Tag: transparency

Holder Refuses to Replace Obama Donor IRS Scandal Investigator. Inadvertent Transparency Reigns.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

obamaholderAnd, you thought President Nixon was a crook…

Chron.com reports that…

A request by Sen. Ted Cruz to have a special prosecutor appointed to probe allegations the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting conservative groups was denied by the Department of Justice.

The IRS has been accused of targeting conservative groups and denying them tax-exempt status based on political views.

The Texas freshman Republican senator sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Jan 22 saying the investigation was currently being led by a “partisan Democrat” selected from “the most politically charged division of DOJ.”

Cruz asked that a special prosecutor “with meaningful independence” be appointed and pointed out the current lead investigator, Barbara Kay Bosserman, had contributed around $6,500 to President Obama’s two presidential campaigns.

The Department of Justice said the authority to create a special prosecutor has “rarely been exercised” and was “not warranted” in the IRS matter.

The letter went on to say “the Department remains committed to integrity and fairness in all of its law enforcement efforts without regard to politics,” rebutting Cruz’s accusations of bias.

Senator Cruz issued the following statement after the judge’s ruling:

It is the height of hypocrisy for the Obama Administration to claim that the investigator leading the investigation into the IRS’s illegal program has no conflict of interest. The investigator is a partisan Democrat who has donated over six thousand dollars to President Obama and Democrat causes. Just as nobody would trust John Mitchell to investigate Richard Nixon, nobody should trust a partisan Obama donor to investigate the IRS’s political targeting of President Obama’s enemies. Sadly, “in the discretion of the Attorney General,” Eric Holder has chosen to reject the bipartisan tradition of the Department of Justice of putting rule of law above political allegiance.

Both Nixon Administration Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Clinton Administration Attorney General Janet Reno appointed special prosecutors whose integrity was beyond reproach; Eric Holder should do likewise. To date, nine months after a damning Inspector General report, nobody has been indicted, many of the victims have not even been interviewed, and Lois Lerner has twice pleaded the Fifth. And yet the Attorney General refuses to allow a genuine–and impartial–investigation.

The integrity of the Department of Justice deserves better. The American people deserve better.

Back on January 12th, the Washington Times gave us the details, concerning the hand-picked “investigator”…

Barbara Kay Bosserman is a trial lawyer at Justice who likes nothing better than stuffing envelopes with a contribution to Obama for America or the Obama Victory Fund. She has done this on 13 occasions, and counting.

She sent an additional $650 to the Democratic National Committee. She’s to be in charge of the “impartial inquiry” into the IRS harassment of conservatives.

This outrages the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as it should. The committee has been trying for months to get to the bottom of what happened, only to be obstructed by repeated stonewalling from the administration.

Rep. Darrell E. Issa, the committee chairman, and Rep. Jim Jordan, a subcommittee chairman, demand that Ms. Bosserman be removed from the case at once.

“It is unbelievable that the department would choose such an individual to examine the federal government’s systematic targeting and harassment of organizations oppose to the President’s policies,” the Republican members wrote.

Messrs. Issa and Jordan are engaging in only a mild bit of hyperbole. This turn of events is in fact entirely believable. This is the most partisan Department of Justice in a generation.

For months, the administration has dismissed the revelations of abuse as a “phony scandal.” Those who suffered IRS harassment feel otherwise, and they’re rightly furious with this attempt to rig the outcome.

The American Center for Law and Justice represents 41 targeted Tea Party and conservative organizations.

“Appointing an avowed political supporter of President Obama to head up the Justice Department probe,” says Jay Sekulow, the group’s chief counsel, “is not only disturbing, but puts politics right in the middle of what is supposed to be an independent investigation to determine who is responsible for the Obama administration’s unlawful targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups.”

The administration and its media acolytes want all eyes on Chris Christie’s traffic-cone scandal. Shutting down a lane on the George Washington Bridge to create gridlock to pay back a small-town Democratic mayor was dumb, foolish and petty, and Mr. Christie was rightly humiliated because it happened in his administration.

But it pales as scandal next to using the IRS, the most feared and abusive government agency, as the instrument of payback to conservative and religious groups for opposing Barack Obama.

The media acolytes that have been consumed by the traffic scandal should allot a few lines of type to a scandal of epic proportions.

Mr. Holder and his minions refuse to acknowledge anything wrong with the selection of Ms. Bosserman, delivering the standard-issue denial that they do not take into account the “political affiliation of career employees” when making personnel decisions.

