WASHINGTON, DC – White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to comment on an assertion by the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that requests from diplomats in Libya for added security prior to the September 11, 2012 attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, were denied.
“I’m not going to get into a situation under review by the State Department and the FBI,” Carney said.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Drones could soon operate without the help of humans.
Agence France-Presse is reporting that the Pentagon wants its drones to be more autonomous, so that they can run with little to no assistance from people.
“Before they were blind, deaf and dumb,” Mark Maybury, chief scientist for the U.S. Air Force, told AFP. “Now we’re beginning to make them to see, hear and sense.”
Ronald Arkin, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, believes that drones will soon be able to kill enemies on their own independently.
“It is not my belief that an unmanned system will be able to be perfectly ethical in the battlefield, but I am convinced that they can perform more ethically than human soldiers are capable of,” Arkin told AFP.
Arkin added that robotic weapons should be designed as “ethical” warriors and that these type of robots could wage war in a more “humane” way.
The U.S. military says people will be on the ground to control the drones despite the unmanned robots gaining more independence.
Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at The Brookings Institution, believes there could be legal hurdles in regards to using robot-controlled drones.
“These responses that are driven by science, politics and battlefield necessity get you into areas where the lawyers just aren’t ready for it yet,” Singer told AFP.
Earlier this year, Singer wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times about the use of drones. In the piece, entitled “Do Drones Undermine Democracy?” he says the use of drones is “short-circuiting the decision-making process.”
“Without any actual political debate, we have set an enormous precedent, blurring the civilian and military roles in war and circumventing the Constitution’s mandate for authorizing it,” Singer wrote. “Freeing the executive branch to act as it chooses may be appealing to some now, but many future scenarios will be less clear-cut. And each political party will very likely have a different view, depending on who is in the White House.”
AFP reports that new military drones will most likely be implemented with more powerful jet engines and have longer range in combat.
There are currently more than 7,000 drones being used in combat.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Conservatives have seized on a viral video of a woman saying she plans to vote for President Obama because he gave her a free phone, arguing it highlights a wasteful government handout.
The conservative Drudge Report displayed the video at the top of its website last week, and radio host Rush Limbaugh pointed to the video to argue that Obama is making people dependent on the government.
“So these are the people that don’t like Romney because of what he said about the 47 percent? No, these are the 47 percent,” Limbaugh said. “She knows how to get this free Obama phone. She knows everything about it. She may not know who George Washington is or Abraham Lincoln, but she knows how to get an Obama phone, and she knows that Romney sucks, and she ends up at a Romney rally.”
Although there is no such thing as an “Obama phone,” there is a federal program to help low-income people get access to phones.
The program, called Lifeline, is managed by the Federal Communications Commission and began long before President Obama took office.
Congress first enacted the Lifeline program in 1985, during the Reagan administration. In 2005, under President George W. Bush, the FCC expanded the program to cover low-cost cellular service.
The program pays for phone service, not the phones themselves. But many companies that receive funding through the program offer free and low-cost phones to their subscribers.
The discounts average $9.25 per month for qualifying households, and the program is funded through fees that the telephone companies pass on to consumers on their monthly bills.
The point of the program is to ensure that everyone has access to basic communications services, especially during emergencies.
“For more than 25 years, the Lifeline program has played a vital role in ensuring that the neediest among us stay connected to our communications networks,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement earlier this year.
But even the FCC acknowledges that the costs of the program have ballooned in recent years. By 2011, Lifeline was costing phone subscribers $1.75 billion per year.
Genachowski said the program “created perverse incentives for some carriers” and “invited fraud and abuse.”
Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) has attacked Lifeline as a “government-run, taxpayer-funded program that’s running wild and costing more and more.” He authored a bill that would ban Lifeline from supporting cellphone service.
In January, the FCC overhauled the program in an attempt to bring down its cost.
The commission toughened eligibility standards and created a database to ensure that multiple companies were not receiving subsidies to provide service to the same customer.
The reforms are on track to bring down the cost of the program by $200 million this year and $2 billion over three years, according to the FCC.
“That is a lot of money in the pockets of American consumers who otherwise would have been contributing to a program that was wasting funds on duplicative benefits, subsidies for ineligible consumers, or fraudulent misuse of Lifeline funds,” Genachowski said in a statement when the commission adopted the reforms.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Events costs taxpayers more than $6 million while federal workers took free massages, limo rides, helicopter tours and Rockettes show tickets
Its budget and facilities already stretched thin, the Veterans Affairs Department wasted money on two summertime training conference to the vacation hot spot of Orlando, Fla., that cost taxpayers more than $6 million and let federal employees collect freebie gifts like meals, helicopter tours, limo rides, massages and show tickets from contractors, an internal investigation has found.
The VA’s inspector general concluded top agency officials failed to be good stewards of taxpayer money throwing conferences last year, including spending nearly $50,000 to create a parody video featuring the late Gen. George Patton.
