Showing posts with label FINANCIAL SKULLDUGGERY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FINANCIAL SKULLDUGGERY. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
"Soft" Corruption
It's called "soft" corruption when Congress members do it. The rest of us would go to jail.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
GAO Finds Serious Conflicts at the Fed
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 - A new audit of the Federal Reserve released today detailed widespread conflicts of interest involving directors of its regional banks.
"The most powerful entity in the United States is riddled with conflicts of interest," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said after reviewing the Government Accountability Office report. The study required by a Sanders Amendment to last year's Wall Street reform law examined Fed practices never before subjected to such independent, expert scrutiny.
The GAO detailed instance after instance of top executives of corporations and financial institutions using their influence as Federal Reserve directors to financially benefit their firms, and, in at least one instance, themselves. "Clearly it is unacceptable for so few people to wield so much unchecked power," Sanders said. "Not only do they run the banks, they run the institutions that regulate the banks."
Sanders said he will work with leading economists to develop legislation to restructure the Fed and bar the banking industry from picking Fed directors. "This is exactly the kind of outrageous behavior by the big banks and Wall Street that is infuriating so many Americans," Sanders said.
The corporate affiliations of Fed directors from such banking and industry giants as General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, and Lehman Brothers pose "reputational risks" to the Federal Reserve System, the report said. Giving the banking industry the power to both elect and serve as Fed directors creates "an appearance of a conflict of interest," the report added.
The 108-page report found that at least 18 specific current and former Fed board members were affiliated with banks and companies that received emergency loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.
In the dry and understated language of auditors, the report noted that there are no restrictions in Fed rules on directors communicating concerns about their respective banks to the staff of the Federal Reserve. It also said many directors own stock or work directly for banks that are supervised and regulated by the Federal Reserve. The rules, which the Fed has kept secret, let directors tied to banks participate in decisions involving how much interest to charge financial institutions and how much credit to provide healthy banks and institutions in "hazardous" condition. Even when situations arise that run afoul of Fed's conflict rules and waivers are granted, the GAO said the waivers are kept hidden from the public.
The report by the non-partisan research arm of Congress did not name but unambiguously described several individual cases involving Fed directors that created the appearance of a conflict of interest, including:
•Stephen Friedman In 2008, the New York Fed approved an application from Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company giving it access to cheap Fed loans. During the same period, Friedman, chairman of the New York Fed, sat on the Goldman Sachs board of directors and owned Goldman stock, something the Fed's rules prohibited. He received a waiver in late 2008 that was not made public. After Friedman received the waiver, he continued to purchase stock in Goldman from November 2008 through January of 2009 unbeknownst to the Fed, according to the GAO.
•Jeffrey Immelt The Federal Reserve Bank of New York consulted with General Electric on the creation of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility. The Fed later provided $16 billion in financing for GE under the emergency lending program while Immelt, GE's CEO, served as a director on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
•Jamie Dimon The CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the same time that his bank received emergency loans from the Fed and was used by the Fed as a clearing bank for the Fed's emergency lending programs. In 2008, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $29 billion in financing to acquire Bear Stearns.At the time, Dimon persuaded the Fed to provide JP Morgan Chase with an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements. He also convinced the Fed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired this troubled investment bank.
To read a more detailed analysis of the GAO report prepared for Sen. Sanders, click here.
To read the full GAO report, click here.
http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=70c40aba-736c-4716-97d1-45f1a1af10a0
Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
WHY ARE OBAMA AND UNION BOSSES WORKING TO DESTROY COMPANIES AND JOBS?
The question needs to be asked: Is it ignorance or malice? There was a time after the subprime mortgage meltdown when, if sound decisions on policy and financial initiatives had occurred, the American economy may not have been hobbled as badly, its credit rating might not have been downgraded, the recession might have been curtailed and so many Americans might not have been so negatively affected. However, rather than helping a recovery by letting the quasi-free market adjust, contract and expand again, at almost every turn, Barack Obama and the union appointees and crony capitalists within his administration are, whether out of malice or ignorance, seemingly doing everything they can to destroy an already fragile economy. It’s really no longer a question of ”if,” but “why.”
In 2008, Barack Obama was caught on camera explaining his redistributionist desire to spread the wealth around. At the time, in classic Saul Alinsky fashion, Obama’s union pushers tried deflecting the issue by the stomping on the reputation of ‘Joe the Plumber,’ the man who asked Obama an innocent question.
Now, 18 months after his first stimulus failed, Barack Obama has cynically proposed spending another one-half a trillion dollars (paid for by redistributing the wealth of the not-so -wealthy). Even pundits realize it is a “nakedly political” plan to paint his political opponents as ‘radical.’ However, even with the politicization apparent, policies of Obama and his union cronies go beyond the typical ‘tax and spend’ stereotype afforded to Keynesian liberals.
Unfortunately, from coast to coast, the Obama Misery Index (OMI) is leaving almost no sector untouched. From the seemingly politically-motivated raid in Nashville on legendary (and non-union) guitar-maker Gibson to the EPA killing 500 jobs in Texas, the attacks on America’s job creators are not only disturbing, they are alarming. Is it ignorance or malice?
In addition to the union appointees at Obama’s National Labor Relations Board attacking Boeing (and the potential long-term spillover effects across the economy), as well as its assault on Right-to-Work States, the NLRB’s new mandate to require all private-sector employers with two or more workers to post union notices, coupled with its proposal for ambush elections and the recent micro-union ruling, is causing more and more businesses to spend resources in preparing to be attacked by unions than creating jobs. Is it ignorance or malice?
Adding to this pro-union, bureacratic quagmire, the NLRB has also poured a gallon of cold water on companies that may have been contemplating merging with or buying already-unionized companies. In yet another NLRB ruling, the union appointees have forbidden employees from getting rid of an unwanted union immediately following a merger or acquisition.
This means that if a unionized company is floundering (as so many are) and another company comes along that may extend a lifeline by either merging with or buying the unionized company, there will be added pause if it also means buying the union. As a result, if a merger or sale does not happen and the floundering company fails, the employees (who may not have even wanted to remain unionized) lose their jobs.
Then, there’s the Department of Labor’s scheme to reclassify all sorts of service providers as ‘persuaders’ and cause them to report their earnings to the Department of Labor. While largely misunderstood, the proposal will cause both companies and vendors (who may have no knowledge about unions) to make their financial dealings public or go to jail. Such are the types of people who are being targeted by Obama’s union regime:
If the individuals leave their respective industries (or companies choose to go without the help), how does a workplace that is less safe, less team-oriented, and less structured help America’s competitiveness? Is it ignorance or malice?
In another example, in June, the Department of Labor issued a stunning ruling that a private construction project must pay “prevailing wages” (i.e., union wages) on a $700 million project under the Davis Bacon Act because it is on land leased by the federal government.
According to the Washington Post, this could raise the project by $20 million or more.
While it is true Mr. Obama inherited a mess, he and his administration are making it exponentially worse.
The question is: Is it ignorance or malice?
Knowing what I know, I have to believe it is malice! ~Lordhawke
Now, 18 months after his first stimulus failed, Barack Obama has cynically proposed spending another one-half a trillion dollars (paid for by redistributing the wealth of the not-so -wealthy). Even pundits realize it is a “nakedly political” plan to paint his political opponents as ‘radical.’ However, even with the politicization apparent, policies of Obama and his union cronies go beyond the typical ‘tax and spend’ stereotype afforded to Keynesian liberals.
Unfortunately, from coast to coast, the Obama Misery Index (OMI) is leaving almost no sector untouched. From the seemingly politically-motivated raid in Nashville on legendary (and non-union) guitar-maker Gibson to the EPA killing 500 jobs in Texas, the attacks on America’s job creators are not only disturbing, they are alarming. Is it ignorance or malice?
In addition to the union appointees at Obama’s National Labor Relations Board attacking Boeing (and the potential long-term spillover effects across the economy), as well as its assault on Right-to-Work States, the NLRB’s new mandate to require all private-sector employers with two or more workers to post union notices, coupled with its proposal for ambush elections and the recent micro-union ruling, is causing more and more businesses to spend resources in preparing to be attacked by unions than creating jobs. Is it ignorance or malice?
Adding to this pro-union, bureacratic quagmire, the NLRB has also poured a gallon of cold water on companies that may have been contemplating merging with or buying already-unionized companies. In yet another NLRB ruling, the union appointees have forbidden employees from getting rid of an unwanted union immediately following a merger or acquisition.
This means that if a unionized company is floundering (as so many are) and another company comes along that may extend a lifeline by either merging with or buying the unionized company, there will be added pause if it also means buying the union. As a result, if a merger or sale does not happen and the floundering company fails, the employees (who may not have even wanted to remain unionized) lose their jobs.
Then, there’s the Department of Labor’s scheme to reclassify all sorts of service providers as ‘persuaders’ and cause them to report their earnings to the Department of Labor. While largely misunderstood, the proposal will cause both companies and vendors (who may have no knowledge about unions) to make their financial dealings public or go to jail. Such are the types of people who are being targeted by Obama’s union regime:
- Communications consultants who coach management on how to structure and effectively manage employee teams
- Productivity consultants who design and implement total quality management teams, giving employees a voice in the success of their companies’ products.
- Safety consultants who help establish safety committees that give employees the ability to voice safety concerns to their employer to resolve safety issues
- Human resources consultants that design, write, or implement employee handbooks or policies
- Compensation consultants who design and administer pay or incentive plans for companies
If the individuals leave their respective industries (or companies choose to go without the help), how does a workplace that is less safe, less team-oriented, and less structured help America’s competitiveness? Is it ignorance or malice?
In another example, in June, the Department of Labor issued a stunning ruling that a private construction project must pay “prevailing wages” (i.e., union wages) on a $700 million project under the Davis Bacon Act because it is on land leased by the federal government.
According to the Washington Post, this could raise the project by $20 million or more.
"Whatever the law’s merits, it has been pretty well settled that Davis-Bacon applies only to structures funded, owned or occupied by the U.S. or District governments, as its plain language suggests.While the bureacrat at the Department of Labor expects the District of Columbia to pick up the tab for the increased costs, that may not be of any comfort since, ultimately, it is the taxpayers who will pay the price.
Now, with the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen, that understanding has been upset. A Labor Department regulator has ruled that Davis-Bacon covers the CityCenter DC project, a $700 million private-sector complex under construction downtown at the site of the former convention center. The decision is astonishing, both because it is such a stretch legally and because of its implications — which range from a financial hit for the District to higher costs for development across the country."