Yeah, right. And,Mooch, Mudear, and the girls are in China on a “fact-finding mission”.

As Barack Hussein Obama was assuming office in January of 2009, his minions posted the following promise on whitehouse.gov:

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Now, the following addendum has been added to the bottom of the page:

We’re updating the White House privacy policy. The new policy will go into effect on April 18, 2014. See the existing privacy policy here.

The White House is committed to protecting individual privacy and securing the personal information made available to us when you visit WhiteHouse.gov, use our mobile app, or visit White House pages hosted by other sites (such as our official profiles on social networking sites). This Privacy Policy describes what information is made available to the White House and how that information is used and retained, and provides information on:

  • Information we receive (when you provide it, visit WhiteHouse.gov, use the WhiteHouse.gov mobile app, receive email updates, or interact with official White House presences on third-party sites)
  • How this information is used
  • Sharing of this information
  • Data retention
  • Third-party tools and sites
  • Children and privacy
  • Security

If you have questions about this policy or suggestions for its improvement, please let us know at WhiteHouse.gov/Privacy/Feedback.

Yep. This Administration is transparent, alright. But, not in the way they claim.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama and Obamacare: As Transparent as Mud

On By kingsjesterIn Politics10 Comments

Obamacare ambulanceAs every American knows by now, the Affordable Care Act, un-affectionately known as “Obamacare”, is President Barack Hussein Obama’s Signature Legislation. He campaigned for this legislation before and after he ascended to the office of the Presidency.

As we have been discovering together, the implementation of this legislation has been a Signature Failure for Obama and his Administration. A failure which they and their minions in the Main Stream Media have been desperately trying to cover up by any means necessary, including omission of fact, distraction (Oh, look…Amnesty!), and good old-fashion prevarication.

All of these underhanded strategies, currently practiced ad infinitum by Obama and his Administration, are in direct opposition to the following Policy Statement, posted shortly after Obama was inaugurated in January of 2009, on  whitehouse .gov:

“Transparency and Open Government”

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.

Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.

I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

You’ve come a long way, Scooter.

Regarding the launch of Obamacare and its website, Healthcare.gov, you were desperately hoping that the Main Stream Media and your lackeys in the Democrat Party would provide enough cover, in conjunction with your own strategies, which I alluded to earlier, to keep Low Information Voters confused long enough to get your State-run Healthcare System up and running in perpetuity.

The best-laid plans of mice and men oft-times go awry.

What you didn’t count on were your allies in the Media turning on you like a pack of ravenous hyenas.

I never thought that I would be quoting this particular source breaking a story like this about Obama, but, CBS News reports that…

For 31 days now, the Obama administration has been telling us that Americans by the millions are visiting the new health insurance website, despite all its problems.

But no one in the administration has been willing to tell us how many policies have been purchased, and this may be the reason: CBS News has learned enrollments got off to an incredibly slow start.

Early enrollment figures are contained in notes from twice-a-day “war room” meetings convened within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services after the website failed on Oct. 1. They were turned over in response to a document request from the House Oversight Committee.

The website launched on a Tuesday. Publicly, the government said there were 4.7 million unique visits in the first 24 hours. But at a meeting Wednesday morning, the war room notes say “six enrollments have occurred so far.”

They were with BlueCross BlueShield North Carolina and Kansas City, CareSource and Healthcare Service Corporation.

By Wednesday afternoon, enrollments were up to “approximately 100.” By the end of Wednesday, the notes reflect “248 enrollments” nationwide.

The health care exchanges need to average 39,000 enrollees a day to meet the goal of seven million by March 1. The war room notes give a glimpse into some of the reasons customers had problems:

“Direct enrollment (signing up directly on an insurer’s website) is not working for any issuers.”

“Experian” credit reporting agency is “creating confusion with credit check information.”

“Issuer phone numbers are not appearing correctly on the Pay Now page.”

The notes leave no doubt that some enrollment figures, which the administration has chosen to keep secret, are available.

The population of the United States of America in the Year of our Lord 2013, numbers 313,900,000.

I just tried to figure out what percentage of 313,900,000, 248 enrollees would be. 

The readout of my calculator said,

R U KIDDING ME?

This fiasco, known as Obamacare, needs to be called off, right now. Obama has embarrassed himself and this nation.

And, he needs to answer for his lies  in an Impeachment hearing.

 

This has gone on long enough.

Until He Comes,

KJ