Wednesday, December 18, 2013

US Army War College considers removing prints depicting Robert E. Lee, Confederate generals

US Army War College considers removing prints depicting Robert E. Lee, Confederate generals

The U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania is considering removing prints that depict Robert E. Lee and other Confederate generals after at least one official questioned why the school honors those who fought against America.
The college is currently conducting an inventory of its paintings and photographs, which feature Confederate generals such as Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. The school plans to re-hang the images later in specific categories to showcase the military’s history, the Washington Times reports.
“There will be change: over the years very fine artwork has been hung with care – but little rationale or overall purpose,” US Army Major General Tony Cucolo, the commandant of the college, said in a statement posted on the school’s website Wednesday afternoon.
“I will… approach our historical narrative with keen awareness and adherence to the seriousness of several things: accurate capture of US military history, good, bad and ugly; a Soldier’s life of selfless service to our Nation; and our collective solemn oath to defend the Constitution of the United States (not a person or a symbol, but a body of ideals),” he added. “Those are the things I will be looking to reinforce with any changes to the artwork.”
But college Spokeswoman Carol Kerr told the newspaper that at least one official -- who was not identified – asked the administration why the school honors generals that were enemies of the U.S. Army.
“There will be a dialogue when we develop the idea of what do we want the hallway to represent,” she said. “[Lee] was certainly not good for the nation. This is the guy we faced on the battlefield whose entire purpose in life was to destroy the nation as it was then conceived. … This is all part of an informed discussion.”
The U.S. Army War College, which opened in Carlisle in 1901 to study the lessons of war, graduates more than 300 officers, foreign students and civilians each year, the Washington Times reports.
Before the college opened, Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia for the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Lee and Jackson are both graduates of the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.

New Obama Adviser Compares Republicans To A 'Cult Worthy Of Jonestown' — And Then Apologizes

New Obama Adviser Compares Republicans To A 'Cult Worthy Of Jonestown' — And Then Apologizes

John Podesta
AP
John Podesta, who last week was named as a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, apologized Wednesday morning after being quoted as comparing House Republicans to cult followers of Jim Jones. In an interview earlier this fall — part of which was published in a lengthy Politico Magazine profile — Podesta said that Obama and his advisers should look to work around Congress for the rest of his second term. He suggested that Congress was uncooperative — and then compared the House to members of the cult that committed mass suicide in 1978.
"They should focus on executive action, given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress," Podesta said.
House Speaker John Boehner's office quickly ripped the comments.
"For those who’ve forgotten, a Democratic member of Congress was murdered in Jonestown and a current one, Rep. Jackie Speier, was shot five times during the same incident," Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said in a statement.
"If this is the attitude of the new White House, it’s hard to see how the president gets anything done again."
Later Wednesday morning, Podesta apologized on Twitter:
This is not the first time a White House aide has been criticized for a colorful metaphor about House Republicans. In October, in the midst of the last debt-ceiling fight, White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer compared Republicans to terrorists, arsonists, and kidnappers.
"What we're not for is negotiating with people with a bomb strapped to their chest," Pfeiffer said then on CNN.

NOW WATCH – Paul Krugman: Obamacare Has Won

Former NSA Official Says America Is Now ‘A Police State’; The Fed Makes A Move; Babara Walters Hoped Obama Would Be ‘The Next Messiah’; Guilty Until Proven Innocent In Colorado; Feinstein’s Spy Bill Takes A Hit; Caption This Obamacare Dork— Personal Liberty Digest™ P.M. Edition 12-18-2013

Former NSA Official Says America Is Now ‘A Police State’; The Fed Makes A Move; Babara Walters Hoped Obama Would Be ‘The Next Messiah’; Guilty Until Proven Innocent In Colorado; Feinstein’s Spy Bill Takes A Hit; Caption This Obamacare Dork— Personal Liberty Digest™ P.M. Edition 12-18-2013

December 18, 2013 by  

Brush up on the day’s headlines with Personal Liberty’s P.M. Edition news links.

Fed Stimulus Taper Begins

The Nation’s central bank will begin scaling back its massive bond-buying stimulus, reducing the amount of bonds it purchases to prop up the economy in monthly increments of $10 billion, the Federal Reserve announced Wednesday. Full Story… 

Cult Of Personality: Obama Was ‘The Next Messiah’, Says Barbra Walters

During an interview with Piers Morgan that aired on Tuesday, 84-year-old television personality Barbra Walters absolved President Barack Obama of any Presidential failures. The aging newswoman said that she and other liberals thought that Obama was “the next messiah,” which set expectations too high. Read More…  

New Colorado Law Will Treat Drivers Who Refuse Breathalyzer Tests As Criminals

Starting in 2014, Colorado drivers who refuse to submit to roadside sobriety tests will be treated by police as though they have a record of driving drunk – regardless of whether they actually do. Full Story… 

‘We Are Now In A Police State’: Washington’s Blog Interviews Former Top NSA Official

A 32-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency, Bill Binney was the senior technical director within the agency and managed thousands of NSA employees. Binney told Washington’s Blog that the U.S. has become a police state. Full Story… 