"Never mind that the District’s actual control over construction amounts to little more than the usual regulatory oversight, or that long-term leasing of municipal land is a common economic development tool not previously thought to convert office-retail complexes into public works. Never mind that Ms. Leppink’s expansive reasoning could apply to all future commercial redevelopment of land belonging to the District or to the federal government anywhere."From the the beginning, Barack Obama had claimed he wanted to transform America. His primary pushers—union bosses—have long wanted to change the America’s economy to more of a statist nation. Unfortunately, while many voters hoped Mr. Obama’s election would change things for the better, it is quite clear that the opposite has occurred. As a result, America will be poorer for generations as a result while union cronies control large portions of the federal government.
While it is true Mr. Obama inherited a mess, he and his administration are making it exponentially worse.
The question is: Is it ignorance or malice?
Knowing what I know, I have to believe it is malice! ~Lordhawke
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Now Obama Wants Our Gitfiddles
From Conservative Action Alerts:
Obama Administration Pushes Gibson to Kill American Jobs
More than 14 million Americans are unemployed, and it looks like Obama wants to increase those numbers by closing down Gibson Guitar factories in Tennessee in order to send jobs overseas.
Two weeks ago, armed agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Homeland Security raided the corporate headquarters and four Gibson Guitar factories in Memphis and Nashville, and confiscated 24 pallets of Indian rosewood and ebony, as well as guitars (more than $500,000 in product) and computer files.
Obama's Justice Department authorized the raid, and cost Gibson more than $1 million in lost profits, because the company was forced to shut down production and send hundreds of works home-after they were interrogated by Homeland Security.
Obama's Justice Department is claiming that Gibson violated Indian law by importing ebony and rosewood fingerboards that were not 100% manufactured in India.
Had the fingerboards been manufactured solely in India, and not finished in America, the product would be legal. So, it looks as though Obama wants to ban the "Made in the USA" label, by sending all of our manufacturing jobs overseas.
Please CLICK HERE to SEND FAXES to every members of Congress and tell them to investigate the Obama appointees who are responsible for the raids against the Gibson Guitar Company. This administration is imposing regulations irrationally and in a hostile manner.
Many have speculated that Obama's Justice Department is attacking Gibson because they operate non-union manufacturing plants, and their CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, is a big contributor to Republican candidates.
This might sound far-fetched at first, until one learns that Gibson Guitar's top competitors -- who are unionized and big supporters of Obama - have not been raided, and they, too, import unfinished rosewood and ebony fingerboards from India.
According to the Wall Street Journal, "Federal agents first raided Gibson factories in November 2009. ... Gene Nix, a wood product engineer at Gibson, was questioned by agents after the first raid and told he could face five years in jail."
Juszkiewicz says that Gibson employees are being "treated like drug criminals." And he can't believe that federal agents told workers that they could face criminal prosecution for sorting wood in the Gibson Guitar factory.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) agrees, and that is why she invited Juszkiewicz to be her special guest at Obama's jobs speech on Thursday - so Obama would have to face the fact that his Justice Department is killing American jobs.
"Gibson Guitar is at the heart of this jobs debate, and is an example of exactly why President Obama has it wrong when it comes to getting our economy back on track," Rep. Blackburn said. "Maybe if the President spent more time finding real solutions to empowering small business owners and less time hindering businesses like Gibson, we'd see more new jobs being created.
Please CLICK HERE to SEND FAXES to every members of Congress and tell them to investigate Obama appointees who are responsible for the raids on the Gibson Guitar Company. This Administration is imposing regulations irrationally and in a hostile manner.
According to a court filing made by the Obama Justice Department, the Gibson Guitar Company is being told by the Administration to move its manufacturing overseas ... to Madagascar.
This Administration is spending millions of dollars to pursue Gibson in an attempt to force the company to send all of its manufacturing jobs overseas. At a time when Obama is claiming that he wants to create jobs, his Justice Department is doing everything it can to eliminate Gibson's American workforce.
In an attempt to rationalize the department's injustice, Eric Holder is using the Lacey Act of 1900 for his reasoning behind the raids on Gibson. The Lacey Act was originally passed to regulate trade in bird feathers used for hats, and it was amended in 2008 to cover wood and other plant products.
Obama's Justice Department is not criminalizing the import of rosewood and ebony, rather the manufacturing process that is being completed here, in America.
Since the Indian rosewood and ebony fingerboards are not finished by workers in India, the feds are claiming that the product is illegal to import into the U.S. --- not because of U.S. law, but because Obama's Justice Department wants to interpret India's law whichever way it sees fit, in order to push the Administration's agenda.
"I think they're taking the position that we should be shifting these jobs overseas," Bruce Mitchell, the chief legal counsel for Gibson told Fox News. "We have - probably 40 people in our factory here who are doing the inlays into the fingerboard. ... If all that was to be done over in India, then ... those jobs would be lost."
According to Fox News, "... India is perfectly happy to ship the fingerboard 'blanks' to the United States. In a letter dated July 13, the deputy director general of foreign trade for India confirmed that ‘fingerboards made of rosewood and ebony is freely exportable.'"
CLICK HERE to SEND FAXES to every members of Congress and tell them to investigate the government's raid on the Gibson Guitar Company. The actions of the Obama administration is hurting American companies and American workers by attempting to force Gibson to send its manufacturing jobs overseas.
The fact that Obama's Justice Department has issued warrants and raided Gibson based on their interpretation of Indian law, is frightening!
The Daily News in Memphis is reporting that: Juszkiewicz is striking back against the raid of his company's factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville by "... letting the U.S. Justice Dept. know that he's telling his employees to keep making the instruments."
Juszkiewicz said that in 2009, the feds seized $500,000 in goods from Gibson factories, and the company is suing the government in Federal Court in Nashville to get their property back. (The government hasn't charged the company with any wrongdoing.)
"We feel totally abused. We believe the arrogance of federal power is impacting me personally, our company personally and the employees here in Tennessee, and it's just plain wrong," Juszkiewicz said in a statement released to the media.
The Obama administration's attack on Gibson is expected to cost the company more than $10 million, and even more if the company is forced to export all of its jobs overseas.
Tell every member of Congress to investigate the Obama appointees who are responsible for the raids on Gibson. The Obama Justice Department is imposing regulations irrationally, and it's hurting American companies and the American workforce.
***************************************************************************************
*******************************************************************************
As I've said before, sending these blast faxes is expensive and I myself don't use them. I've been running across things like this for a while now and I'm getting down right angry and upset. So I'm going to get them all together so we can see the whole picture. Then we'll figure out what we can do about it. Oh, I'm setting up a new category to stick them all in... OBAMA RUNNING AMUK. ~ Faye
Obama Administration Pushes Gibson to Kill American Jobs
More than 14 million Americans are unemployed, and it looks like Obama wants to increase those numbers by closing down Gibson Guitar factories in Tennessee in order to send jobs overseas.
Two weeks ago, armed agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Homeland Security raided the corporate headquarters and four Gibson Guitar factories in Memphis and Nashville, and confiscated 24 pallets of Indian rosewood and ebony, as well as guitars (more than $500,000 in product) and computer files.
Obama's Justice Department authorized the raid, and cost Gibson more than $1 million in lost profits, because the company was forced to shut down production and send hundreds of works home-after they were interrogated by Homeland Security.
Obama's Justice Department is claiming that Gibson violated Indian law by importing ebony and rosewood fingerboards that were not 100% manufactured in India.
Had the fingerboards been manufactured solely in India, and not finished in America, the product would be legal. So, it looks as though Obama wants to ban the "Made in the USA" label, by sending all of our manufacturing jobs overseas.
Please CLICK HERE to SEND FAXES to every members of Congress and tell them to investigate the Obama appointees who are responsible for the raids against the Gibson Guitar Company. This administration is imposing regulations irrationally and in a hostile manner.
Many have speculated that Obama's Justice Department is attacking Gibson because they operate non-union manufacturing plants, and their CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, is a big contributor to Republican candidates.
This might sound far-fetched at first, until one learns that Gibson Guitar's top competitors -- who are unionized and big supporters of Obama - have not been raided, and they, too, import unfinished rosewood and ebony fingerboards from India.
According to the Wall Street Journal, "Federal agents first raided Gibson factories in November 2009. ... Gene Nix, a wood product engineer at Gibson, was questioned by agents after the first raid and told he could face five years in jail."
Juszkiewicz says that Gibson employees are being "treated like drug criminals." And he can't believe that federal agents told workers that they could face criminal prosecution for sorting wood in the Gibson Guitar factory.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) agrees, and that is why she invited Juszkiewicz to be her special guest at Obama's jobs speech on Thursday - so Obama would have to face the fact that his Justice Department is killing American jobs.
"Gibson Guitar is at the heart of this jobs debate, and is an example of exactly why President Obama has it wrong when it comes to getting our economy back on track," Rep. Blackburn said. "Maybe if the President spent more time finding real solutions to empowering small business owners and less time hindering businesses like Gibson, we'd see more new jobs being created.
Please CLICK HERE to SEND FAXES to every members of Congress and tell them to investigate Obama appointees who are responsible for the raids on the Gibson Guitar Company. This Administration is imposing regulations irrationally and in a hostile manner.
According to a court filing made by the Obama Justice Department, the Gibson Guitar Company is being told by the Administration to move its manufacturing overseas ... to Madagascar.
This Administration is spending millions of dollars to pursue Gibson in an attempt to force the company to send all of its manufacturing jobs overseas. At a time when Obama is claiming that he wants to create jobs, his Justice Department is doing everything it can to eliminate Gibson's American workforce.
In an attempt to rationalize the department's injustice, Eric Holder is using the Lacey Act of 1900 for his reasoning behind the raids on Gibson. The Lacey Act was originally passed to regulate trade in bird feathers used for hats, and it was amended in 2008 to cover wood and other plant products.
Obama's Justice Department is not criminalizing the import of rosewood and ebony, rather the manufacturing process that is being completed here, in America.
Since the Indian rosewood and ebony fingerboards are not finished by workers in India, the feds are claiming that the product is illegal to import into the U.S. --- not because of U.S. law, but because Obama's Justice Department wants to interpret India's law whichever way it sees fit, in order to push the Administration's agenda.
"I think they're taking the position that we should be shifting these jobs overseas," Bruce Mitchell, the chief legal counsel for Gibson told Fox News. "We have - probably 40 people in our factory here who are doing the inlays into the fingerboard. ... If all that was to be done over in India, then ... those jobs would be lost."