In all, federal investigators concluded about $762,000 of the money spent on the two events in July and August 2011 was wasteful, undercutting their legitimate human resources training mission for the conferences.
“The issues described in this report and the lack of processes needed to control and track expenditures negatively affected the results of these HR conferences,” Inspector General George Opfer wrote in the report released this week. “As VA moves forward, this report should serve as lessons learned that all VA management officials and staff share responsibility and accountability for meeting program objectives in an economical manner and reflect proper fiscal stewardship of taxpayer funds.”
Adding to the vacation-like atmosphere of the events, the watchdog found at least 11 VA employees accepted illegal gifts from hotels and other vendors seeking their business in connection with the conferences. VA officials toured three cities before choosing Orlando as the conference destination.
The gifts they accepted during the selection process and subsequent conferences ranged from free lodging, room upgrades and limo rides to meals, gift baskets, gift cards, spa massages, Rockettes show tickets and a helicopter ride, the inspector general reported.
“All of the VA employees who participated in the pre-selection conference site visits to Dallas, TX; Nashville, TN; and Orlando, FL, accepted gifts in violation of laws and regulations,” the inspector general reported. “The hotels that offered the gifts were prohibited sources in that they were seeking official action by VA in selecting their venue for the conferences, and their interests could be substantially affected by the employees’ performance or nonperformance of their official duties in evaluating and/or recommending the hotels for the conferences.”
The report also provided a stinging rebuke of top VA officials involved in planning the events, referring one assistant secretary for possible criminal investigation for making false statements during the investigation and citing another official for failing to appreciate the wasteful nature of the Patton parody video.
The report made public this week is the latest to raise questions about the government’s travel practices, which first came to light earlier this year when the General Services Administration acknowledged it spent nearly more than $800,000 on conference in Las Vegas that featured a clown, a mind-reader and rap video.
Lawmakers in both parties expressed outrage at the VA’s handling of the conferences in Orlando, which is the gateway to the Walt Disney World resort.
Members of Congress from both parties voiced outrage in response to the IG’s report, saying the findings demonstrate that the department lacks an adequate system of checks and balances to ensure it’s a good steward of taxpayer dollars.
“The blatant waste of taxpayer dollars and government employees improperly accepting gifts cannot, and will not, be tolerated,” said Sen. Patty Murray, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
Rep. Jeff Miller, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said the money spent in vain could have been used to provide hundreds of veterans with health care.
In all, the two VA conferences cost about $6.1 million and were held to fulfill valid training needs for nearly 1,800 employees. But some expenses were unnecessary and wasteful, including nearly $100,000 for unnecessary promotional items, nearly $50,000 for the production of a video featuring a parody of General George S. Patton and nearly $150,000 in contractor travel picked up by the department, said the inspector general’s report.
In August, the inspector general briefed VA Secretary Eric Shinseki on its investigation. He directed outside reviews of all training and conference policies as well as ethics training.
The inspector general reported the department was unable to provide accurate accounting of costs associated with the conferences and that estimates changed several times during the investigation. Investigators said they identified “serious management weaknesses,” including VA staff making purchases they were not authorized to make.
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WASHINGTON, DC – The State Department has officially removed all government personnel from the Libyan city of Benghazi, closing the consulate building and possibly ending any chance of an on-site investigation of the attack there. Although it has been three weeks since the assault that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other embassy employees, the FBI has still not been able to visit the compound, set up any operations in the city, or even interview any witnesses who were present during the terrorist attack.
State says all U.S. personnel still in the country have been moved to the capital Tripoli and any “diplomatic outreach” will be done remotely.
The Washington Post reports that the main compound that was burned during the attack on September 11 was locked on Monday, but the buildings were empty and unguarded. Anything of value has been looted or picked through by local and journalists, and it’s unlikely that investigators would find any useful evidence on site after such a long gap in time.
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WASHINGTON, DC – From fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2011, according to the U.S. Treasury, the federal government increased spending on foreign aid by 80 percent and, in fiscal 2011, spent 76 percent more on foreign aid than it did securing the borders of the United States.
In fiscal 2008, the government spent a total of $11.427 billion in international assistance programs, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement. In fiscal 2011, according to the statement, it spent $20.599 billion—an increase of $9.172 billion, or 80 percent, from 2008.
Prior to President Obama taking office, international assistance spending had been trending down for three years, according to the Treasury. In fiscal 2005, it was $14.787 billion. In fiscal 2006, it dropped to $13.914 billion. In fiscal 2007, it dropped again to $12.764 billion. And, in fiscal 2008, it dropped yet again to $11.427 billion.
Since 2008, international assistance spending has increased each year. In fiscal 2009, it climbed to $14.827 billion. In fiscal 2010, it jumped to $20.038 billion. And, in fiscal 2011, it climbed again to $20.599 billion.