54 Civil Liberties And Public Interest Organizations Oppose The FISA Improvements Act

Fifty-four civil liberties and public interest groups sent a letter to Congressional leadership today opposing S. 1631, the FISA Improvements Act. The bill, promoted by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), seeks to legalize and extend National Security Agency mass surveillance programs, including the classified phone records surveillance program confirmed by documents released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden this summer. Full Story… 

Help Us Fix Another Obamacare Propaganda Effort, The Grown Child

Courtesy of Barack Obama’s official Twitter account, which is operated by Organizing for Action, here’s another opportunity for Personal Liberty readers to re-imagine a bit of the President’s ridiculous Obamacare propaganda effort. Fix It… 

Valerie Jarrett: 'Best and brightest' tech leaders praised White House for fixing Obamacare website

Valerie Jarrett: 'Best and brightest' tech leaders praised White House for fixing Obamacare website

By CHARLIE SPIERING | DECEMBER 18, 2013 AT 2:55 PM
White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett claimed that some of the "best and brightest" tech leaders who met with President Obama on Tuesday praised White House officials for fixing the Obamacare website.
During the meeting, Jarrett revealed, Obama's outgoing point man for fixing the website, Jeff Zients, gave a presentation on the work they did to fix the plagued website after its disastrous Oct. 1 launch.
"One of the very positive feedback that we received from the technology folks — and we clearly had the best and the brightest technology in the room yesterday — and after they heard the presentation from Jeff (Zients), the feedback that they gave him was that he had done everything that they would have done once he came in to try to fix the site," Jarrett said during a Politico Playbook Breakfast interview on Wednesday morning.
Obama met with 15 officials representing major tech companies, including Google chairman Eric Schmidt, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
Jarrett explained that Zients began the meeting with a presentation on the work they had done to fix the healthcare.gov website and had a "constructive conversation" about the process.
Jarrett responded to reports that some of the tech leaders complained that the White House meeting was more about Obamacare than their privacy concerns surrounding the National Security Agency.
According to the Guardian, several senior executives pushed back against White House officials for trying to connect the event with healthcare.gov.
One official who met with Obama told CNN, "We didn't fly across the country for a discussion on healthcare.gov."
After the White House event, the group issued a short joint statement that made no mention of the Obamacare website.
"We appreciated the opportunity to share directly with the president our principles on government surveillance that we released last week and we urge him to move aggressively on reform," the statement read.

New Hampshire State Rep. JR Hoell Suggests Armed Resistance Against US Government (Audio)

New Hampshire State Rep. JR Hoell Suggests Armed Resistance Against US Government (Audio)

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New Hampshire State Rep. JR Hoell (R) recently predicted that conservatives may need to rise up in armed resistance against the Democratically-elected US government.
Hoell was discussing former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), whom Hoell thinks is too liberal to run for New Hampshire's U.S. Senate seat, on the Internet radio show GrokTALK, reports MiscellanyBlue.com (audio below).
According to RightWingWatch.org, Hoell was promoting an anti-Brown rally, which includes a raffle of an AR-15 assault rifle. The rally is co-sponsored by Gun Owners of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Firearms Coalition.
"We’re not here to threaten anybody," claimed Hoell. "We’re here standing on our soapbox as opposed to standing with our ammo box in hand to make a point politically. The message needs to get out that Scott Brown does not represent New Hampshire."
"If things continue the way they are, there may be a day or a time where firearms and ammo are necessary," predicted Hoell. "It happened in the Revolutionary War. I’d like to think we’re not there yet, but as things continue to unravel, that may be the next step."
Sources: GraniteGrok.com, RightWingWatch.org, MiscellanyBlue.com

POLITICO: Obamacare Website Failure Could Doom Immigration Reform

POLITICO: Obamacare Website Failure Could Doom Immigration Reform

The botched Obamacare rollout may threaten the fate of comprehensive immigration reform, as Americans are frustrated with the disastrous Healthcare.gov website and may also be skeptical of the federal government's ability to deliver on various border security and E-verify measures reliant on computer technology. 

Even Politico had to ask, "If the government can’t build a website, how can it be trusted to correctly process millions of undocumented immigrants and require every employer to verify the status of their workers?"
That is the question to which Americans will be demanding answers when the House likely takes up comprehensive immigration reform at the beginning of next year. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, said Americans have lost more confidence with the government after Obamacare. "Our experience with Affordable Care Act does not help when you look at other big things like immigration reform.”
The Senate bill that passed, in addition to lowering the wages of working class Americans, would purportedly have measures in place to expand the country's temporary worker program and the E-Verify system--criticized as unreliable--and enact more border security measures.
As Breitbart News has reported, border security measures proposed in the House have been criticized for their "meaningless metrics" that would rely on government's use of various technologies and would be susceptible to manipulation for political purposes.