According to Fox News, "... India is perfectly happy to ship the fingerboard 'blanks' to the United States. In a letter dated July 13, the deputy director general of foreign trade for India confirmed that ‘fingerboards made of rosewood and ebony is freely exportable.'"
CLICK HERE to SEND FAXES to every members of Congress and tell them to investigate the government's raid on the Gibson Guitar Company. The actions of the Obama administration is hurting American companies and American workers by attempting to force Gibson to send its manufacturing jobs overseas.
The fact that Obama's Justice Department has issued warrants and raided Gibson based on their interpretation of Indian law, is frightening!
The Daily News in Memphis is reporting that: Juszkiewicz is striking back against the raid of his company's factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville by "... letting the U.S. Justice Dept. know that he's telling his employees to keep making the instruments."
Juszkiewicz said that in 2009, the feds seized $500,000 in goods from Gibson factories, and the company is suing the government in Federal Court in Nashville to get their property back. (The government hasn't charged the company with any wrongdoing.)
"We feel totally abused. We believe the arrogance of federal power is impacting me personally, our company personally and the employees here in Tennessee, and it's just plain wrong," Juszkiewicz said in a statement released to the media.
The Obama administration's attack on Gibson is expected to cost the company more than $10 million, and even more if the company is forced to export all of its jobs overseas.
Tell every member of Congress to investigate the Obama appointees who are responsible for the raids on Gibson. The Obama Justice Department is imposing regulations irrationally, and it's hurting American companies and the American workforce.
***************************************************************************************
*******************************************************************************
As I've said before, sending these blast faxes is expensive and I myself don't use them. I've been running across things like this for a while now and I'm getting down right angry and upset. So I'm going to get them all together so we can see the whole picture. Then we'll figure out what we can do about it. Oh, I'm setting up a new category to stick them all in... OBAMA RUNNING AMUK. ~ Faye
Friday, September 9, 2011
Bureaucrats run amok: EPA now classifies milk as a pollutant.
This is an old story, but I just had to go find something on it because of the EPA's currently classifying hay as a pollutant in the story below. It's really getting stupid out there. But put it all together...our lizard, the prairie chicken, CDL's for farmers, milk/hay/CO2 declared pollutants, buffer areas around waterways...the list goes on and on. ~ Faye
Bureaucrats run amok: EPA now classifies milk as a pollutant.
by editor on June 16, 2010
In case you doubted that government bureaucrats are committed to controlling every aspect of our lives, please be aware that they’ve now categorized milk as a pollutant.
Northern Michigan’s Channel 9 has the details:
The Environmental Protection Agency intends to classify milk as a hazardous waste; in the same category as oil.
That means, farmers would have to come up with an oil spill prevention plan which could cost them thousands of dollars.
The Senate Agricultural Committee passed a resolution today urging the EPA to take back those regulations.
This new interpretation of the EPA’s Clean Water Act will require dairy farmers to develop oil spill prevention plans for their milk storage tanks.
As one farmer said in the video, “The majority of milk is water, in the high 80s percentile is water. The rest of it, three and one half percent, is solids of the fat and a portion of that is oil. And because of that small amount of oil in milk they’d like to relate it to motor oil or fuel oil and put it in the same category.”
To put this in terms a dairy farmer would appreciate, bureaucrats are good for only one thing: sucking from the government teat.
Source: 9and10News.com
http://www.ihatethemedia.com/epa-classifies-milk-as-pollutant
Bureaucrats run amok: EPA now classifies milk as a pollutant.
by editor on June 16, 2010
In case you doubted that government bureaucrats are committed to controlling every aspect of our lives, please be aware that they’ve now categorized milk as a pollutant.
Northern Michigan’s Channel 9 has the details:
The Environmental Protection Agency intends to classify milk as a hazardous waste; in the same category as oil.
That means, farmers would have to come up with an oil spill prevention plan which could cost them thousands of dollars.
The Senate Agricultural Committee passed a resolution today urging the EPA to take back those regulations.
This new interpretation of the EPA’s Clean Water Act will require dairy farmers to develop oil spill prevention plans for their milk storage tanks.
As one farmer said in the video, “The majority of milk is water, in the high 80s percentile is water. The rest of it, three and one half percent, is solids of the fat and a portion of that is oil. And because of that small amount of oil in milk they’d like to relate it to motor oil or fuel oil and put it in the same category.”
To put this in terms a dairy farmer would appreciate, bureaucrats are good for only one thing: sucking from the government teat.
Source: 9and10News.com
http://www.ihatethemedia.com/epa-classifies-milk-as-pollutant
EPA Declares Hay a Pollutant in Effort to Antagonize Small and Mid-Sized U.S. Cattle Feeders
September 1, 2011 Billings, Mont. – During his presentation on the status of the nation’s new country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law, and on behalf of the R-CALF USA COOL Committee, R-CALF USA member and Kansas cattle feeder Mike Callicrate was asked a non-COOL question that set convention goers on their heels during the 12th Annual R-CALF USA Convention held August 26-27 in Rapid City, S.D.
“Has the Environmental Protection Agency declared hay a pollutant?” an audience member asked. Callicrate responded affirmatively and explained that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently initiated a formal enforcement action against his Kansas feedlot for, among other things, failure to store his hay in a pollution containment zone. “Now that EPA has declared hay a pollutant, every farmer and rancher that stores hay, or that leaves a broken hay bale in the field is potentially violating EPA rules and subject to an EPA enforcement action,” Callicrate said. “How far are we going to let this agency go before we stand up and do something about it?”
Callicrate is permitted to handle 12,000 cattle at a time in his feedlot, which is considered a small to mid-sized feedlot in an industry now dominated by mega-feedlots such as those owned by the world’s largest beef packer – JBS-Brazil – with a one-time capacity of over 900,000 cattle; or the other mega-feedlot that also feeds hundreds of thousands of cattle at a time and is owned by the nation’s second-largest beef packer - Cargill; or the other handful of mega feedlots with capacities of hundreds of thousands of cattle such as those owned by Cactus Feeders, Inc. and Friona Industries.
In comments submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice, R-CALF USA estimated the above named mega-feedlots feed 18 percent of the nation’s fed cattle each year while one-fourth of the nation’s cattle are fed in feedlots with a one time capacity of 50,000 head or more. The largest of feedlots are getting larger and Callicrate’s feedlot is among the group of small to mid-sized feedlots that are being pressured to exit the industry so beef packers and corporate feedlot owners can increase their respective capacities. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that 45 feedlots with one-time capacities of between 1,000 or more cattle but less than 16,000 cattle have exited the industry from 2008 to 2010.
R-CALF USA contents beef packers are deliberately forcing small to mid-sized feedlots out of business through unfair and abusive cattle-buying practices that effectively restrict market access for all but the largest of feedlots. “The proposed GIPSA rule (USDA Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration rule) will put a stop to such unfair and abusive practices, but only if USDA issues a final rule,” said Callicrate.
Callicrate’s feedlot is the perfect example. In late 1998, the nation’s largest beef packers blackballed Callicrate because he called attention to the unfair buying practices of the corporate meatpackers. Callicrate was forced to cease his feedlot operations until 2000 when he opened Ranch Foods Direct, a meat processing and distribution company in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and began marketing his own beef more directly to consumers.
“I believe the EPA’s enforcement action is a premeditated effort by EPA to partner with the beef packers to finish the job the beef packer’s couldn’t do alone,” said Callicrate adding, “along with my feedlot, the EPA has filed enforcement actions against five other smaller feedlots, including one with only 400 cattle.
Callicrate said the EPA does not appear to be going after the corporate feedlots. “EPA is turning a blind eye toward the mega-feedlots that are a real risk for pollution and, instead, is antagonizing small to mid-sized family operations in an effort to help their packer-partners capture the entire live cattle supply chain away from family farm and ranch operations.”
We thought the Obama Administration was going to bring about a change to the ongoing corporate control and corporate dominance that has been decimating the U.S. cattle industry. I guess we’re seeing that change right now. Rather than reduce corporate control and dominance the EPA is overtly partnering with the corporate beef packers to accelerate the exodus of sustainable, independent family operations. This really smells,” Callicrate concluded.
Note: For satellite photographs of Callicrate’s feedlot compared to larger, industrialized feedlots, go to http://nobull.mikecallicrate.com/
http://r-calfusa.com/news_releases/2011/110901-epa.htm
“Has the Environmental Protection Agency declared hay a pollutant?” an audience member asked. Callicrate responded affirmatively and explained that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently initiated a formal enforcement action against his Kansas feedlot for, among other things, failure to store his hay in a pollution containment zone. “Now that EPA has declared hay a pollutant, every farmer and rancher that stores hay, or that leaves a broken hay bale in the field is potentially violating EPA rules and subject to an EPA enforcement action,” Callicrate said. “How far are we going to let this agency go before we stand up and do something about it?”
Callicrate is permitted to handle 12,000 cattle at a time in his feedlot, which is considered a small to mid-sized feedlot in an industry now dominated by mega-feedlots such as those owned by the world’s largest beef packer – JBS-Brazil – with a one-time capacity of over 900,000 cattle; or the other mega-feedlot that also feeds hundreds of thousands of cattle at a time and is owned by the nation’s second-largest beef packer - Cargill; or the other handful of mega feedlots with capacities of hundreds of thousands of cattle such as those owned by Cactus Feeders, Inc. and Friona Industries.
In comments submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice, R-CALF USA estimated the above named mega-feedlots feed 18 percent of the nation’s fed cattle each year while one-fourth of the nation’s cattle are fed in feedlots with a one time capacity of 50,000 head or more. The largest of feedlots are getting larger and Callicrate’s feedlot is among the group of small to mid-sized feedlots that are being pressured to exit the industry so beef packers and corporate feedlot owners can increase their respective capacities. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that 45 feedlots with one-time capacities of between 1,000 or more cattle but less than 16,000 cattle have exited the industry from 2008 to 2010.
R-CALF USA contents beef packers are deliberately forcing small to mid-sized feedlots out of business through unfair and abusive cattle-buying practices that effectively restrict market access for all but the largest of feedlots. “The proposed GIPSA rule (USDA Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration rule) will put a stop to such unfair and abusive practices, but only if USDA issues a final rule,” said Callicrate.
Callicrate’s feedlot is the perfect example. In late 1998, the nation’s largest beef packers blackballed Callicrate because he called attention to the unfair buying practices of the corporate meatpackers. Callicrate was forced to cease his feedlot operations until 2000 when he opened Ranch Foods Direct, a meat processing and distribution company in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and began marketing his own beef more directly to consumers.
