trianon.
#1
Talk is cheap. Regardless of wishes and wants, the Beltway Party lacks the guts, let alone the numbers to make it happen. The couch Americans aren't going to get up off their cushioned behinds to remove anything less than a tyrant and which in most cases will be more an affirmation by un-objection. The RINOs, who are ego and power driven, are not going to want to be labeled as the people who deposed the first 'black' president in American history.
Better plan is to undermine his legitimacy and weaken his power to influence affairs. Frustrate him at every turn which, with his personality, will make him strike out even more exposing himself to new avenues of degradation. Remember you took out a lot of the 'second highest' AQ members in Iraq before taking out the leadership. Make his elected minions very very nervous. Tie them to him, keep this alive for 2014. A lot of those low info voters will sit home in the next round.
#2
I believe the key still lies in the Champ's involvement in the Benghazi matter.
You dont send out Susan Rice to go on five Sunday morning talk programs unless somebody in the West Wing has said, Let's send her out and somebody in the West Wing has said this is what she needs to say or said, O.K., that's an interesting idea. You ought to go ahead and say that.
-- Karl Rove
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2013 8:35 Comments ||
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He is not the first black president. He is part white. He wants everyone to forget that part. Sorry but I remember the riots well and in those days he is the classic definition of what blacks referred to as an Oreo. Black on the outside but white on the inside. "Senate will never impeach him" because it will be of no benefit for them to do so. Who wants riots back in the streets. That will happen soon enough when the play money runs out.
#9
The Obama Regime backstabbed MSM with the secret Aye Pee phone records grab. He will be impeached and will go down like fresh meat tossed into a school of pirhanas.
[NATIONALREVIEW] Former Democratic National committee chairman Howard Dean considers the controversy over Benghazi a "joke" and "silly."
"Benghazi is a laughable joke," Dean proclaimed twice last week in a discussion with Republican National Committee communications chairman Sean Spicer.
"With all due respect, governor, when four Americans die serving this country, that's not a joke, sir," Spicer responded.
"Oh, stop it," Dean said.
The former Democratic presidential candidate also said that there were "no serious questions being asked about Benghazi" and brushed off the controversy over the administration's response to the terrorist attack as an effort by Republicans to score political points. "It's very clear what happened with Benghazi, this is ridiculous," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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I'll wager he whistles while passing by the graveyard as well. Something inherently wrong with these people, bad wrong.
[POLITICO] Former Rep. Anthony Weiner, whose career in public life came to an abrupt end when he sent lewd pictures to a college student on Twitter, jumped back into politics on Wednesday by announcing a bid for mayor of New York City.
"Look, I've made some big mistakes and I know I've let a lot of people down," the Democrat said in a two-minute video announcing his bid. "But I've also learned some tough lessons. I'm running for mayor because I've been fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it for my entire life. And I hope I get a second chance to work for you."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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Two online health calculators designed by federal officials to help states and employers comply with Obamacare mandates are riddled with so many flaws that users are abandoning them, The Washington Examiner has learned.
Users say the calculators - one used by state officials, the other by private employers - too often are confusing, produce contradictory results, do not reflect real world conditions, and use old data.
The problem is so acute that several states are weighing whether or not to create their own calculators. The Obamacare program is supposed to be fully implemented and functioning on Jan. 1, 2014.
The employer calculator particularly baffles those who offer health insurance plans and are struggling to comply with the law.
Under Obamacare, states sponsoring health insurance exchanges must use the federal calculator to evaluate their standardized plans for individuals and small groups. Each plan must offer services in 10 medical categories.
Federal health care officials can use the results produced by the calculators to force states to change premium prices and out-of-pocket expenses for consumers. The plans are supposed to go into effect October 1 in the phased implementation of Obamacare nationwide.
Employers use the second calculator to report line-by-line benefits and employee costs. A failing calculator number can force employers to pay stiff fines.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services designed both calculators. A CMS spokesman declined to comment for this story.
States and insurance companies are supposed to use an "Actuarial Value" calculator. The actuarial value measures benchmarks for the four state standardized plans.
An AV value of 60 means the state plan covers 60% of the costs and enrollees pay 40%. The four plans range from 60% to 90% coverage.
Employers are to use a "Minimum Value" calculator, which assesses whether an employee health plan meets minimal federal criteria.
CMS released "beta" versions of the calculators in November 2012 and a "final" calculator this February.
The most glaring problem, according to users, is that the calculators do not reflect real world conditions.
[BREITBART] Reporter Sharyl Attkisson, who has been dogged in her reporting on administration scandals including Fast and Furious and Benghazi, believes her computers have been compromised.