Is Barack Obama Using a Fake Soc. Sec. Number? Gov’t May Be Forced to Answer

Is Barack Obama Using a Fake Soc. Sec. Number? Gov’t May Be Forced to Answer

Warner Todd Huston

Get ready birthers, Orly Taitz has won a small victory for those of you who think Obama is not a U.S. citizen. It seems that the US government may have to answer to why it seems that the Social Security number the President is using doesn’t quite seem legitimate.
(See also: Was Fainting Woman In Rose Garden Just Another Obama Fake, Kind Of Like His Birth Certificate Is Fake?)
Birther queen Orly Taitz has been filing one lawsuit after another to try to “learn the truth,” she says, of Obama’s true background. Is he a U.S. citizen? Taitz says no and has been trying for years to find the smoking gun that proves it.
But this time she has a small opening toward that end. Taitz contends that Barack Obama is using the Social Security number of a man named Harry Bounel. Taitz has filed with the Social Security Administration to get these records but the SSA has stonewalled Taitz when she has filed for Freedom of Information Act requests saying there is “no information” in their records to send to her.
(See also: Jay Leno Slams Obama’s Feckless Syria Policy)
Taitz went to court over the SSA’s stonewalling and has found a judge who has ruled that the government must respond to her requests on Obama’s and this Harry Bounel’s SS number records.
In a press release, Taitz reports the following:
Judge Hollander in Maryland gives Attorney Orly Taitz 21 days to file a second amended complaint and add allegations in regards to an improper withholding by the Social Security Administration of records of Harry Bounel, whose Social security number is being illegally used by Barack Obama. When Taitz filed the complaint, SSA did not respond at all. After the law suit was filed, SSA responded by fraudulently claiming that the records were not found. Taitz responded that this is a fraudulent assertion, since the records were found before and denied to another petitioner due to privacy concerns, however Social Security has no right to claim privacy as according to their own 120 year rule they have a duty to release the records. The judge stated that the plaintiff Taitz might be correct, however at this time she cannot rule in her favor as her original complaint was filed before SSA responded, so the judge gave Taitz an opportunity to refile a second amended complaint and add new allegations, stating the SSA responded but improperly hidden the records . This is a great development. This all but assures that the judge will order the SSA to release the SS-5, Social Security application of resident of CT, Harrison (Harry) Bounel, whose CT SSN 042-68-4425 was stolen by Obama and used in Obama’s 2009 tax returns, which initially were posted on WhiteHouse.gov without proper redaction, without flattening of the file . Taitz will be very careful not to be Breitbarted or Fuddied in the next 21 days.
(See also: 4 Questions Every American Needs To Ask About Obama’s Birth Certificate)
Well, what do you guys think? Is Taitz finally close to the first step in proving something? Ot is this just another birther pipe dream? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.
(H/T The Free Patriot)
Please Sign The Petition To Repeal Obamacare: CLICK HERE.

Fine print: State can seize your assets to pay for care after you’re forced into Medicaid by Obamacare

Fine print: State can seize your assets to pay for care after you’re forced into Medicaid by Obamacare

posted at 9:41 pm on December 16, 2013 by Mary Katharine Ham

My, this is an unpleasant consequence of Obamacare. I’m not going to call it unintended because in its current form, it potentially earns a bunch of money for states, so I’m pretty sure that’s intentional. What I think is unintentional is anyone noticing this is what they’re up to.
But the Seattle Times noticed:
It wasn’t the moonlight, holiday-season euphoria or family pressure that made Sophia Prins and Gary Balhorn, both 62, suddenly decide to get married.
It was the fine print.
As fine print is wont to do, it had buried itself in a long form — Balhorn’s application for free health insurance through the expanded state Medicaid program. As the paperwork lay on the dining-room table in Port Townsend, Prins began reading.
She was shocked: If you’re 55 or over, Medicaid can come back after you’re dead and bill your estate for ordinary health-care expenses.
The way Prins saw it, that meant health insurance via Medicaid is hardly “free” for Washington residents 55 or older. It’s a loan, one whose payback requirements aren’t well advertised. And it penalizes people who, despite having a low income, have managed to keep a home or some savings they hope to pass to heirs, Prins said.
So, here’s the deal. There used to be a provision whereby the state could recuperate funds spent on a Medicaid patient post-55 years old from whatever assets he owned. So, a low-income individual in nursing home care after age 55 might pass away and his kids would find out the family home or car of whatever he had to his name had to be bought back from the state if they wanted it. It’s called estate recovery, and sounds pretty shady if it’s not boldly advertised as the terms for Medicaid enrollment, which is most definitely is not.
Before the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, there weren’t that many people in Medicaid who had much in the way of assets for seizing. But now that Medicaid enrollment requirements have been relaxed, more people with assets but low income are joining the program or being forced into it. For instance, a couple in their 50s who, say, retired early after losing jobs in the bad economy may have assets but show a very low income. Under Obamacare, if their income is low enough to qualify for Medicaid, they must enroll in Medicaid unless they want to buy totally unsubsidized coverage in the now-inflated individual market. As teh Times notes, this is no small difference:
People cannot receive a tax credit to subsidize their purchase of a private health plan if their income qualifies them for Medicaid, said Bethany Frey, spokeswoman for the Washington Health Benefit Exchange.
But they could buy a health plan without a tax credit, she added.
For someone age 55 to 64 at the Medicaid-income level — below $15,856 a year — it’s quite a jump from free Medicaid health insurance to an unsubsidized individual plan. Premiums in King County for an age 60 non-tobacco user for the most modest plan run from $451 to $859 per month.
The couple in the Times story was able to marry, combine their incomes, and get out of the Medicaid trap. Others will not be so lucky, and may not even read the fine print:
Prins, an artist, and Balhorn, a retired fisherman-turned-tango instructor, separately qualified for health insurance through Medicaid based on their sole incomes.
But if they were married, they calculated, they could “just squeak by” with enough income to qualify for a subsidized health plan — and avoid any encumbrance on the home they hope to leave to Prins’ two sons.
For no one else in the world is it a-okay to give low-income people a loan that might endanger their family’s assets and not even clearly inform them they’re getting a loan.
This Daily Kos diarist has a nice write-up (I know) on the toll this could take on lower and middle-class people looking for relief and getting what amounts to a surprise predatory loan instead:
We haven’t had lots of people younger than 65 on Medicaid, because in most states simply earning less than the Federal Poverty Level did not qualify one for Medicaid.
And we haven’t had many people with lots of assets on Medicaid, because in most places you have to have less than around $2400 to your name before Medicaid will cover you. You can keep your house and your car, but Medicaid reserves the right to put liens on them and take them when you die.
But now we have the Affordable Care Act, and its expectation that everyone in the lower tier of income will end up in the Medicaid system. To accomplish this, they have dropped the asset test. So now we will have lots of people ages 55-64, who have assets but not a lot of income right now, for whatever reason, on Medicaid.
The kicker of it is, if you make the right amount to qualify for a subsidized health insurance plan, your costs are going to be shared and subsidized by the government. But if you go on Medicaid, you owe the entire amount that Medicaid spends on you from the day you turn 55…
How will this play out? No one knows, as far as I can tell. But it is easy to see how this could become a real problem. If someone is low income and goes on Medicaid, will Medicaid put a lien on their house? If they need to sell their house and move, will they then lose all their equity in paying off the lien? Will people get hit with bills and liens for many thousands of dollars, even if they were healthy and hardly ever went to the doctor?
The fact that this is being treated with seriousness at Kos is an indication of how large a liability it could be for this government program. Washington is scrambling to change the law. No doubt other states will start looking at their implementation of this part of Obamacare. But there will be people caught unaware that their houses effectively belong to the government because the government forced them into Medicaid coverage. You’re welcome!