By the end of August, after the first eleven months of fiscal 2012, the federal government had already spent $20.058 on foreign aid in that fiscal year. That was well ahead of the $18.439 billion the federal government had spent on foreign aid through August of last year. The Treasury has not yet published the final amount that was spent on foreign aid in fiscal 2012, which ended on Sunday.
While foreign aid spending has climbed over the past four years, spending on border security peaked in fiscal 2009 and has since declined. In fiscal 2008, the federal government spent $9.984 billion on customs and border protection, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement. In fiscal 2009, that increased to $12.122 billion. But, in fiscal 2010, that dropped to $11.376 billion. In fiscal 2011, it increased slightly to $11.698 billion—still less than the $12.122 billion spent on customs and border protection in fiscal 2009.
Through August of fiscal 2012, spending on customs and border protection was $11.259 billion, ahead of the $10.656 billion on customs and border protection spent through August of fiscal 2011.
The $20.599 billion spent on foreign aid last year was 76 percent more than the $11.698 billion spent on customs and border protection.
Included, among other things, in the $20.599 billion spent on foreign aid last year, according to the Treasury, was $5.717 billion for the Economic Support Fund, $5.322 billion for the Foreign Military Financing Program, $3.177 in multilateral assistance, $4.248 billion for the Agency for International Development (including $1.210 billion in operating expenses for AID), $395 million for the Peace Corps and $125 million for international monetary programs.
The foreign military sales program, which Treasury includes in its accounting of international assistance programs, took in $23.947 billion in fiscal 2011 and paid out $23.947 billion. Thus it had no impact on the net outflow of aid from the United States to foreign interests.
Below in billions of dollars is the annual spending on international assistance and customs and border protection over the past nine fiscal years. (The figures for fiscal 2012 include only the first eleven months of the fiscal year.)
……………………………………Foreign Aid…Customs & Border
FY 2012 (first 11 months)……….$20.058 $11.259
FY 2011……………………………….$20.599 $11.698
FY 2010……………………………….$20.038 $11.376
FY 2009 ………………………………$14.827 $12.122
FY 2008 ………………………………$11.427 $9.984
FY 2007 ………………………………$12.764 $7.948
FY 2006 ………………………………$13.914 $7.069
FY 2005 ………………………………$14.787 $6.278
FY 2004 ………………………………$13.788 $6.660
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WASHINGTON, DC – The instances of the Justice Department monitoring electronic communications such as phone calls, emails and even social network updates without a warrant has increased by as much as 60 percent in recent years, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
The surveillance tools – known as either a “pen register” or a “trap and trace” – record such information as phone numbers and the time and length of calls, but not the content.
Orders to track phone calls increased 60 percent — from 23,535 in 2009 to 37,616 in 2011 — according to Justice Department documents, including ones recently acquired by the ACLU.
Orders to track emails and computer network data increased by 361 percent over the same period, though the number of orders was less compared to those for phone calls.
The ACLU argues the legal standard to use the devices is lower because they don’t capture content — unlike wiretaps, which require a judge’s permission. And the government needs submit only to a court a certification stating that it seeks information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.
However, the Justice Department said that in “every instance cited” in the documents a federal judge authorized the law enforcement activity.
“As criminals increasingly use new and more sophisticated technologies, the use of orders issued by a judge and explicitly authorized by Congress to obtain non-content information is essential for federal law enforcement officials to carry out their duty to protect the public and investigate violations of federal laws,” the agency said in a statement.
Still, Naomi Gilens, writing in a blog for the ACLU, says the information in the documents “underscore the importance of regulating and overseeing the government’s surveillance power.”
She also calls both devices “powerfully invasive surveillance tools” and points out that nowadays no special equipment is needed to record such information because it is part of phone companies’ call-routing hardware, unlike 20 years ago.
Fox News’ Steve Centanni contributed to this report.
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KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — With the surge of American troops over and the Taliban still a potent threat, American generals and civilian officials acknowledge that they have all but written off what was once one of the cornerstones of their strategy to end the war here: battering the Taliban into a peace deal.
The once ambitious American plans for ending the war are now being replaced by the far more modest goal of setting the stage for the Afghans to work out a deal among themselves in the years after most Western forces depart, and to ensure Pakistan is on board with any eventual settlement. Military and diplomatic officials here and in Washington said that despite attempts to engage directly with Taliban leaders this year, they now expect that any significant progress will come only after 2014, once the bulk of NATO troops have left.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Two House Republicans say they have been informed by whistleblowers that the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked and threatened 13 times before the incident last month that killed four Americans.
Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a letter on Tuesday that detailed the whistleblowers’ allegations.
“Based on information provided to the Committee by individuals with direct knowledge of events in Libya, the attack that claimed the ambassador’s life was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months leading up to September 11, 2012,” Issa and Chaffetz wrote. “It was clearly never, as Administration officials once insisted, the result of a popular protest.”
The congressmen said the consulate asked for more security to deal with the growing threat but was turned down by the administration.