Attkisson tells Politico "I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months but I'm not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today as I've been patient and methodical about this matter." Attkisson believes the possible infiltration of her computer began in Feb. 2011 during her reporting on Fast and Furious.
While Attkisson refused to offer specifics about whom she believes is responsible, she did give a possible clue during a radio interview Tuesday morning. Asked if it might be similar to the targeting of James Rosen, Attkisson told WPHT in Philadelphia, "there could be some relationship between these types of things and what's happened to me."
As noted yesterday, James Rosen is a Fox News journalist who was targeted by the Justice Department after a leak of information from the State Department in 2009. The FBI requested a search warrant for Rosen's email account, describing him as a "co-conspirator" in the leak.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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Challenge to any D.C. news person- Have you been investigated by the DOJ for committing journalism?
[POLITICO] Attkisson told WPHT that irregular activity on her computer was first identified in Feb. 2011, when she was reporting on the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal and on the B.O. regime's green energy ... the attempt to produce energy without using fossil fuel. The preferred methods are solar, wind, geothermal, phlogiston, philosophers' stones, and rattling bears' teeth. The approach with the most promise involves attaching generators to perpetual motion machines, but using Words of Power to summon energy-rich demons may also work. The green in the term refers to the vast number of greenbacks that have been thrown at the problem since 1973 with indifferent results... spending, which she said "the administration was very sensitive about." Attkisson has also been a persistent investigator of the events surrounding last year's attack in Benghazi, and its aftermath.
UPDATE (Wed., 7:30 a.m.): The Justice Dept. now tells POLITICO that it is not responsible for the irregular activity: "To our knowledge, the Justice Department has never 'compromised' Ms. Atkisson's computers, or otherwise sought any information from or concerning any telephone, computer, or other media device she may own or use," Dean Boyd, a Justice Dept. spokesperson, told POLITICO on Tuesday night.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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To our knowledge
The Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions Jim. Good Luck.
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] Tempers flared in a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday, with members on both sides of the aisle castigating the Internal Revenue Service for targeting conservative groups with special scrutiny, and then hiding the practice from Congress.
Rep. Darrel Issa, the committee's chairman, said that the committee learned just yesterday that the IRS completed its own investigation a year before a Treasury Department Inspector General report was completed.
But despite the IRS recognizing in May 2012 that its employees were treating right-wing groups differently from other organizations, Issa said, IRS personnel withheld those conclusions from politicians.
'Just yesterday the committee interviewed Holly Paz, the director of exempt organizations, rulings and agreements, division of the IRS,' Issa said. 'While a tremendous amount of attention is centered about the Inspector General's report, or investigation, the committee has learned from Ms. Paz that she in fact participated in an IRS internal investigation that concluded in May of 2012 - May 3 of 2012 - and found essentially the same thing that Mr. George found more than a year later.'
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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[BREITBART] The US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen - the man responsible for the aggressive surveillance and phone record scrutiny at Fox News - is also a big donor to the Obama Campaigns. At the time of his appointment, the Washington Post wrote a profile on Machen including this tidbit:
Over the years, he has donated $4,350 to Obama's campaigns. He gave $250 to Obama's U.S. Senate campaign in 2003, a year before Obama, then an Illinois state senator, emerged on the nation's political radar, according to campaign finance records.
Furthermore, in June of 2012, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) questioned Attorney General Eric Inaction Jackson Holder ... aka Mister Fast and Furious... about the appointment of Mr. Machen to head-up the leaks investigation. During the questioning Sen. Cornyn revealed that not only was Machen a donor to the Obama campaign, he was also a volunteer for Obama for America. Cornyn called into question whether he could conduct the leaks investigation in a fair and non-partisan way.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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What do you expect in a system in which AGs are political appointees? Quelle surprise.
The best investment bankers made in 2006-8 was putting money in various election campaigns. Paid off handsomely in the bailout.
[BREITBART] The Obama Justice Department has seized the phone records of numbers that are associated with White House staffers and, apparently, with Fox News news hounds, according to a document filed on October 13, 2011, in the case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a former State Department contractor accused of violating the Espionage Act for allegedly leaking classified information to James Rosen, a Fox News news hound. Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who is prosecuting the case, has seized records associated with two phone numbers at the White House, at least five numbers associated with Fox News, and one that has the same area code and exchange as Rosen's personal-cell-phone number (the last four numbers are redacted).
In all, Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, has seized records associated with over thirty different phone numbers.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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[FOX19] The six Cincinnati workers we have identified, who sent scrutinizing letters to conservative groups with words including "patriot, liberty, tea party or 9-12" in their names are Mitchel Steele, Carly Young, Joseph Herr, Stephen Seok, Liz Hofacre and a woman identified only as Ms. Richards.