Obama’s extreme use of executive discretion



Obama’s extreme use of executive discretion

“To contend that the obligation imposed on the president to see the laws faithfully executed implies a power to forbid their execution is a novel construction of the Constitution, and is entirely inadmissible.”
— U.S. Supreme Court, 1838
George Will
Will writes a twice-a-week column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs.
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Congressional Republicans’ long-simmering dismay about Barack Obama’s offenses against the separation of powers became acute when events compelled him to agree with them that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could not be implemented as written. But even before he decreed alterations of key ACA provisions — delaying enforcement of certain requirements for health insurance and enforcement of employers’ coverage obligations — he had effectively altered congressionally mandated policy by altering work requirements of the 1996 welfare reform; and compliance requirements of the No Child Left Behind education law; and some enforcement concerning marijuana possession; and the prosecution of drug crimes entailing mandatory minimum sentences; and the enforcement of immigration laws pertaining to some young people.
Republicans tend to regard Obama’s aggressive assertion of enforcement discretion as idiosyncratic — an anti-constitutional impatience arising from his vanity. This interpretation is encouraged by his many assertions that he “can’t wait” for our system of separated powers to ratify his policy preferences. Still, to understand not only the extravagance of Obama’s exercises of executive discretion but also how such discretion necessarily grows as government does, read Zachary S. Price’s “Enforcement Discretion and Executive Duty” forthcoming in the Vanderbilt Law Review. Price, a visiting professor at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law, demonstrates that the Constitution’s “text, history, and normative underpinnings” do not justify the permissive reading Obama gives to its take care clause, which says the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
It is, says Price, part of America’s “deeply rooted constitutional tradition” that “presidents, unlike English kings, lack authority to suspend statutes” or make them inapplicable to certain individuals or groups. Indeed, the take care clause may have been intended to codify the Framers’ repudiation of royal suspending prerogatives. Hence the absence of an anti-suspension provision in the Bill of Rights.
Congress’s excessive expansion of the number of federal crimes, however, has required the husbanding of scarce prosecutorial and judicial resources, which has made enforcement discretion central to the operation of today’s federal criminal justice system. But Obama’s uses of executive discretion pertain to the growth of the administrative state.
The danger, Price says, is that the inevitable non-enforcement of many federal criminal laws will establish “a new constitutional norm of unbounded executive discretion” beyond the criminal justice system. Price says the enforcement discretion exercised in the context of the resource-constrained criminal justice system provides “no support for presidential authority to decline enforcement with respect to any other given civil regulatory regime, such as the Affordable Care Act.”
The difference is between priority-setting and policy-setting, the latter being a congressional prerogative because of Congress’s primacy in lawmaking. Absent “a clear statutory basis, an executive waiver of statutory requirements” is “presumptively impermissible.”
It has, however, become “a nearly irresistible temptation” for presidents to infer permission from the courts’ abandonment of judicial review that limits Congress’s power to delegate essentially legislative powers to the executive branch. So, Price asks: “If President Obama may postpone enforcement of the ACA’s insurance requirements and employer mandate, could a subsequent president ignore the Affordable Care Act altogether?”
In 1998, the Supreme Court held that “there is no provision in the Constitution that authorizes the president to enact, to amend, or to repeal statutes.” But by claiming a power to revise laws through suspension of portions of them, Obama is exercising what Price calls a “second veto.” Actually, he is wielding what the Constitution forbids and no statute can grant — a line-item veto, which violates the presentment clause. The Constitution says “every bill” passed by Congress shall be “presented” to the president, who shall sign “it” or return “it” with his objections. The antecedent of the pronoun is the bill — all of it, not bits of it.
The sprawl of the modern administrative state requires vast delegations of powers, often indistinguishable from legislative powers, to an executive branch whose scale defies even adequate congressional oversight. Fortunately, in the Newtonian physics of our constitutional system, wherein rivalries among the three branches are supposed to trend toward equilibrium, actions often produce equal and opposite reactions. Obama’s aggressive assertions of executive discretion are provoking countervailing attention to constitutional proprieties. His departures from the norms proper to the take care clause may yet cause Congress to take better care of its prerogatives.