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WASHINGTON, DC – The Veterans’ Administration wasted more than $750,000 in taxpayer funds — including $50,000 for a parody video featuring a George S. Patton impersonator — to put on two lavish training conferences in Florida, an internal investigation has found.
A 150-report released yesterday by the VA’s Office of Inspector General estimated that the weeklong conferences cost $6.1 million; of the total, $762,000 was spent on what the report deemed “unauthorized,” “unnecessary” and “wasteful,” including $97,000 for promotional items such as pedometers, water bottles, exercise bands and USB drives and $154,000 undocumented travel expenses for vendors.
Both conferences took place in 2011 — one in July, the other in August — at the Orlando Marriott World Center Golf and Spa Resort. About 1,800 human resources employees attended.
The report singles out 11 conference organizers for improperly accepting gifts, such as helicopter rides and tickets to the Rockettes, from “contractors seeking to do business or already doing business with VA.” The staff members did not seem to let the gifts influence where the conferences were held or which contractors were hired, the report stated.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Sometimes, as the saying goes, the truth really is stranger than fiction. There may have been some wild plotlines on “Walker, Texas Ranger,” but there was nothing that compares to the scandal surrounding “Fast and Furious” — the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation that resulted in the loss of a distinguished Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry.
The congressional investigation into “Fast and Furious” has been going on for more than a year, but it was stonewalled by Attorney General Eric Holder, who instead opened an internal investigation by the Department of Justice’s inspector general. Tens of thousands of internal Justice Department documents supplied to the inspector general were withheld from Congress, despite having been requested in a lawful subpoena issued by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This act of stubborn defiance resulted in Holder’s becoming the first attorney general to be voted in contempt of Congress. Now Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report finally has been released, but it leaves some critical questions unanswered. Before delving into specifics, let me thank Townhall’s Katie Pavlich for her help deciphering the report, as well as her groundbreaking reporting on this issue from day one.
Media accounts surrounding the release of the report had a routine flavor, which was otherworldly in light of the report’s contents. The Associated Press reported that “the Justice Department’s internal watchdog … faulted the agency for misguided strategies, errors in judgment and management failures during a bungled gun-trafficking probe in Arizona that resulted in hundreds of weapons turning up at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico.” Oh, is that all?
“Fast and Furious” involved the “walking” of guns into Mexico — an artful term for gun smuggling that was clearly illegal but nonetheless encouraged. Most of these guns turned up in the hands of drug dealers and known criminals. The ostensible goal of the ATF was to catch these cartel members red-handed with the smuggled guns during crimes in Mexico. Two of the guns that were “walked” into Mexico were found at the crime scene of the killing of Agent Terry, who died in a firefight with drug cartel henchmen.
Thousands of guns walked into Mexico are still on the loose. Where are they, and how many are out there? Does the U.S. government have a plan to recapture them, or will we simply spend years wondering how many more victims they are being used to kill? And who will make sure that Congress and the public are made aware if and when these guns surface at more crime scenes here in the U.S.?
The report outlines the basics of “who knew what when” and recommends potential sanctions for no fewer than 14 government employees. Note that 14 is also the precise number of criminals who have pleaded guilty under this operation, according to the AP. But the report doesn’t delve into potential motivations. There may be deeper motives for allowing these guns to walk into Mexico that remain unaccounted for. Is it possible that allowing an infusion of firearms to go into Mexico was intended to provoke an explosion of gun violence, thus prompting domestic politicians to call for sweeping new restrictions on our rights? The report is silent on this count.
Terry is the most prominent victim of this horribly botched operation, and his family members are the unsung heroes here. They have been waiting patiently for answers for almost two years now. Brian Terry only wanted to do his job and get home for the holidays. Dubbed “Superman” by colleagues and friends, he is the face of “Fast and Furious.” Justice must be properly served, or else his valiant service and ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty will be dishonored.
Even with its omissions, the inspector general’s report is a chilling indictment of a collapse in leadership at the highest levels of federal law enforcement. There may be 14 staffers who take the fall, but it’s clear that their politically appointed superiors were either asleep at the switch or willing to jeopardize public safety to push an agenda that remains undisclosed. Can anyone possibly need any more reasons to register to vote?
The bottom line is that the American people deserve answers that go well beyond the inspector general’s report. Congress needs to proceed with a comprehensive investigation, and it must have the unfettered cooperation and access that the Department of Justice thus far has withheld. And Justice is clearly in need of new leadership. Let’s give it to them.
Follow Chuck Norris through his official social media sites, on Twitter @chucknorris and Facebook’s “Official Chuck Norris Page.” He blogs at http://chucknorrisnews.blogspot.com. To find out more about Chuck Norris and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at http://www.creators.com.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Private health insurance used to be the ticket to a doctor’s appointment. But that’s no longer the case in some affluent metropolitan enclaves, where many physicians no longer accept insurance and require upfront payment from patients — cash, checks and credit cards accepted.