But was all of this done at the hands of a small group of Cincinnati employees working together? During Friday's congressional hearing, that appeared to be the theme. Now, that explanation just became less likely.
Thanks to two FOX19 sources connected to the IRS, we now understand the chain of command for these workers.
Mitchel Steele, Carly Young, Joseph Herr and Liz Hofacre are IRS agents. Stephen Seok is a supervisor IRS agent.
But according to the IRS employee directory that FOX19 has obtained exclusively, each of these agents has a different manager and then above them a different territory manager.
That is important because while it may sound reasonable to the average person that these workers began targeting groups on their own, the IRS structure is designed to prevent that.
Here is how that works.
When an application for tax exempt status comes into the IRS, agents have 270 days to work through that application. If the application is not processed within those 270 days it automatically triggers flags in the system. When that happens, individual agents are required to input a status update on that individual case once a month, every month until the case is resolved.
Keep in mind, at least 300 groups were targeted out of Cincinnati alone. Those applications spent anywhere from 18 months to nearly 3 years in the system and some still don't have their non-profit status. 300 groups multiplied by at least 18 months for each group, means thousands of red flags would have been generated in the system.
So who in the chain of command would have received all these flags? The answer, according to the IRS directory, one woman in Cincinnati, Cindy Thomas, the Program Manager of the Tax Exempt Division. Because all six of our IRS workers have different individual and territory managers, Cindy Thomas is one manager they all have common.
It turns out Cindy Thomas' name is one we have heard before. The independent journalism group ProPublica says in November of 2012 they had requested information on conservatives groups that had received non-profit status. Along with that information, the IRS released private information on nine conservative groups that had not yet been approved and personal information had not been redacted. The person who signed off on that release, Cindy Thomas.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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It is possible that criminal activity may have occurred, said Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) said if witnesses today are not more forthcoming and continue to stonewall the committee, it will lead to a special prosecutor in order to get to the bottom of this.
#2
Along with that information, the IRS released private information on nine conservative groups that had not yet been approved and personal information had not been redacted.
Also, no IRS cover-letter in one case, per ProPublica.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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She may actually believe that statement in far as in a very politicized system and environment such actions for the 'Party' out weigh undermining the legitimacy of the very structure of government it operates in.
An old, since superseded, Army reg on ethics had a line that stuck with me - Not only is the act, but the appearance of the act is unacceptable.
[WASHINGTONTIMES] A Democrat on the House's investigative committee raised the specter of a special prosecutor on Wednesday to investigate political targeting of conservative groups at the IRS from 2010 to 2012.
Rep. Stephen Lynch, Massachusetts Democrat, warned IRS and Treasury Department witnesses before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform not to stonewall congressional efforts to get to the bottom of the scandal.
"We know where that will lead, it will lead to a special prosecutor. ... There will be hell to pay if that's the route that we choose to go down," he said.
The Democrat's reference to a special prosecutor was noteworthy, since the most vocal criticism for the IRS has come from GOP ranks in recent weeks.
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, Republican, said Wednesday that the IRS intentionally misled Congress by failing to sound the alarm over political targeting in its tax-exempt division from 2010 to 2012.
He said his committee recently interviewed Holly Paz, a senior IRS official, who said the agency completed an internal review in early 2012 that concluded the same thing that an inspector general's report publicly revealed only this month.
Everyone with knowledge of inappropriate criteria used to single out tea party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny "could have and should been a whistle-blower," Mr. Issa said.
He also accused the B.O. regime of placing a "higher priority on deniability than addressing blatant wrongdoing."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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"While both scandals are all over but the shouting, the shouting will consume the summer. Into the dog days with both scandals we go. Meanwhile, the president is steadfastly moving on his agenda on guns, amnesty, Obamacare and far away from Benghazi, dismissed as a political witch hunt."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[WHITEHOUSEDOSSIER] With scandal swirling about the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama may be considering an extended exit from Washington this summer, fleeing for weeks to the Obamas' traditional summer haven, Martha's Vineyard.
[POLITICO] Former Rep. Anthony Weiner, whose career in public life came to an abrupt end when he sent lewd pictures to a college student on Twitter, jumped back into politics on Wednesday by announcing a bid for mayor of New York City.
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] Tempers flared in a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday, with members on both sides of the aisle castigating the Internal Revenue Service for targeting conservative groups with special scrutiny, and then hiding the practice from Congress.
[WASHINGTONTIMES] A Democrat on the House's investigative committee raised the specter of a special prosecutor on Wednesday to investigate political targeting of conservative groups at the IRS from 2010 to 2012.