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CIA nominee snubs Senate on legal memos

CIA nominee snubs Senate on legal memos

President Barack Obama's nominee to be general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency indicated at her confirmation hearing Tuesday that she opposes giving members of Congress access to Justice Department legal memoranda that govern CIA activities such as interrogation and drone strikes.
The nominee who rebuffed Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, Caroline Krass, has served as a top lawyer in the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel and at times as the acting director of that office.
Feinstein opened her questioning of Krass by asking her if she would commit to sharing OLC opinions with the Senate panel.
"This isn't just idle curiousity. It is really to understand the direction and rules under which certain programs operate," Feinstein said. "We have found that these opinions are actually indispensable to effective oversight." She said that an inspector general report found the CIA waterboarded 9/11 suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a manner inconsistent with the OLC opinion on waterboarding.
Krass responded initially by saying she was committed to making sure senators on the panel understood the legal framework CIA is working in, but she stopped short of committing to share the written opinions.
"I do believe the committee needs to fully udnerstand the legal basis for any activities, intelligence acitvities, in which the CIA is engaged, including covert action," Krass said.
Feinstein was unsatisfied and pressed Krass for a "yes or no" answer on access to the opinions. What the senator got sounded pretty much like a "no."
"The OLC opinions represent predecisional, confidential legal advice that’s been provided. Protecting confidentiality of that legal advice preserves space for their to be a full and frank discussion among clients, policymakers and their lawyers within the executive branch and really furthers the rule of law and allows for effective functioning of the executive branch," Krass said, repeating her offer to help the committee understand the administration's legal thinking and saying she has "an almost unique ability to do that."
"I think we do understand it," Feinstein replied. "I think it has been explained to us but every OLC opinion has been a fight to obtain and we have obtained very few of them, only those that relate to U.S. citizens."
Feinstein didn't immediate explain what she meant, but she may have been referring to a battle the committee had earlier this year to get opinions on targeting terrorism suspects for deadly force in drone attacks. The confirmation of CIA Director John Brennan was held up for a time until President Barack Obama agreed to share legal memos on the subject with Congressional committees.
Joining Feinstein, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she was "troubled" by Krass's answer. Collins noted that the Office of Legal Counsel often releases unclassified opinions.
"They go through an extensive review process....We try to publish opinions when we can to promote transparency," Krass said, before saying there would be some merit to considering that for classified legal opinions. "I do think it's worth exploring whether there could be some kind of similar process with respect to classified OLC opinions."
Pressed by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Krass said she does not believe Congress has a right to Office of Legal Counsel opinions.
"I do not think so, as a general matter," she said.
Last month, the Justice Department pressed a federal appeals court to preserve the Office of Legal Counsel's ability to keep legal opinions from the public.
Collins also raised a 2011 episode in which Obama rejected a legal interpretation advanced by Krass and the Pentagon's top lawyer at the time, Jeh Johnson, which would have curtailed U.S. operations in Libya. Obama sided with his White House counsel and State Department lawyers in deciding to continue the operation.
In an indirect way, Collins suggested Krass might have quit if she thought what the president proposed doing was illegal.
"What I don't like seeing is the administration shopping around until it gets a legal opinion with which it agrees and that seems to have happened in the case of Libya," Collins said.
UPDATE (Tuesday, 4:05 P.M.): This post has been updated with the exchange with Levin.
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thank you anonymous

thank you me you much nicer then me
me i would of deleted all they files but i wont let any one any more on any of my face book pages
i fell bad for remove in some of my friends
but i dont need to be hacked every day