On Manhattan’s Upper East Side, it’s not unusual for a pregnant woman to pay $13,000 out of pocket in advance for childbirth and prenatal care to a physician who does not participate in any health plan. Some gynecologists are charging $650 for an annual checkup. And for pediatricians who shun insurance, parents on the Upper East Side are shelling out $150 to $250 whenever a child falls or runs a high fever.
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WASHINGTON, DC – The Pentagon announced Saturday that a long-time Guantánamo Bay prisoner has been transferred to serve out his sentence in Canada.
Omar Khadr, a Toronto native who spent the past decade in the Cuban facility, will spend the remainder of his eight-year sentence at the Millhaven maximum security prison at Bath, Ontario.
Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to war crimes, including throwing the grenade that killed U.S. Army medic Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer during a firefight in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002.
U.S. troops captured Khadr, who was then 15 years old and near death, at a suspected al Qaeda compound the day of the attack. He recently turned 26.
He also pleaded guilty to attempted murder, providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy and spying.
The plea agreement called for serving one year of confinement in the United States, and then transferring Khadr to Canada to serve the remainder of his sentence.
The Obama administration delayed the transfer and the Canadian government took additional time to work out a plan to hold Khadr, according to news reports.
“The United States coordinated with the government of Canada regarding appropriate security and humane treatment measures,” the Defense Department said in a statement.
“In accordance with statutory reporting requirements, the administration informed Congress of its intent to transfer Khadr to Canada.”
There are still 166 detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
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WASHINGTON, DC – The Spanish language television news network Univision unleashed a bombshell investigative report on Operation Fast and Furious Sunday evening, finding that in January 2010 drug cartel hit men slaughtered students with weapons the United States government allowed to flow to them across the Mexican border.
“On January 30, 2010, a commando of at least 20 hit men parked themselves outside a birthday party of high school and college students in Villas de Salvarcar, Ciudad Juarez,” according to a version of the Univision report in English, on the ABC News website.
“Near midnight, the assassins, later identified as hired guns for the Mexican cartel La Linea, broke into a one-story house and opened fire on a gathering of nearly 60 teenagers. Outside, lookouts gunned down a screaming neighbor and several students who had managed to escape. Fourteen young men and women were killed, and 12 more were wounded before the hit men finally fled.”
Citing a Mexican Army document it obtained and published, Univision reported that “[t]hree of the high caliber weapons fired that night in Villas de Salvarcar were linked to a gun tracing operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).”
That operation was Fast and Furious.
The “massacre,” as Univision described it, was not the only bombshell the network unveiled in its Sunday evening report.
“Univision News identified a total of 57 more previously unreported firearms that were bought by straw purchasers monitored by ATF during Operation Fast and Furious, and then recovered in Mexico in sites related to murders, kidnappings, and at least one other massacre,” the Univision report reads.
The network also uncovered another Fast and Furious weapons “massacre.” On September 2, 2009, 18 young men were killed at “El Aliviane, a rehabilitation center in Ciudad Juarez,” according to the report.
Univision found many of these victims through “access to the list of serial numbers for weapons used in Fast and Furious” and the “list of guns seized in Mexico,” according to English subtitles on the Spanish-language video.
“After cross-referencing them both lists, it became clear that a least a hundred of them were used in crimes of all kinds,” the subtitles read. “We found 57 weapons that were not mentioned in [the U.S.] Congress’ investigation.”
Though Univision tracked many more victims down, it said that “the death toll that this free flow of weapons authorized by ATF had in Mexico has not been tallied.”
Univision held nothing back in its broadcast, airing images and video of bloodied, dead bodies. The network showed the faces of the dead and walked viewers through how cartel operatives hunted their victims down with the weapons President Barack Obama’s administration allowed straw buyers to traffick to them.
One photo, for instance, showed pools of blood in the streets of a Mexican town after a “massacre” committed by murderers armed with Fast and Furious weapons. Video footage showed where some of the victims were killed and how the cartels chased their helpless victims to their deaths.
The Univision broadcast implicitly suggested that Americans have no regard for the victims of violence American policy helps fuel — that is, until one of those victims ends up being an American.
It wasn’t until U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder prompted whistle-blowers to come forward to Congress to publicly voice concerns about ]he program that the Obama administration stopped allowing firearms to flow into Mexico.
One victim’s father, Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, told Univision he thinks “Americans are not often moved by the pain of those outside [their country].”
“But they are moved by the pain of their own,” Sicilia added.
“Well, turn around and watch the massacres.”
Univision says the Obama administration’s actions “inadvertently” helped fuel violence and a war between the cartels.
“In Mexico, the timing of the operation coincided with an upsurge of violence in the war among the country’s strongest cartels,” according to Univision.