“I believe the EPA’s enforcement action is a premeditated effort by EPA to partner with the beef packers to finish the job the beef packer’s couldn’t do alone,” said Callicrate adding, “along with my feedlot, the EPA has filed enforcement actions against five other smaller feedlots, including one with only 400 cattle.
Callicrate said the EPA does not appear to be going after the corporate feedlots. “EPA is turning a blind eye toward the mega-feedlots that are a real risk for pollution and, instead, is antagonizing small to mid-sized family operations in an effort to help their packer-partners capture the entire live cattle supply chain away from family farm and ranch operations.”
We thought the Obama Administration was going to bring about a change to the ongoing corporate control and corporate dominance that has been decimating the U.S. cattle industry. I guess we’re seeing that change right now. Rather than reduce corporate control and dominance the EPA is overtly partnering with the corporate beef packers to accelerate the exodus of sustainable, independent family operations. This really smells,” Callicrate concluded.
Note: For satellite photographs of Callicrate’s feedlot compared to larger, industrialized feedlots, go to http://nobull.mikecallicrate.com/
http://r-calfusa.com/news_releases/2011/110901-epa.htm
Government Regulator Sues Wall Street Banks For Fraud In Subprime Mortgage Dea
The federal government late Friday filed lawsuits against 17 financial institutions, including some of the nation’s largest banks, alleging a pattern of fraud in their packaging and selling of roughly $200 billion worth of mortgage-linked securities. The suits amount to one of the most significant legal actions to emerge from the rubble of the financial crisis nearly three years ago.
The allegations by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which is seeking unspecified compensation, penetrate the heart of Wall Street’s role in helping lead the economy to ruin. The FHFA claims these institutions knowingly peddled shoddy deals without informing investors. When the housing market crashed, and those deals went south, the damage rippled through economies around the globe, plunging nations into recession.
The legal action, which comes in addition to separate allegations of dubious mortgage and foreclosure practices at some of these banks, may roil financial markets next week, and is likely to have dramatic political consequences for the Obama administration. The banks, some of which have lately been subjected to punishing speculation about the adequacy of their capital reserves, could face massive losses. A spokeswoman for the FHFA said it was “premature” to judge what the actual penalties from Friday’s lawsuits might be.
The FHFA alleges that banks repeatedly made false claims to the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about the very nature of the loans banks were selling. In many cases, the FHFA claims, banks sold the shoddy loans even after a third-party analysis company informed the banks that billions of dollars’ worth of mortgages did not meet the specifications that the banks made in legal filings and in statements to Fannie and Freddie, which are still owned by U.S. taxpayers.
“Make no mistake: fraud is a business model,” said Janet Tavakoli, president of the Chicago-based consulting firm Tavakoli Structured Finance.
“Unfortunately, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were often tagged with a lot of these loans,” she continued. “Whether they were willing victims in some cases is almost irrelevant at this point, because now it is a matter of public interest, since taxpayers had to bail out Fannie and Freddie. The whole ballgame has changed."
Representatives for the banks were either unavailable to comment, or declined to comment, on Friday evening. The institutions being sued include Ally Bank, Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, First Horizon, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Societe Generale, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Nomura and Royal Bank of Scotland.
Bank of America and Deutsche Bank each released statements Friday saying that Fannie and Freddie are sophisticated investors, with the ability to assess complicated securities. The banks claimed that Fannie and Freddie have said the losses were caused by broader economic forces.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were among the most sophisticated, powerful and heavily regulated financial institutions in the U.S. mortgage finance system,” Bank of America said in a statement. “They claimed to understand the risks inherent in investing in subprime securities and, in fact, continued to invest heavily in those securities even after their regulator told them they did not have the risk management capabilities to do so.”
But the mortgage giants were deceived, the FHFA claims. Banks concealed crucial information about the investments they were selling, so that even the most sophisticated investor would be left in the dark, lawsuits allege.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did not know, and in the exercise of reasonable diligence could not have known, of the untruths and omissions,” the lawsuit against Goldman Sachs says. If Fannie and Freddie had known, the suit continues, they would not have bought the securities.
Near the center of the allegations is the relationship between the banks and an independent firm known as Clayton Holdings, which analyzed mortgages for these bank clients. Clayton, which found problems with many of these loans, got national attention last fall when a former executive gave explosive testimony to a government panel.
Wall Street banks bought pools of subprime home loans to turn into securities, and submitted a percentage of those loans to Clayton for review. Clayton found that as many as 28 percent of these loans failed to meet basic standards, the company revealed in September of last year.
But nearly half the time, banks went ahead and purchased the bad loans anyway, using this information to go back and buy the loans on the cheap, according to Clayton data and testimony from the former executive.
Worse, the banks didn’t tell investors about Clayton’s concerns, the FHFA alleged Friday.
Goldman Sachs, an FHFA lawsuit claims, also bet against the securities it was selling, and reaped profits from doing so. Such bets were the subject of a lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which resulted in a $550 million settlement last year, and has contributed to an ongoing public relations nightmare for the Wall Street titan.
“Goldman was like a car dealership that realized it had a whole lot full of cars with faulty brakes,” wrote journalist Matt Taibbi, in an article that the FHFA quotes in its lawsuit. “Instead of announcing a recall, it surged ahead with a two-fold plan to make a fortune: first, by dumping the dangerous products on other people, and second, by taking out life insurance against the fools who bought the deadly cars.”
The lawsuits put intense pressure on the Obama administration, which has long insisted that U.S. banks are healthy, while pushing for a cheap and speedy settlement over separate allegations that banks committed widespread fraud in the foreclosure process.
The suits also underscore tensions over housing policy between President Barack Obama and Edward DeMarco, acting FHFA director. DeMarco, a holdover from the Bush administration, has rebuffed a push from Obama insiders to spur mortgage refinancing for underwater borrowers.
The government took over Fannie and Freddie in the summer of 2008 as the mortgage giants suffered massive losses, and DeMarco is bound by that takeover deal to limit losses for taxpayers. Some housing experts have criticized the Obama team's push for refinancing, saying it has failed to eliminate excess bubble-era housing debt for underwater homeowners.
Nevertheless, the FHFA's move prompted applause from Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), one of the top mortgage experts in Congress, and a persistent critic of big bank abuses both during and after the housing bubble.
"I don’t agree with Mr. DeMarco on every issue, but I have consistently supported FHFA’s efforts to pursue legitimate claims for fraud and breach of contract to limit taxpayer losses," Miller said. "Not pursuing those claims would be an indirect subsidy for an industry that has gotten too many subsidies already. The American people should expect their government not to give the biggest banks a backdoor bailout."
The administration has long sought to maintain the stability of major financial firms in the aftermath of the politically unpopular bank bailouts of 2008 and 2009. Although the bailouts were initiated under President George W. Bush, Obama continued the policies, and has repeatedly touted Wall Street's health as evidence that the programs were successful. Further losses absorbed by banks could weaken the economy and stymie job creation.
The suits include at least one explicitly political problem for Obama. The FHFA's targets include General Electric, an international beacon of American business whose CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, currently serves as a top economic adviser to Obama.
Stock market investors have hammered financial institutions in recent weeks, as worries that the economy could be entering a new recession combined with fears that these companies could be on the hook for many billions in legal liabilities -- and could face losses from exposure to troubled European banks.
The value of Bank of America shares at closing on Friday had sunk to a third of its so-called book value, according to its recent financial statement. The closing price of $7.25 a share was just cents higher than its price before the widely-admired investor Warren Buffett injected several billions into the company last week.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/02/banks-sued-subprime-mortgage-deals_n_947349.html
Here is a list of banks named in the lawsuit and how much they sold to Fannie & Freddie.
Ally Financial Inc. f/k/a GMAC, LLC - $6 billion
Bank of America Corporation - $6 billion
Barclays Bank PLC - $4.9 billion
Citigroup, Inc. - $3.5 billion
Countrywide Financial Corporation - $26.6 billion
Credit Suisse Holdings (USA), Inc. - $14.1 billion
Deutsche Bank AG - $14.2 billion
First Horizon National Corporation - $883 million
General Electric Company - $549 million
Goldman Sachs & Co. - $11.1 billion
HSBC North America Holdings, Inc. - $6.2 billion
JPMorgan Chase & Co. - $33 billion
Merrill Lynch & Co. / First Franklin Financial Corp. - $24.8 billion
Morgan Stanley - $10.6 billion
Nomura Holding America Inc. - $2 billion
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC - $30.4 billion
Société Générale - $1.3 billion
Total: $196.132 Billion
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/youre-guide-to-the-fhfa-bank-lawsuits-2011-9#the-numbers-1#ixzz1XVaon5Jg
The allegations by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which is seeking unspecified compensation, penetrate the heart of Wall Street’s role in helping lead the economy to ruin. The FHFA claims these institutions knowingly peddled shoddy deals without informing investors. When the housing market crashed, and those deals went south, the damage rippled through economies around the globe, plunging nations into recession.
The legal action, which comes in addition to separate allegations of dubious mortgage and foreclosure practices at some of these banks, may roil financial markets next week, and is likely to have dramatic political consequences for the Obama administration. The banks, some of which have lately been subjected to punishing speculation about the adequacy of their capital reserves, could face massive losses. A spokeswoman for the FHFA said it was “premature” to judge what the actual penalties from Friday’s lawsuits might be.
The FHFA alleges that banks repeatedly made false claims to the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about the very nature of the loans banks were selling. In many cases, the FHFA claims, banks sold the shoddy loans even after a third-party analysis company informed the banks that billions of dollars’ worth of mortgages did not meet the specifications that the banks made in legal filings and in statements to Fannie and Freddie, which are still owned by U.S. taxpayers.
“Make no mistake: fraud is a business model,” said Janet Tavakoli, president of the Chicago-based consulting firm Tavakoli Structured Finance.
“Unfortunately, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were often tagged with a lot of these loans,” she continued. “Whether they were willing victims in some cases is almost irrelevant at this point, because now it is a matter of public interest, since taxpayers had to bail out Fannie and Freddie. The whole ballgame has changed."
Representatives for the banks were either unavailable to comment, or declined to comment, on Friday evening. The institutions being sued include Ally Bank, Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, First Horizon, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Societe Generale, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Nomura and Royal Bank of Scotland.