Judge orders Obama foreign aid order released

Judge orders Obama foreign aid order released


Rejecting one of the Obama White House's most aggressive attempts to preserve executive branch secrecy, a federal judge Tuesday ordered the disclosure of a government-wide foreign-aid directive President Barack Obama signed in 2010 but refused to make public.
The Justice Department asserted that the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development was covered by executive privilege, even though it is unclassified and reflected standing guidance to agencies rather than advice given to the president.
Acting on a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Center for Effective Government, U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle concluded that the presidential order is not properly within the bounds of the so-called "presidential communications privilege." The judge went further, calling "troubling" the sweeping nature of the government's argument's in the case.
(PHOTOS: Obama’s second term)
"This is not a case involving 'a quintessential and nondelegable Presidential power' — such as appointment and removal of Executive Branch officials...where separation of powers concerns are at their highest. Instead, the development and enactment of foreign development policy can be and is “exercised or performed without the President’s direct involvement," Huvelle wrote in her opinion (posted here.)
Huvelle noted that she ordered the document delivered to her under seal last month and said she disagreed with the government's contention that the order is "'revelatory of the President's deliberations' such that its public disclosure would undermine future decision-making." She also found that "'the President's ability to communicate his [final] decisions privately' ... is not implicated, since the [order] was distributed far beyond the President’s close advisers and its substance was widely discussed by the President in the media."
(Also on POLITICO: Klayman crows on NSA win)
"Here there is no evidence that the [directive] was intended to be, or has been treated as, a confidential presidential communication," wrote Huvelle, a Clinton appointee.
The Obama Administration argued that the distribution of the document was restricted to those with a "need to know," but the judge dismissed that contention as "amorphous."
"The government has not, even after plaintiff raised the issue...defined what 'need to know' means," Huvelle wrote.
(Also on POLITICO: NSA ruling fallout hits White House)
The judge also suggested the administration had lost sight of the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act and transparency itself.
"The government appears to adopt the cavalier attitude that the President should be permitted to convey orders throughout the Executive Branch without public oversight ... to engage in what is in effect governance by 'secret law,'" Huvelle said.
The White House referred a request for comment on the ruling to the Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to a query about the case.

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Podesta justifies White House dictatorial action by claiming GOP murderous cult

Podesta justifies White House dictatorial action by claiming GOP murderous cult

John Podesta, the new "executive power" czar, signaled that the White House House would take even more unilateral action bypassing Congress, and justified it by comparing the GOP to a murderous cult, Townhall reported Wednesday, citing an article at Politico magazine.
Politico's Glenn Thrush said he was told that Podesta's hiring "represents the clearest sign to date of the administration’s interest in shifting the paradigm of Obama’s presidency through the forceful, unapologetic and occasionally provocative application of White House power.
“They need to focus on executive action given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress,” Podesta reportedly told Thrush.
"That's right," Conn Carroll wrote at Townhall. "Obama's new counselor, the man in charge of saving his presidency, believes the Republican Party is a murderous cult and that this justifies Obama's extra-constitutional use of executive power."
This is not the first time Podesta -- nicknamed “Skippy” by subordinates in the Clinton White House for having a "short fuse" -- has suggested Obama bypass Congress and effectively rule like a dictator.
After Democrats got shellacked in the 2010 midterm elections, his group, the Center for American Progress, suggested Obama use all of his executive authority -- including his power as Commander-in-Chief of the military -- to push his progressive agenda.
Carroll suggested every Republican in Washington, D.C., read Thrush's article. He also suggested Republicans who plan to work with Democrats on immigration reform read the article twice before agreeing to work with their more liberal counterparts.
"Whatever legislation you write with Democrats, and Obama signs into 'law,' will not be worth the paper it is printed on," he warned.
Podesta, he added, believes Republicans are evil, and that is sufficient justification for Obama to take whatever action he wants regardless of the law.
"That is the new normal in Washington as long as Obama is still president," he concluded.
Many on the left, including elected Democrats, have said they want Obama to rule like a dictator, but others, like the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, have warned Obama's behavior could spark an armed revolt.
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Report: Chinese Hackers Attacked FEC Website

Report: Chinese Hackers Attacked FEC Website

A report released on Tuesday by the Center for Public Integrity says Chinese hackers attacked the Federal Election Commission (FEC) website that contains records of donations received and spent by federal candidates. 

The attacks, which occurred after October 1 during the government shutdown, came on the heels of warnings from independent auditors that the FEC information system was rickety and at "high risk" for an attack. But the FEC blasted the findings and claimed they were not vulnerable because their "systems are secure."
"The FEC is rotting from the inside out," wrote Dave Levinthal on the Center for Public Integrity blog.
The Chinese hacking of the FEC website occurred nearly a year after the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) released its explosive 108-page report--"America The Vulnerable: Are Foreign And Fraudulent Online Campaign Contributions Influencing U.S. Elections?"--which revealed that Obama.com is not owned by the Obama campaign but rather by Obama bundler Robert Roche, a U.S. citizen living in Shanghai, China with ties to state-controlled banks.