“In 2009, the northern Mexican states served as a battlefield for the Sinaloa and Juarez drug trafficking organizations, and as expansion territory for the increasingly powerful Zetas. According to documents obtained by Univision News, from October of that year to the end of 2010, nearly 175 weapons from Operation Fast and Furious inadvertently armed the various warring factions across northern Mexico.”
An English-subtitled translation of one expert’s comments indicated that the weapons the Obama administration allowed to flow to the cartels through Fast and Furious were “capable of not only penetrating an armored vehicle but also a whole house from wall to wall.”
According to the Univision report, it wasn’t weak gun laws that made Fast and Furious possible, as some liberal commentators have suggested.
“If up to this point drug dealers could easily obtain and smuggle guns, the United States government made it easier,” English subtitles on one part of the report read.
“When Fast and Furious began in 2009, the ATF and Arizona prosecutors told [gun] store owners to sell weapons without restrictions to suspicious buyers.”
Univision also said that it was Phoenix ATF office leader Bill Newell who ultimately concluded that “the only way to track the guns was to wait for weapons to be recovered in crime scenes in Mexico.”
That charge, if true, would mean the Obama administration decided to allow cartel operatives to kill and injure people with the weapons it gave them, and to recover the guns only after criminals ditched them at brutal — often deadly — crime scenes.
Univision also found additional details about other gunwalking operations the Obama administration undertook.
“In Florida, the weapons from Operation Castaway ended up in the hands of criminals in Colombia, Honduras and Venezuela, the lead informant in the case told Univision News in a prison interview,” the network reported. The informant Unvision interviewed was “Vietnam veteran-turned-arms-trafficker” Hugh Crumpler.
“When the ATF stopped me, they told me the guns were going to cartels,” Crumpler said. “The ATF knew before I knew and had been following me for a considerable length of time. They could not have followed me for two months like they said they did, and not know the guns were going somewhere, and not want for that to be happening.”
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WASHINGTON, DC – A new chart put together by the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee finds that, since 2001, the “number of non-citizens on food stamps quadrupled.” Here’s the chart detailing the growth in regards to non-citizens:
In 2001, according to data obtained by the United States Department of Agriculture, about 425,000 non-citizens were on the food stamp rolls. In 2003, that number increased to 519,000, in 2006 it was 795,000, and in 2009, when President Obama took office, it was 994,000.
Now, in 2012, it’s estimated that 1,634,000 non-citizens are on food stamps. That means, since President Obama took office, the non-citizenson food stamps has nearly doubled.
” The 1996 welfare reform law significantly restricted food stamp eligibility for non-citizen immigrants. However, the 2002 farm bill reversed this policy, restoring eligibility and making the enrollment of non-citizen immigrants a high priority,” the Senate Budget Committee explains. “Beginning in 2004, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of State, and the Mexican government began an ongoing partnership to increase enrollment in food stamps, and other USDA nutrition welfare programs, to eligible Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals living and working in the United States. Today, the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service website highlights that outreach is provided through 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S.
“USDA has an extensive “outreach” effort instructing employees and state food stamps administrators on how to maximize enrollment of both citizens and non-citizen immigrants, lamenting that more non-citizens immigrants are not currently enrolled.”
And the Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee explain how the USDA has been boosting the food stamp rolls. “USDA produced and broadcast soap opera-like Spanish language ‘radio novelas’ about the benefits of enrolling in the food stamp program, even insulting characters who wish not to enroll. Indeed, the premise of the novelas is pressuring (successfully) someone to enroll who claims they have sufficient financial resources and not require government assistance.”
Illegal immigrants are not legally eligible for food stamps.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Department of Agriculture personnel in the Obama administration have met with Mexican Government officials dozens of times since the president took office to promote nutrition assistance programs — notably food stamps — among Mexican Americans, Mexican nationals and migrant communities in America.
Writing in response to Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions’ July request for information about the USDA’s little known partnership with the Mexican government to educate citizen and noncitizen immigrants from Mexico about the availability of food stamps and other nutrition assistance programs, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack defended the partnership as a way to curb hunger in America — and the continuation of a program formed under the Bush administration in 2004.
“The Mexico-U.S. Partnership for Nutrition Assistance Initiative is just one of a wide range of USDA partnership activities intended to promote awareness of nutrition assistance among those who need benefits and meet all program requirements under current law.” Vilsack wrote to Sessions in a letter obtained by The Daily Caller.
Since the partnership began, Vilsack wrote, USDA personnel have met at least 151 times with officials from the Mexican government “to discuss nutrition assistance programs as well as to provide program updates.” Those instances included 91 meetings with embassy and consulate staff in 25 U.S. cities; 29 health fairs in 19 U.S. cities; and 31 roundtable discussions, conferences and forums in 20 U.S. cities.
Roughly 30 of these meetings and activities occurred under the Obama administration, Vilsack’s letter revealed.
The agriculture secretary added that the list might not be exhaustive as some of the meetings may not have been recorded.
Sessions has been the lead lawmaker pushing back against the partnership. According to the Alabama senator, the program appears to be in “plain conflict with the sound principles of federal immigration law.”