Bank of America and Deutsche Bank each released statements Friday saying that Fannie and Freddie are sophisticated investors, with the ability to assess complicated securities. The banks claimed that Fannie and Freddie have said the losses were caused by broader economic forces.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were among the most sophisticated, powerful and heavily regulated financial institutions in the U.S. mortgage finance system,” Bank of America said in a statement. “They claimed to understand the risks inherent in investing in subprime securities and, in fact, continued to invest heavily in those securities even after their regulator told them they did not have the risk management capabilities to do so.”
But the mortgage giants were deceived, the FHFA claims. Banks concealed crucial information about the investments they were selling, so that even the most sophisticated investor would be left in the dark, lawsuits allege.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did not know, and in the exercise of reasonable diligence could not have known, of the untruths and omissions,” the lawsuit against Goldman Sachs says. If Fannie and Freddie had known, the suit continues, they would not have bought the securities.
Near the center of the allegations is the relationship between the banks and an independent firm known as Clayton Holdings, which analyzed mortgages for these bank clients. Clayton, which found problems with many of these loans, got national attention last fall when a former executive gave explosive testimony to a government panel.
Wall Street banks bought pools of subprime home loans to turn into securities, and submitted a percentage of those loans to Clayton for review. Clayton found that as many as 28 percent of these loans failed to meet basic standards, the company revealed in September of last year.
But nearly half the time, banks went ahead and purchased the bad loans anyway, using this information to go back and buy the loans on the cheap, according to Clayton data and testimony from the former executive.
Worse, the banks didn’t tell investors about Clayton’s concerns, the FHFA alleged Friday.
Goldman Sachs, an FHFA lawsuit claims, also bet against the securities it was selling, and reaped profits from doing so. Such bets were the subject of a lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which resulted in a $550 million settlement last year, and has contributed to an ongoing public relations nightmare for the Wall Street titan.
“Goldman was like a car dealership that realized it had a whole lot full of cars with faulty brakes,” wrote journalist Matt Taibbi, in an article that the FHFA quotes in its lawsuit. “Instead of announcing a recall, it surged ahead with a two-fold plan to make a fortune: first, by dumping the dangerous products on other people, and second, by taking out life insurance against the fools who bought the deadly cars.”
The lawsuits put intense pressure on the Obama administration, which has long insisted that U.S. banks are healthy, while pushing for a cheap and speedy settlement over separate allegations that banks committed widespread fraud in the foreclosure process.
The suits also underscore tensions over housing policy between President Barack Obama and Edward DeMarco, acting FHFA director. DeMarco, a holdover from the Bush administration, has rebuffed a push from Obama insiders to spur mortgage refinancing for underwater borrowers.
The government took over Fannie and Freddie in the summer of 2008 as the mortgage giants suffered massive losses, and DeMarco is bound by that takeover deal to limit losses for taxpayers. Some housing experts have criticized the Obama team's push for refinancing, saying it has failed to eliminate excess bubble-era housing debt for underwater homeowners.
Nevertheless, the FHFA's move prompted applause from Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), one of the top mortgage experts in Congress, and a persistent critic of big bank abuses both during and after the housing bubble.
"I don’t agree with Mr. DeMarco on every issue, but I have consistently supported FHFA’s efforts to pursue legitimate claims for fraud and breach of contract to limit taxpayer losses," Miller said. "Not pursuing those claims would be an indirect subsidy for an industry that has gotten too many subsidies already. The American people should expect their government not to give the biggest banks a backdoor bailout."
The administration has long sought to maintain the stability of major financial firms in the aftermath of the politically unpopular bank bailouts of 2008 and 2009. Although the bailouts were initiated under President George W. Bush, Obama continued the policies, and has repeatedly touted Wall Street's health as evidence that the programs were successful. Further losses absorbed by banks could weaken the economy and stymie job creation.
The suits include at least one explicitly political problem for Obama. The FHFA's targets include General Electric, an international beacon of American business whose CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, currently serves as a top economic adviser to Obama.
Stock market investors have hammered financial institutions in recent weeks, as worries that the economy could be entering a new recession combined with fears that these companies could be on the hook for many billions in legal liabilities -- and could face losses from exposure to troubled European banks.
The value of Bank of America shares at closing on Friday had sunk to a third of its so-called book value, according to its recent financial statement. The closing price of $7.25 a share was just cents higher than its price before the widely-admired investor Warren Buffett injected several billions into the company last week.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/02/banks-sued-subprime-mortgage-deals_n_947349.html
Here is a list of banks named in the lawsuit and how much they sold to Fannie & Freddie.
Ally Financial Inc. f/k/a GMAC, LLC - $6 billion
Bank of America Corporation - $6 billion
Barclays Bank PLC - $4.9 billion
Citigroup, Inc. - $3.5 billion
Countrywide Financial Corporation - $26.6 billion
Credit Suisse Holdings (USA), Inc. - $14.1 billion
Deutsche Bank AG - $14.2 billion
First Horizon National Corporation - $883 million
General Electric Company - $549 million
Goldman Sachs & Co. - $11.1 billion
HSBC North America Holdings, Inc. - $6.2 billion
JPMorgan Chase & Co. - $33 billion
Merrill Lynch & Co. / First Franklin Financial Corp. - $24.8 billion
Morgan Stanley - $10.6 billion
Nomura Holding America Inc. - $2 billion
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC - $30.4 billion
Société Générale - $1.3 billion
Total: $196.132 Billion
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/youre-guide-to-the-fhfa-bank-lawsuits-2011-9#the-numbers-1#ixzz1XVaon5Jg
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Illegal Immigration Tax Break?!
Throughout the entire debt ceiling imbroglio, Democrats incessantly regurgitated the talking point about the need for “a balanced approach.” They were so uniform and synchronized that they sounded like the sheep in Animal Farm. Ironically, their idea of a balanced approach was singularly focused upon Oil Company and corporate tax deductions, which are negligible compared to the crushing debt. The targeted oil tax deductions would have brought in $2 billion in annual revenue, while the cancellation of the corporate jet depreciation deduction would have saved only $3 billion over 10 years!
Well, it turns out that illegal aliens, most of which pay zero in net taxes, enjoyed $4.2 billion from the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) last year. That’s more than the annual revenue from the selected oil tax deductions and corporate jet deductions combined!
Yesterday, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Collection released a shocking report detailing how illegal aliens are able to utilize a filing loophole to obtain billions in ACTC funds. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and ACTC (unlike the base child tax credit) are totally refundable and can award the recipient with a negative tax balance. Appropriations for the EITC in FY 2010 were $54.7 billion and $28.3 billion for the ACTC. While EITC appropriations are protected from illegals (those who don’t engage in identity theft) because they are only awarded to those who provide a valid Social Security number, the same cannot be said for the ACTC.
Here is the punchline of the Inspector’s report:
Talk about a balanced approach!
This ought to "frost" everyone's cake!
~Lordhawke
Well, it turns out that illegal aliens, most of which pay zero in net taxes, enjoyed $4.2 billion from the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) last year. That’s more than the annual revenue from the selected oil tax deductions and corporate jet deductions combined!
Yesterday, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Collection released a shocking report detailing how illegal aliens are able to utilize a filing loophole to obtain billions in ACTC funds. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and ACTC (unlike the base child tax credit) are totally refundable and can award the recipient with a negative tax balance. Appropriations for the EITC in FY 2010 were $54.7 billion and $28.3 billion for the ACTC. While EITC appropriations are protected from illegals (those who don’t engage in identity theft) because they are only awarded to those who provide a valid Social Security number, the same cannot be said for the ACTC.
Here is the punchline of the Inspector’s report:
Many individuals who are not authorized to work in the United States, and thus not eligible to obtain a Social Security Number (SSN) for employment, earn income in the United States. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provides such individuals with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) to facilitate their filing of tax returns. Although the law prohibits aliens residing without authorization in the United States from receiving most Federal public benefits, an increasing number of these individuals are filing tax returns claiming the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC), a refundable tax credit intended for working families. The payment of Federal funds through this tax benefit appears to provide an additional incentive for aliens to enter, reside, and work in the United States without authorization, which contradicts Federal law and policy to remove such incentives.According to the latest employment data, we’ve lost 2.57 million jobs since Obama took office, even though there are 5.1 million additional people of working age in the country. Illegals are not only competing for scarce jobs; they are enjoying billions in handouts ensconced in the tax system, due to willful negligence on the part of the IRS. For most Americans, they are the most belligerent agency in the government, yet they are suddenly indolent in going after illegals. Obama wants them to clamp down on tax deductions for corporations that pay billions in taxes, while blithely allowing them to ignore billions in refundable handouts to those who shouldn’t be here in the first place.
Because concerns were raised by Congress, the Government Accountability Office, and the IRS regarding noncompliance with EITC requirements, a law was passed in Calendar Year 1996 to deny the EITC to individuals who file a tax return without an SSN that is valid for employment. As such, filers using an ITIN are not eligible for the EITC. The change in the law was made prior to the establishment of the ACTC. However, the same law prohibits aliens residing without authorization in the United States from receiving most Federal public benefits, with the exception of certain emergency services and programs.
Nonetheless, IRS management’s view is that the law does not provide sufficient legal authority for the IRS to disallow the ACTC to ITIN filers. In addition, the Internal Revenue Code does not require an SSN to claim the ACTC and does not provide the IRS math error authority to deny the credit without an examination. As such, the IRS continues to pay the ACTC to ITIN filers.
Talk about a balanced approach!
This ought to "frost" everyone's cake!
~Lordhawke
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Billions at stake as Exxon fights for lease on Gulf of Mexico's Julia field
- From: The Wall Street Journal
- August 18, 2011
EXXON Mobil is fighting the US government to keep control of one of its biggest oil discoveries ever, in a showdown where billions of dollars hang in the balance for both sides.
The massive Gulf of Mexico discovery contains an estimated 1 billion barrels of recoverable oil, Exxon says. The Interior Department, which regulates offshore drilling, says Exxon's leases have expired and the company hasn't met requirements for an extension. Exxon has sued to retain the leases.
The court battle is playing out just when Barack Obama's administration has made an issue of unused leases, which deprive the Treasury of valuable taxes. It also comes as regulators are being careful not to be seen as lax in their dealings with large energy companies, in the wake of last year's BP spill in the gulf.
The stakes are high: Under federal law, the leases - and all the oil underneath - could revert to the government if Exxon doesn't win in court.
The loss of the leases would be an enormous black eye for Exxon.
The company hadn't disclosed the size of the discovery, in what is called the Julia field, until it was mentioned in the suit Exxon filed against the Interior Department last week in federal court in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
The Texas behemoth faces the sobering prospect that it may have made the largest discovery ever in the Gulf of Mexico, only to lose it. Tens of billions of dollars of oil could slip through its hands because it failed to follow federal rules for getting a lease extension while it moved forward with plans to get the oil out of the ground.