In 2014, The Obama Dictatorship Will Be Complete

In 2014, The Obama Dictatorship Will Be Complete


Though few Americans are aware of it, the unconscionable ObamaCare ruling of Chief Justice John Roberts stands to provide Barack Hussein Obama unlimited and fundamentally irrevocable power less than 2 years after his re-election. Obama will acquire the “legal” authority to select 15 individuals whose word will automatically become the law of the land.
Within the 2500 pages of the comically-named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is cached the 2014 establishment of the Independent Payment Advisory Board. Nominated exclusively by the president, the 15 members of the Board will ostensibly be tasked with “…prevent[ing] per-enrollee Medicare spending from growing faster than a specified target rate.” To accomplish this congressional mandate, ObamaCare has provided the Board with the authority to submit legislative “proposals” to Congress; proposals which will automatically become law unless both Houses AND the President agree upon and pass into law a substitute measure.
In short, “the Board’s edicts …become law without congressional action, congressional approval, meaningful congressional oversight, or being subject to a presidential veto.” Moreover, citizens will have NO authority to challenge the Board’s pronouncements in court, for ObamaCare “…specifically states that the Secretary [of Health and Human Service’s] implementation of IPAB’s proposals is not judicially reviewable.” Therefore a group of presidential, POLITICAL appointees will have the practical power of shaping and imposing upon the American public, the laws of the land! For in addition to creating edicts loosely attached to Medicare and its myriad applications, in 2015 the IPAB will be permitted to impose price controls, taxes and “…ration care for all Americans whether the government pays their medical bills or not!” Thus even the Medicare stipulation will no longer be a practical deterrent to the Board’s authority.
How is all of this possible? According to the Cato Institute, “…by carving out a discrete list of limitations on the Board’s delegated powers, the [Affordable Care] Act implicitly gives IPAB otherwise unlimited power to exercise any enumerated congressional power with respect to any governmental body, industry, property, product, person, service or activity.” And just like Congress, the IPAB has been given the authority to appropriate federal funds and impose conditions for their receipt. This means “the Board could propose…to require states to implement federal laws or to enact new state laws in order to receive federal funding.”
Incredibly, Congress does not have the authority to do away with the IPAB until 2017, when a 3/5 vote by both Houses must accompany the signature of the President! Clearly, Barack Obama and the radically leftist, 2008 congress went to extraordinary lengths to shelter their conspiratorial overthrow of our constitutional Republic from standard methods of repeal.
Should the Manchurian Candidate be returned to the White House, does anyone believe he would not nominate to the IPAB a select coterie of like-minded, Marxist plutocrats, eager to wrench by any means from the American people their last remaining vestige of individual liberty?
Did John Roberts realize that his constitutionally depraved ruling would provide the America hating Obama with literal, dictatorial authority over the government, people and future of the United States? If so, the Chief Justice has assumed his place in history as a traitor of unmatched ability.

All Out Political Revolution Is Upon America In 2014

All Out Political Revolution Is Upon America In 2014

Wednesday, December 18, 2013 12:25



The American public is more angry than ever before at Washington DC going into the 2014 elections where the core issues are debt, taxes, jobs, healthcare, and illegal immigration.
Truth is that the RNC and DNC have both failed America. Failed by masquerading as a two party system that is actually a one party system both servicing the same elite financial masters. What kind of elite masters you may ask? I mean like George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch, Goldman Sachs, US Chamber of Commerce, Chinese and Saudi Sovereign Wealth funds… pretty much all the Global billionaire aristocracy members you can count.bulletproof
They are killing our American nation and our citizens with their plutocracy, and violating our privacy rights on an unprecedented scale while bending us over a financial barrel…
And they do their best to divide us every chance they get because the thing they fear most is what we must accomplish.
The coming political revolution in 2014 must succeed to avoid both national disaster and destruction and to avoid potential Civil War in America’s future if the will of the people continues to be ignored and abused by these elites.
We need to stand up in 2014, but not as Republicans, or Democrats, or Tea Party, or Hispanic Voters, or Black Voters, but as Americans!
Don’t let the elite division games confound us and play us off on each other. This real revolution must be between We The People of America (illegal alien invaders not included) versus the sellouts and traitors in both parties and a host of groups that occupy our government in Washington, DC.
These elites are using their incalculable wealth and influence to conquer and destroy the freedom-loving traditions and Constitution of America.
We must rally around our flag and around our Constitution and around our heritage relating to the brave men and women of many cultures and walks of life who founded this once great nation.
America is finally awakening from her slumber in these final moments of peril!
There is an all out political revolution brewing in America and it is going to get very ugly as grassroots groups of American patriots charge at the entrenched traitors in Washington, DC, who will be brutally defended by millions upon millions of dollars from the open borders treason lobby!
Everyone must know by now that 2014 is America’s last chance to get it right, and for us to get it right, the illegal alien invasion and amnesty supporting Democrats and Republicans pretending they don’t work for the same financial masters of the one party system must fall!
One trap we must avoid is the mass media’s plan in motion to besmirch the “Tea Party” groups and cast this as a battle between “moderates” and “right wing extremists.” I think King George tried to do the same to the colonists who founded America, and all must realize that the majority of people that make up the conservative base are those most similar to the founders of America.
We must all do our best to do what the elites fear the most which is to unify Americans of all races, sexes, political parties, and walks of life against those at the top who are conducting this social engineering nation building in America that is destroying so much we hold dear.Aquaponics Gardening
Their game is to divide black, white, and Hispanic, Christian and non Christians, gay and straight, male and female.
Their goal is to demonize whites, Christians, and males (and especially white Christian males) because they perceive attacking those demographics as the key to overthrowing America and the American values which include the Bill of Rights Freedoms. The goal of these treasonous elites is to keep everyone fighting among themselves instead of unifying under a national identity as Americans against their takeover at the top!
Here at Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), we plan to be a very important broadcast point in the strategy to take back America in 2014! Our political revolution must dwarf what happened in 2010 and 1994!
We must unify, educate, mobilized, and prepare for what may become the last political march of the Americans. For if we fail to take down a good chunk of the 35 GOP traitors secretly helping Obama push citizenship for 20 million illegal aliens in their GOP primaries in the next few months, then amnesty will pass into law and the new voting bloc of illegal aliens will make further political reform and borders for America impossible through nonviolent political means.
Those of us dedicated to using what remains of America’s peaceful political systems are fighting to avert the possible conquest of America by tyrants using invasive immigration plans and possible civil war if our political systems cannot alleviate the disparities between the will of the American public and the will of the elites.
If you believe that We The People of the United States should be self governed and in control of our borders, immigration policies, and national destiny, then you are with us! If you believe that illegal aliens should be allowed to stay in American and become voters, then you are with the traitors in DC!
We are the voice of the vast majority of Americans of all races, genders, parties, and walks of life who stand with the US Constitution and Bill of Rights!
Traitors to America, we are coming for you in 2014! Your spy machines and lie machines will not save you from our political revolution!
source: www.alipac.us
www.patriotnetdaily.com