“The premise of American immigration is that those entering our country should have to work and to contribute to the financial health of the United States,” Sessions told TheDC Sunday evening. “Not only does the administration violate this principle through the partnership, but it does harm by gradually displacing the role of family and community with continual government aid. Welfare reform is guided by the moral principle that good policy helps more people live better lives.”
In his letter, Vilsack asserted that USDA does not pressure people to enroll in the program or is attempting to boost its rolls. President Obama, too, has said that “people do not come here looking for handouts.”
“We do not pressure any eligible person to accept benefits, nor is our goal to simply increase the number of program participants, but we are determined to help people in need make informed decisions about whether or not to seek assistance for which they may be eligible,” Vilsack claimed.
The mission USDA articulates on its website is to “increase participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program” — food stamps. The agency has been engaged in aggressive advertising campaigns and issuing guidance to state and local offices about how to enroll more beneficiaries.
“I share the goal stated in your letter,” Vilsack concluded in his letter to the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, “which is to help people move toward gainful employment and financial independence. At the same time, the Nation’s nutrition assistance programs have never been needed more to help struggling families until they get back on their feet. I hope that this information clarifies our efforts and my views on these vital program.” (RELATED: USDA suggests food stamp parties, games to increase participation)
But statistics in Vilsack’s letter indicate that the number of legal non-citizens participating in SNAP increased approximately 190 percent from 2001 to 2010, from 425,000 to 1.23 million legal non-citizen participants. That number rose 77 percent since the program’s inception in 2004, when it served 693,000 non-citizen participants.
USDA did not offer data for 2011 and 2012, but a Republican Budget Committee staffer told TheDC that based on the growth rate, the number of legal non-citizens participating in the food stamp program today is about 1.63 million. That’s more than double the number of legal non-citizens who participated in 2008.
“Our nation is nearing a debt crisis and yet the Obama Administration has conducted thirty activities and meetings with the Mexican government to place even more foreign nationals on American welfare,” Sessions said. ”The number of non-citizens receiving food stamp support has doubled since the president took office. Such a policy defies rational thinking during a time of weak growth, high debt, and increasing welfare dependency. President Obama will have to defend this alarming partnership to the American people.”
Vilsack stressed that illegal immigrants are barred from participating in SNAP, and that states are required to determine whether applicants are legal citizens. He added that the USDA’s Food Nutrition Services supports the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) eligibility check program.
Food stamp participation reached an all time high this summer with 46.7 million people enrolled in the program overall. Spending on SNAP has doubled in the last four years and represents USDA’s single biggest annual expenditure, according to a Bloomberg report.
“Nearly 1 in 6 people living in the US are now on food stamps,” Sessions noted. “How can the administration justify trying to increase that number through outreach on the foreign soil of fifty consulates?”
He added that the continuation of the partnership demonstrates how far the country has moved from the guiding principles of the 1996 welfare reform and said there is a need for a renewed effort to return to that vision.
Participation in nutrition assistance programs like food stamps by non-citizens does not hinder their ability to qualify for citizenship or immigration status adjustments, according to current Department of Homeland Security immigration policy.
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PHOENIX, ARIZONA – Mike Rioux can’t go to the grocery store without making a list, even for a single item.
He can’t drive without gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turn white. And he can’t stand any longer than 30 minutes because of severe back pain.
This is Rioux’s life after Afghanistan, where firefights and a roadside bomb blast left him with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
His ears still ring from the explosions. He suffers from vertigo, headaches, insomnia and nightmares. He has terrible anxiety, evident in an interview with CNN — Rioux could hardly sit still, and his memory loss and inability to concentrate meant questions had to be repeated at times.
Read the rest of this entry »
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WASHINGTON, DC – Paul Ryan slammed Barack Obama’s failed foreign policy this week on FOX News Sunday.
The Republican VP nominee told Chris Wallace the “ugly fruits” of a foreign policy of weakness is unraveling before our eyes on our TV screens.
“The Obama foreign policy is unraveling literally before our eyes on our TV screens. And so what Mitt Romney is going to do is lay out a very different vision for foreign policy. One that is a policy of strength where I would articulate or claim the president’s policy is one of weakness. We’re seeing the ugly fruits of the Obama foreign policy unravel around the world on our TV screens.“
It looks like Obama’s policy of leading from behind wasn’t such a good idea, huh?
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WASHINGTON, DC – Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan agrees with presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s call for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign, or for President Barack Obama to fire him, over Operation Fast and Furious, a Ryan spokesman told The Daily Caller.
“The congressman agrees with the governor,” Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck told TheDC on Sunday, referring to Mitt Romney’s call for Holder’s resignation or termination over the gunwalking scandal last December.
“Either Mr. Holder himself should resign, or the president should ask for his resignation or remove him,” Romney said in December 2011. “It’s unacceptable for him to continue in that position now given the fact that he has misled Congress and entirely botched the investigation of the Fast and Furious program.”