Exxon spokesman Patrick McGinn said the company expected to get the extension, which he said was traditionally granted as a matter of course. "You state your case and you got it. (This) was unexpected."
This high-stakes standoff is likely to spark a political, as well as legal, showdown between the federal government and the nation's largest oil company. It has also roped in Norway's Statoil ASA, which owns 50 per cent of the Julia find. Statoil said it filed its own suit against the Interior Department to preserve the leases on Monday, in the same Louisiana federal court.
Exxon is the field's operator and lease-holder.
A spokeswoman for the Interior Department said, "Our priority remains the safe development of the nation's offshore energy resources, which is why we continue to approve extensions that meet regulatory standards."
The Interior Department, which oversees offshore oil development and collects royalties, has been trying to show that it has become a tougher, but still fair, regulator of the Gulf of Mexico's oil riches.
Its reputation was battered when lives were lost and an environmental disaster unfolded after the massive Deepwater Horizon well blow-out and oil spill last year, when BP sought - and the government approved - last-minute changes to the well design, which some investigators say contributed to a chaotic environment aboard the drilling rig. The government was roundly criticised for weak oversight of safety rules.
Now the department must decide whether to fight Exxon in court or settle and allow it to develop the oil. Turning the leases over to another company would mean further delays to the tax royalties that would go to government coffers. At current prices, potential royalties paid to the government over the lifetime of a one billion-barrel field would be about $US10.95 billion ($10.38bn).
The oil industry, led vocally by Exxon, has said that developing oil fields in the deepest reaches of the gulf takes time to do safely. And by threatening to take away a massive discovery, the industry says that the government is sending the message that oil companies need to be in a rush to produce.
The possibility that Exxon could lose this oil will likely send shockwaves through the industry. "This is unprecedented," said Amy Myers Jaffe, associate director of the Energy Program at Rice University in Houston. "The question is: Do our offshore rules allow for flexibility? You don't want to let companies sit on a discovery. We definitely don't want to send the industry a message that you need to be in a rush or we'll take the oil away from you."
Exxon's lawsuit said the government has granted "thousands" of extensions over time. It said the government's denial of its extension relied on legal interpretations that it "had never before applied and had never before articulated". Statoil asserted in its lawsuit that no request for an extension for a deep-water development "had ever previously been denied". The Interior Department couldn't comment on this.
The Exxon discovery is believed to be the largest in the Gulf of Mexico since BP found the Thunder Horse Field in 1999, and it could be larger. The find also cements the Gulf of Mexico as a rich exploration area with large amounts of undiscovered oil that may keep oil companies active for years to come.
"This is very deep water, very complex structures and difficult-to-produce oil," said Exxon's Mr McGinn.
The dispute over Exxon's plans for the Julia field began in October 2008 - about a month before its 10-year leases expired - when it applied for a five-year "suspension of production".
Such extensions are "fairly common", said Elmer P Danenberger III, a former federal official who oversaw US offshore-drilling rules until he retired in 2009.
"I can honestly say that people who manage that program are really strict, which they need to be, or it will be abused. If you don't have a commercial discovery and a plan for moving ahead at the end of the lease term, that's it."
In February 2009, the government denied Exxon's request for an extension and, after a brief appeal, denied it again the following April. Exxon said in a letter at the time that it was "committed" to producing the oil, but the government said it didn't present a specific plan. The government contended this didn't meet legal requirements and denied the application.
More appeals followed, but Exxon lost its final appeal in May. The final decision hinged on whether Exxon had a concrete "commitment" to produce the oil in December 2008, when its lease expired. The director of the Office of Hearings and Appeals at the Interior Department ruled that it didn't.
Exxon is known in the industry for moving slowly and studying all options exhaustively before committing billions of dollars. But even if it loses this court case, all might not be lost. The Julia field consists of five leases - or square blocks in the Gulf of Mexico - and only three are being disputed. The other two aren't set to expire until 2013.
Additional reporting: Deborah Solomon, Angel Gonzalez
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/billions-at-stake-as-exxon-fights-for-lease-on-gulf-of-mexicos-julia-field/story-fn91v9q3-1226117513708
Monday, August 29, 2011
Beware of Prop 4 on Nov. 8!
On November 8, Texas voters will once again head to the polls to decide whether or not to approve 10 new ballot propositions passed by the 82nd Texas legislature. Prop 4 is based on the Constitutional Amendment HJR 63 authored by Rep. Joe Pickett (D - El Paso). Prop 4 would expand Transportation Reinvestment Zone (or TRZ) authority to counties.
TRZs heist property tax appraisal increases within the designated zone to pay for transportation projects, including to subsidize toll roads (which would be a DOUBLE TAX). TRZs allow local governments to use your property taxes to back bonds, and they don't have to go to the voters to do it. Your property taxes aren't going to go down once your city (which already has this authority) or county (who will get this authority if you vote 'yes' on Prop 4) sells bonds dependent on ever increasing property tax appraisals!
TRZs are a way for STATE legislators to punt on their responsibility to build and maintain STATE highways and their responsibility to end diversions of the gas tax to non-road uses, and allows them to outsource tax increases for roads by passing it down to the LOCAL level.
Spread the word! Vote 'No' on Prop 4!
Rick Perry tied to Agenda 21, globalist policies
Selling Texas to foreign creditors while jabbing Obama for same
By Terri Hall
Founder
Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom
August 15, 2011
Rick Perry may be good at invoking states rights and property rights, while disavowing ‘foreign creditors,’ but his actions as Texas’ longest serving governor tell a different story. Public private partnerships (or P3s) are part and parcel of the United Nations’ Agenda 21. Two of the purposes of Agenda 21 are to abolish private property and restrict mobility and P3s act as the vehicle to do it. Perry made P3s a centerpiece of his transportation policy since he stepped in as governor.
It started with the Trans Texas Corridor, known at the federal level as high priority corridors, corridors of the future, or the NAFTA superhighways. Just in Texas, it was to be a 4,000 mile multi-modal network of toll roads, rail lines, power transmission lines, pipelines, telecommunications lines and more. It was going to be financed, operated, and controlled by a foreign company granted massive swaths of land 1,200 feet (4 football fields) wide taken forcibly through eminent domain.
Called the biggest land grab in Texas history, it was going to gobble up 580,000 acres of private Texas land (the first corridor alone was to displace 1 million Texans) and hand it over to well-connected global players using P3s, who would gain exclusive rights to determine the route and what hotels, restaurants, and gas stations were along the corridor in a government-sanctioned monopoly for a half century. It was the worst case of eminent domain for private gain ever conceived.
Property rights shredded
The Trans Texas Corridor, and P3s in general, represent an imminent threat to private property rights. While lawmakers repealed the Trans Texas Corridor from state statute only months ago due to the public backlash, the re-named corridor (‘Innovative Connectivity Plan’) and its threat to property rights lives on through P3s. Two such projects underway by a Spanish developer, Cintra, will charge Texans 75 cents per mile in tolls (nearly $13 a day while Perry claims he hasn’t raised taxes or indebted Texans to foreign creditors) to access lanes on two public interstates -- I-635 and I-820. A third project being developed by the same company for two segments on SH 130 is, perhaps, the only leg of the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 project that will ever be built.
While Perry distracted Texans and tea partiers with ‘emergency’ resolutions on state sovereignty during the 82nd legislature, P3s spread from transportation projects to virtually every other type of public infrastructure in a bill, SB 1048, passed by the Texas legislature which he signed into law June 17. Now all public infrastructure, including public buildings, schools, nursing homes, ports, mass transit, etc. can be auctioned-off to private interests in long-term sweetheart deals with taxpayer subsidies and profit guarantees using P3s.
P3s give a private corporation the power to tax the public, whether through charging tolls or other so-called ‘user fees,’ to access their own public infrastructure, and, perhaps more insidious, allowing well-connected private entities to profit from concessions on land taken through eminent domain.
Why shouldn’t the original landowner be able to profit from developing his/her land instead of having the government take it in the name of a “public use” and give it to another developer, one with government connections? Perry’s administration of P3s is like his administration of his Emerging Technology Fund that’s been highly criticized for steering taxpayer money to Perry’s campaign donors -- a case in point, Dan Shelley.
Shelley worked for Cintra, who had its sites set on developing the Trans Texas Corridor. Shelley lands a job as Perry’s aide, steers the $7 billion corridor P3 to his former employer Cintra, then goes back to work for Cintra. That’s how Perry does business -- pay to play.
Texas “Open for Business”
While Perry is staking his campaign on Texas being the top net jobs creator, Perry’s version of Texas being “Open for Business” isn’t about low taxes and less regulation as much as it is about doing business with foreign companies, including selling off Texas’ sovereign land and public assets to foreign creditors, an issue which Perry’s first television ad uses to take aim at President Obama.
Aside from the P3s, Texas has 20 active deals going with the Chinese and has 32 foreign trade zones (FTZs), a vehicle to ease the flow of foreign goods into the United States that are chalk full of tax breaks for importers. Perry’s office promoted these FTZs in a document entitled Foreign Trade Zones: Texas Wide Open for Business and even dedicates a web site for Texas FTZs, http://www.texaswideopenforbusiness.com/.
A recent Washington Post article documents Perry’s work to get Chinese government-owned telecommunications company Huawei, to base its U.S. operations in Texas, a company that the U.S. government has deemed a threat to national security noting that “three times since 2008, a U.S. government security panel has blocked Huawei from acquiring or partnering with U.S. companies because of concerns that secrets could be leaked to China’s government or military.”
Perry’s coziness with the Chinese and foreign investors exposes a huge weakness in his right flank -- illegal immigration and open borders. The Trans Texas Corridor has been linked to the global plan to economically integrate North America, with the eventual goal of a common security perimeter modeled after the European Union. Perry ushered in in-state tuition for illegals and has long been an obstacle to immigration reform or any Arizona-style immigration law.
Perry’s record paints a much different picture than what candidate Perry would have us believe -- that he’s a states rights, Constitutionally limited government conservative that’s responsible for the “Texas miracle.” In reality, he’s more like an Agenda 21 globalist willing to sell America to the highest bidder.