Source: http://www.patriotnetdaily.com/all-out-political-revolution-is-upon-america-in-2014/

ree-spending ex-Florida GOP chief Greer gets 18 months in prison

ree-spending ex-Florida GOP chief Greer gets 18 months in prison

ORLANDO — Jim Greer, hand shaker, party thrower, power seeker, former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, was sentenced on Wednesday to 18 months in state prison plus one year of probation.
Greer, 50 and a father of five, last month pleaded guilty to four counts of theft and one count of money laundering, admitting he had created a company called Victory Strategies to siphon to himself and an associate some $200,000 of party donations.
"You're now a convicted felon, sir," Circuit Judge Marc Lubet told Greer Wednesday, adding that he had "egregiously violated a position of trust."
Prosecutors wanted a little more than 31/2 years. Greer's attorney, Damon Chase, argued against that much time, and Lubet agreed.
The judge opted for the somewhat lighter punishment, he said, partly because Greer's partner, Delmar Johnson, was charged with nothing after helping the state construct its case, and also because Greer this week paid $65,000 in restitution. Chase assured the judge his client was "contrite."
Prosecutor Michael Williams said after the hearing he wasn't disappointed with the judge's decision. "We're very happy with incarceration," he said. "I don't think anybody in Tallahassee is interested in trading places with Jim Greer."
Greer said nothing. His wife, Lisa, hurried from the courtroom without speaking.
The sentencing at the Orange County Courthouse marked at least the legal conclusion of a years-long saga that was unflattering for state Republicans, but could've been worse.
When Greer became the party head in January 2007, former Gov. Charlie Crist's personal pick, he was all but unknown — the deputy mayor of the Seminole County suburb of Oviedo.
He grew up in Merritt Island, got a GED and took some classes at a community college. He started a business training restaurant and bar workers to follow alcohol laws. He made money and wanted people to know it. He named his boats Sea King and High Roller. He was a regular at strip clubs and bars. Both his weddings were lavish.
He was active in chambers of commerce and local civic organizations and quickly worked to make friends with people he identified as politically valuable. He got elected to the city councils in Palm Bay and later Oviedo.
In Oviedo, he built a 3,700-square-foot house in a new gated subdivision on a street called Prestige Point, and his gatherings typically had some of the area's best snacks and booze. He often dressed as Elvis and belted out songs by the King.
During Crist's 2006 gubernatorial campaign, Greer helped him raise more than $400,000 in Seminole County alone, after which he was rewarded with his plum position. Greer hung pictures of himself in the hallways of the party's offices in Tallahassee. He wanted people to call him Chairman. He wanted to drink bourbon only from bottles with personalized labels. He charged to the party trips on chartered jets and nights in five-star hotels and thousand-dollar dinners.
He started Victory Strategies. It was the beginning of the end of his porcine reign as party chair. He was forced out of the position in January 2010 and arrested in June at his house on Prestige.
Up until last month, he insisted he was innocent, claiming Crist knew about Victory Strategies, which Crist denied. Greer said he was the victim of party infighting. The trial loomed. It was expected to include testimony damaging to the party as a whole, and Crist, too.
"It's going to be a Shakespearean play where everyone dies in the end," Greer told Miami New Times in January. Last month, though, just before the start of the hotly anticipated trial, Greer changed course. "Guilty, your honor," he said to the judge.
On Wednesday, he walked into the courtroom wearing a black suit, glasses and a gray goatee. He kissed his wife and whispered in her ear. He stood to listen to the judge's sentence. He gave his jacket and tie to his attorney, and deputies took his fingerprints, put him in handcuffs and led him out a side door.
Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8751. Follow him on Twitter at @michaelkruse.
Free-spending ex-Florida GOP chief Greer gets 18 months in prison 03/27/13 [Last modified: Thursday, March 28, 2013 12:13am]
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