Continue reading on Examiner.com Rick Perry tied to Agenda 21, globalist policies - San Antonio Transportation Policy
Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/transportation-policy-in-san-antonio/rick-perry-tied-to-agenda-21-globalist-policies#ixzz1V8WLRtO9
Open Letter to Rush & Hannity: Steer clear of Rick Perry
Written by Terri Hall
Thursday, 18 August 2011
Note: Sean Hannity went on a tirade against toll hikes in New York and New Jersey. Then in the same show praised Rick Perry as a conservative. Rush has been on the Perry bandwagon along with Glenn Beck. Either these guys don't vet a candidate's conservative credentials before they back 'em or they're going along with the establishment that truly fears an outsider they can't control, like a Ron Paul type of candidate.
Dear Hannity, Limbaugh, and Beck,
There's something you've got to know. I'm a Texan, and Rick Perry is the BIGGEST toll-tax happy Governor in the nation. He's trying to turn every single lane of a highway near my house into a tollway and make us pay TWICE for what's already built and paid for. He's doing it all over Texas with over 500 toll projects being contemplated RIGHT NOW, while he tries to tell America he's cut taxes.
Even worse, he's trying to sell-off our public highway system to foreign companies in public private partnerships or PPPs (right out of the the Agenda 21 playbook). PPPs are sweetheart deals with massive taxpayer subsidies (that socialize the losses and privatize the profits) and charge us 75 cents PER MILE to access our PUBLIC roads.
On one road in DFW that translates to $13/day in new taxes or over $3,000 a year MORE per year just to get to work. Meanwhile, he signed a budget that INCREASED diversions of our state gas taxes to non-road uses (fuel taxes are supposed to be Constitutionally dedicated fund only for roads, so he's violated the Texas Constitution!). That same budget was 'balanced' using accounting gimmicks putting payments to Medicaid and schools into the next budget year to get them off this budget’s books and make it look ‘balanced,’ plus he’s amassed a whopping $31 billion in road debt in just 5 years -- meanwhile State spending has nearly doubled on Rick Perry's watch...yet he claims to be all about upholding the Constitution and purports himself to be a fiscal conservative.
And all this is aside from his biggest albatross....the Trans Texas Corridor. It was to be a 4,000 mile network of toll roads 1,200 feet wide (that's FOUR football fields wide - would have bisected whole communities and displaced 1 million people on just the first corridor) and the biggest land grab in TX history forcibly taking 580,000 acres of private Texans' land and handing it over to a foreign company in one of these PPPs for a HALF CENTURY. Texans rebelled and the legislature finally repealed it, but Perry still lists it as one of his many accomplishments.
If you don't like the unaccountable taxation of toll roads (in the hands of unelected bureaucrats no less), then you won't like Rick Perry. Steer clear. Then there's his corporate welfare slush funds, the HPV vaccine mandate (as a pay-off to campaign donor Merck and its lobbyist, a former Perry staffer Mike Toomey), his weakness on illegal immigration and securing our borders, the revolving door between his aides and those doing business with the state, steering public money and high level appointments to his campaign donors, and the list goes on and on. Perry's rhetoric doesn't match his record.
If you want more info, we Texans have formed a grassroots organization established to fight this stuff: http://www.texasturf.org/.
Who’s paying Perry’s security costs?
By Sari Horwitz
Saturday, Aug 27, 2011
Since Rick Perry joined the presidential race this month, his campaign entourage has included not just the standard array of political advisers and aides, but a squad of Texas law enforcement agents.
The security forces scout and secure locations days in advance. Well before the governor’s visit to Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville, S.C., the weekend of Aug. 20, more than a half-dozen suited and armed agents were giving orders to the crowd of more than 400.
How much is this ever-present phalanx of state policemen costing the taxpayers of Texas? They won’t know at least until after next year’s presidential election, thanks to a provision, tucked into a school finance bill in July, that will keep the governor’s travel records sealed for 18 months.
Although security around public officials has been tightened considerably since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the secrecy that surrounds Perry’s travels is unique, according to Ken Bunting, executive director of the Missouri-based National Freedom of Information Coalition.
And the governor’s critics contend that it has as much to do with politics as safety — especially after the embarrassment for Perry when taxpayers learned that they had been paying for scuba gear and golf cart rentals for officers who accompanied Perry and his wife to the Bahamas in 2004.
“I’m appalled,” said Democratic state Rep. Lon Burnam. “He wants to keep the details buried when he goes to the Bahamas.”
Indeed, this is a battle that has been raging since long before Perry decided to run for president.
Texas newspapers have tried for years to see Perry’s travel records, which would include the costs of the governor’s security detail. But the state Department of Public Safety, run by Steve McCraw, a former FBI official and a longtime Perry friend, has said that the safety of Perry and his family could be jeopardized if the public knew how many officers accompany them, where they stay and Perry’s traveling patterns.
After the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express and Austin American-Statesman sued the DPS, two Texas courts ruled that the records should be released. They were overturned last month by the state Supreme Court. But the case is still alive: the Supreme Court sent it back to a lower court, ordering DPS to cite precisely which records would put Perry in danger if they were released.
In the meantime, during a special session that ended July 1, the Texas Legislature, at Perry’s urging, added language to a school finance bill that will seal the governor’s travel records for 18 months — until after the 2012 presidential election. The measure would cover the records going forward, not those in the past, which have been the subject of the court fight.
One Republican legislator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the governor as “extremely concerned” about keeping his records sealed, and said Perry was actively lobbying key legislators to get it passed in the waning days of the special session. The legislator said Perry’s wife, Anita, also was pressing legislators on the issue.
The move to seal the records has drawn criticism from Republicans as well as Democrats.
“The money belongs to the people of Texas and they need to have an account of it,” said state Rep. David Simpson (R), a freshman from Longview who was elected with tea party backing. “You can do this without jeopardizing security.”
State officials say they do provide summaries of the information for an array of top officials, but not the specifics, citing security concerns.
“The governor believes that we need to strike the right balance of transparency and accountability to taxpayers while maintaining a priority on security,” said Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for Perry.
Before Perry’s travel records were sealed, Texas newspapers were able to shed some light on his travel and the cost to taxpayers, including the Bahamas trip.
The records, reported in 2005 by the Austin American-Statesman, showed that Perry and staff members had traveled the previous year to the Bahamas for a meeting with top campaign donor James Leininger, a supporter of public school vouchers and charter schools, his wife, and Grover Norquist, a national anti-tax advocate. The records showed $4,200 in taxpayer money was spent for the squad of six state troopers who went along, including costs for renting scuba gear, golf cars and cellphones, according to the newspaper.
Perry said later that the trip was to discuss education policy and finance with his political and technical advisers “in a setting removed from daily distractions.”
In 2009, Perry traveled to Israel where he was given the “Defender of Jerusalem” award. According to a local television report, he and his wife flew first class at more than $5,000 per ticket, paid for by an energy company financier. Four security detail officers also went on the five-day trip at a cost of more than $70,000 to taxpayers. The expenses included $17,000 for rooms at the King David Hotel, nearly $13,000 for food and more than 350 hours in overtime pay.
Perry has said in the past that most of his frequent international travel has been to promote Texas and draw business to the state.
Open-records advocates in Texas say taxpayers have a right to know the costs of Perry’s security detail and the trips, especially long after the travel has occurred.
“The Perry administration is trying to hide the true cost of his out-of-state travel to the taxpayer,” said Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice.
State Rep. Charlie Geren (R), the House Administration Committee chairman, said the provision to seal the records came largely at the insistence of DPS head McCraw. McCraw was appointed to his post by a commission of Perry appointees shortly after a fire was set at the governor’s mansion in 2008.
The fire, which almost destroyed the 153-year-old mansion, was started by an unidentified person who tossed a Molotov cocktail on the front porch. No one was in the home, which had been closed for renovation.
While Perry pays for most of his travel from his campaign account and donated funds, costs for the security detail are paid largely out of the state highway fund, derived from a gasoline tax and vehicle registration fees.
horwitzs@washpost.com
Staff writers Philip Rucker and Karen Tumulty and news researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/rss.jsp?rssid=597&item=http%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2finvestigations%2fperrys-travel-security-costs-will-stay-secret-until-after-2012%2f2011%2f08%2f22%2fgIQANIZBjJ_mobile.mobile&cid=961405&spf=1
Saturday, Aug 27, 2011
Since Rick Perry joined the presidential race this month, his campaign entourage has included not just the standard array of political advisers and aides, but a squad of Texas law enforcement agents.
The security forces scout and secure locations days in advance. Well before the governor’s visit to Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville, S.C., the weekend of Aug. 20, more than a half-dozen suited and armed agents were giving orders to the crowd of more than 400.
How much is this ever-present phalanx of state policemen costing the taxpayers of Texas? They won’t know at least until after next year’s presidential election, thanks to a provision, tucked into a school finance bill in July, that will keep the governor’s travel records sealed for 18 months.
Although security around public officials has been tightened considerably since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the secrecy that surrounds Perry’s travels is unique, according to Ken Bunting, executive director of the Missouri-based National Freedom of Information Coalition.
And the governor’s critics contend that it has as much to do with politics as safety — especially after the embarrassment for Perry when taxpayers learned that they had been paying for scuba gear and golf cart rentals for officers who accompanied Perry and his wife to the Bahamas in 2004.
“I’m appalled,” said Democratic state Rep. Lon Burnam. “He wants to keep the details buried when he goes to the Bahamas.”
Indeed, this is a battle that has been raging since long before Perry decided to run for president.
Texas newspapers have tried for years to see Perry’s travel records, which would include the costs of the governor’s security detail. But the state Department of Public Safety, run by Steve McCraw, a former FBI official and a longtime Perry friend, has said that the safety of Perry and his family could be jeopardized if the public knew how many officers accompany them, where they stay and Perry’s traveling patterns.
After the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express and Austin American-Statesman sued the DPS, two Texas courts ruled that the records should be released. They were overturned last month by the state Supreme Court. But the case is still alive: the Supreme Court sent it back to a lower court, ordering DPS to cite precisely which records would put Perry in danger if they were released.
In the meantime, during a special session that ended July 1, the Texas Legislature, at Perry’s urging, added language to a school finance bill that will seal the governor’s travel records for 18 months — until after the 2012 presidential election. The measure would cover the records going forward, not those in the past, which have been the subject of the court fight.
One Republican legislator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the governor as “extremely concerned” about keeping his records sealed, and said Perry was actively lobbying key legislators to get it passed in the waning days of the special session. The legislator said Perry’s wife, Anita, also was pressing legislators on the issue.
The move to seal the records has drawn criticism from Republicans as well as Democrats.
“The money belongs to the people of Texas and they need to have an account of it,” said state Rep. David Simpson (R), a freshman from Longview who was elected with tea party backing. “You can do this without jeopardizing security.”
State officials say they do provide summaries of the information for an array of top officials, but not the specifics, citing security concerns.
“The governor believes that we need to strike the right balance of transparency and accountability to taxpayers while maintaining a priority on security,” said Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for Perry.
Before Perry’s travel records were sealed, Texas newspapers were able to shed some light on his travel and the cost to taxpayers, including the Bahamas trip.
The records, reported in 2005 by the Austin American-Statesman, showed that Perry and staff members had traveled the previous year to the Bahamas for a meeting with top campaign donor James Leininger, a supporter of public school vouchers and charter schools, his wife, and Grover Norquist, a national anti-tax advocate. The records showed $4,200 in taxpayer money was spent for the squad of six state troopers who went along, including costs for renting scuba gear, golf cars and cellphones, according to the newspaper.
Perry said later that the trip was to discuss education policy and finance with his political and technical advisers “in a setting removed from daily distractions.”
In 2009, Perry traveled to Israel where he was given the “Defender of Jerusalem” award. According to a local television report, he and his wife flew first class at more than $5,000 per ticket, paid for by an energy company financier. Four security detail officers also went on the five-day trip at a cost of more than $70,000 to taxpayers. The expenses included $17,000 for rooms at the King David Hotel, nearly $13,000 for food and more than 350 hours in overtime pay.
Perry has said in the past that most of his frequent international travel has been to promote Texas and draw business to the state.
Open-records advocates in Texas say taxpayers have a right to know the costs of Perry’s security detail and the trips, especially long after the travel has occurred.
“The Perry administration is trying to hide the true cost of his out-of-state travel to the taxpayer,” said Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice.
State Rep. Charlie Geren (R), the House Administration Committee chairman, said the provision to seal the records came largely at the insistence of DPS head McCraw. McCraw was appointed to his post by a commission of Perry appointees shortly after a fire was set at the governor’s mansion in 2008.
The fire, which almost destroyed the 153-year-old mansion, was started by an unidentified person who tossed a Molotov cocktail on the front porch. No one was in the home, which had been closed for renovation.
While Perry pays for most of his travel from his campaign account and donated funds, costs for the security detail are paid largely out of the state highway fund, derived from a gasoline tax and vehicle registration fees.
horwitzs@washpost.com
Staff writers Philip Rucker and Karen Tumulty and news researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/rss.jsp?rssid=597&item=http%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2finvestigations%2fperrys-travel-security-costs-will-stay-secret-until-after-2012%2f2011%2f08%2f22%2fgIQANIZBjJ_mobile.mobile&cid=961405&spf=1
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Barney Frank Caught Lying About Fannie Mae
Oh...I've got to save this one on the toothless, slobbering wonder also.
Democrats and Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae
Saving this 'cause Fox is going to tell me again one of these days that it's all the Republicans' fault and I don't want this far from my fingers.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
SOVEREIGNTY LOST IS LIBERTY LOST!
August 24, 2011 6:00 AM
Mr.Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
"Only now, nearly four years into the economic maelstrom of the financial crisis, do we see the real cost: national independence and sovereignty. It isn’t our money the Masters of the Universe want. It’s not land or other hard assets they crave. It’s our freedom they want, and the freedom of every other developed nation.
Now, I understand that at first blush such a statement may come across as a bit “black helicopter-ish” in tone and content. But, look at the facts.
Europe is the more severe and apparent case, but the same process is taking place in Japan and the United States. Greece and the other second-tier economies were allowed to borrow at will, piling on debt so high that their small populations could never repay them." (Exactly where the U.S. is headed.) "And, then the rug is pulled out from under them. What was the price of bailout? Submit to dictates from the EU. Greece was handed a laundry list of actions it had to take. Effectively, their governments were shoved aside while international bureaucrats took control.
Now, we learn that the same thuggish process has taken place in Italy. Prime Minister Berlusconi reportedly said, “With all those letters and communiqués, they [according to the paper, ‘they’ refers to the European Central Bank, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel] made us appear as a government under a compulsory administration. This is not true. Also, they decided to intervene in favour of our bonds to save themselves, not Italy.”
Ireland, Portugal, and Spain have also tasted the boot of the EU masters — either do as they say or drown. But, as Mr. Berlusconi so aptly points out, it is not Italy or Greece or any other country that is being “saved,” it is the banks and the tiny handful of plutocrats who own and run them. He warned that “if today it’s our turn, tomorrow it can be Paris’s turn.”
Entire nations of Europe are being pillaged to cover the bad bets of the banks. And the ultimate sacrifice demanded is their national integrity, their national independence. No more authoritative voice than socialist currency manipulator George Soros demands nothing less. In a column published recently, the socialist money-man called on Germans to, in effect, suck it up — pay the tab for Europe. Full national integration with nations losing the right to make fundamental spending decisions — sovereignty — is the price Soros and his predator band demand. (Sounds like the precursor to a "World currency" to me.)
A similar fate awaits the U.S. We have a President who proclaims the problems can be addressed if we just fix our “broken” political system. Parroted by Obama-poodle Ezra Kline in the Washington Post, there never is a discussion of exactly what changes have to be made to our political system in order to “fix things.” But given Obama’s authoritarian tendencies and the demands of his union and radical “green” backers, you can be sure of one thing: America will surrender even more of its independence to international gaggles, alphabet-soup U.N. agencies, and the world financial overseers.
From day one, Obama has pressed to submerge the United States under the thumb of others. His refusal to acknowledge the unique role of America in the world, his constant bowing and scraping to “world opinion,” and his unilateral implementation of un-ratified treaties all point to where he wants to take us.
The incessant call to bind the productive nations of the world into world organizational control, whether the U.N., the IMF, the World Bank, the G22 or other lesser known bodies, is becoming the hallmark of the economic crisis. Gordon Brown, the former socialist Prime Minister of Great Britain, wrote just this week of the need for a “world solution” to the financial crisis. Others are joining the chorus.
Americans were warned of this early in our history. As George Washington observed in his Farewell Address, “foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.” America, or European nations or Japan for that matter, will not find prosperity or peace by submitting to the internationalists. The World Governance crowd has nothing for us. They are the enemy of all that is truly American.
So, my first suggestions for budget cuts to the extra-legal Super Committee would be to eliminate all funding for the IMF, the World Bank and the U.N. If we need to spend money overseas to support and defend the U.S., let accountable, U.S. employees spend it, not unelected, faceless bureaucrats who in their heart hate American independence and sovereignty."
Mr. Wilson is a very wise man; his statements above are exactly in line with what I have been researching to date. The Money Masters, including and especially George Soros, are at the heart of all the world's ills! These people, the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and all the others who finance the whole world, are the most vile, evil creatures to walk the face of earth. They practice usury of the worst kind! If we wish to remain free, we must divorce ourselves from them and their kind; expose them for the gutter rats and vermin that they are! ~Lordhawke
Now, I understand that at first blush such a statement may come across as a bit “black helicopter-ish” in tone and content. But, look at the facts.
Europe is the more severe and apparent case, but the same process is taking place in Japan and the United States. Greece and the other second-tier economies were allowed to borrow at will, piling on debt so high that their small populations could never repay them." (Exactly where the U.S. is headed.) "And, then the rug is pulled out from under them. What was the price of bailout? Submit to dictates from the EU. Greece was handed a laundry list of actions it had to take. Effectively, their governments were shoved aside while international bureaucrats took control.
Now, we learn that the same thuggish process has taken place in Italy. Prime Minister Berlusconi reportedly said, “With all those letters and communiqués, they [according to the paper, ‘they’ refers to the European Central Bank, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel] made us appear as a government under a compulsory administration. This is not true. Also, they decided to intervene in favour of our bonds to save themselves, not Italy.”
Ireland, Portugal, and Spain have also tasted the boot of the EU masters — either do as they say or drown. But, as Mr. Berlusconi so aptly points out, it is not Italy or Greece or any other country that is being “saved,” it is the banks and the tiny handful of plutocrats who own and run them. He warned that “if today it’s our turn, tomorrow it can be Paris’s turn.”
Entire nations of Europe are being pillaged to cover the bad bets of the banks. And the ultimate sacrifice demanded is their national integrity, their national independence. No more authoritative voice than socialist currency manipulator George Soros demands nothing less. In a column published recently, the socialist money-man called on Germans to, in effect, suck it up — pay the tab for Europe. Full national integration with nations losing the right to make fundamental spending decisions — sovereignty — is the price Soros and his predator band demand. (Sounds like the precursor to a "World currency" to me.)
A similar fate awaits the U.S. We have a President who proclaims the problems can be addressed if we just fix our “broken” political system. Parroted by Obama-poodle Ezra Kline in the Washington Post, there never is a discussion of exactly what changes have to be made to our political system in order to “fix things.” But given Obama’s authoritarian tendencies and the demands of his union and radical “green” backers, you can be sure of one thing: America will surrender even more of its independence to international gaggles, alphabet-soup U.N. agencies, and the world financial overseers.
From day one, Obama has pressed to submerge the United States under the thumb of others. His refusal to acknowledge the unique role of America in the world, his constant bowing and scraping to “world opinion,” and his unilateral implementation of un-ratified treaties all point to where he wants to take us.
The incessant call to bind the productive nations of the world into world organizational control, whether the U.N., the IMF, the World Bank, the G22 or other lesser known bodies, is becoming the hallmark of the economic crisis. Gordon Brown, the former socialist Prime Minister of Great Britain, wrote just this week of the need for a “world solution” to the financial crisis. Others are joining the chorus.
Americans were warned of this early in our history. As George Washington observed in his Farewell Address, “foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.” America, or European nations or Japan for that matter, will not find prosperity or peace by submitting to the internationalists. The World Governance crowd has nothing for us. They are the enemy of all that is truly American.
So, my first suggestions for budget cuts to the extra-legal Super Committee would be to eliminate all funding for the IMF, the World Bank and the U.N. If we need to spend money overseas to support and defend the U.S., let accountable, U.S. employees spend it, not unelected, faceless bureaucrats who in their heart hate American independence and sovereignty."
Mr. Wilson is a very wise man; his statements above are exactly in line with what I have been researching to date. The Money Masters, including and especially George Soros, are at the heart of all the world's ills! These people, the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and all the others who finance the whole world, are the most vile, evil creatures to walk the face of earth. They practice usury of the worst kind! If we wish to remain free, we must divorce ourselves from them and their kind; expose them for the gutter rats and vermin that they are! ~Lordhawke
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