Ryan’s call for Holder’s ouster over Fast and Furious comes a day after he told a sportsmen’s group that gun owners should be worried about Obama trying to infringe on their Second Amendment rights if he is re-elected. Speaking about Fast and Furious specifically, Ryan said at the Saturday event that such an operation “would never occur under a Romney-Ryan administration,” according to CBS News,
Ryan now becomes the 131st House GOP member to demand Holder’s resignation over the scandal.
Fast and Furious was a program of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, overseen by Holder’s Department of Justice. It sent thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels via straw purchasers — people who purchased guns in the United States with the known intention of illegally trafficking them somewhere else.
Fast and Furious guns were used to kill U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on Dec. 14, 2010, in Peck Canyon, Ariz.
Others whose murders have been connected to Fast and Furious weapons include Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata and Mexican citizen Mario Gonzalez. Gonzalez’s sister, Patricia Gonzalez, was the state prosecutor for the Mexican state of Chihuahua.
The Spanish-language television network Univision has discovered information suggesting that more people were murdered with Fast and Furious weapons, including those it decsribed as “16 young people attending a party in a residential area of Ciudad Juárez in January of 2010.” Mexican government officials have estimated that at least 300 people in Mexico were killed with Fast and Furious weapons.
The Spanish-language television network has pressed the Obama administration on Fast and Furious, most recently with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos grilling Obama in an interview over the scandal and asking him why he hasn’t “fired” Holder. During the interview, Obama made at least one false statement relating to Fast and Furious and many others of questionable veracity.
Congressional investigators from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Senate Judiciary Committee have been probing Fast and Furious since early 2011. The investigation has been marked by what appears to be a massive Obama administration cover up. On Feb. 4, 2011, the DOJ sent congressional investigators a false letter flatly denying guns were ever allowed to walk. Justice later withdrew that letter.
Holder has failed to comply with a subpoena congressional House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa served to him in October 2011. Of the more than 100,000 documents in his possession relating to Operation Fast and Furious, Holder has turned over less than 8,000 documents to Congress.
The attorney general’s failure to comply with the subpoena prompted the House of Representatives to vote him in criminal and civil contempt of Congress in a bipartisan vote.
As the congressional investigation has progressed, the Department of Justice’s internal Office of Inspector General has conducted its own investigation. Despite claims from Holder that a recently released report from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz “exonerates” or “clears” him from responsibility for Fast and Furious, Horowitz testified before Congress that his report does not clear Holder.
Horowitz told the House oversight committee that his team found that almost everyone inside Holder’s inner circle knew about the nefarious aspects of Fast and Furious and that Holder should have known about it, even if his investigation found no evidence that he did.
“We found, as we outlined in the report, we struggle to understand how an operation of this size, of this importance, that impacted another country like it did, could not have been briefed up to the attorney general of the United States,” Horowitz said. “It should have been, in our view. It was that kind of a case.”
Top Obama DOJ officials who have not been held accountable for their roles in Fast and Furious, according to Congress and the inspector general, include Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who runs DOJ’s criminal division, and Holder Chief of Staff Gary Grindler. Grindler was promoted from deputy attorney general to his current position about two weeks after Terry was murdered. Grindler was informed of the murder’s connection to Fast and Furious the night Terry was shot to death.
Though the Obama administration provided more information about Fast and Furious to Horowitz for his investigation than to Congress, the White House obstructed his investigation as well.
Former White House National Security Council staffer Kevin O’Reilly — who was intimately involved in Fast and Furious planning with Phoenix ATF officials, according to emails obtained throughout the congressional investigation — has since been reassigned by the Department of State to a detail in Iraq. Obama administration officials have refused to make O’Reilly available to congressional investigators, or to Horowitz’s internal DOJ investigation.
In their report, Horowitz’s team also wrote that “[t]he White House did not produce to us any internal White House communications.”
Horowitz said the Department of Homeland Security also impeded his investigation, citing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent “who was assigned to Operation Fast and Furious on a full time basis [but] declined our request for a voluntary interview.”
That ICE agent, he added, requested immunity from prosecution and declined to be interviewed unless it was granted.
“There was an agent from the Department of Homeland Security that was assigned to the operation,” Horowitz said during a congressional hearing on Sept. 20.
“As part of our effort to be thorough and interview all people who might have relevant information, we reached out. He, again, is outside the Department of Justice, so he declined our voluntary request to be interviewed by us.
“We sought through the Department of Homeland Security to speak to him, and we understood that, absent being compelled — and given immunity — that he would not speak voluntarily. That request was declined, is my understanding.”
Horowitz and congressional investigators plan to continue their respective investigations.
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WASHINGTON, DC – The Obama administration clearly hoped that the Department of Justice’s Inspector General report on Operation Fast and Furious would be the last word on the scandal. which has been tied to hundreds of deaths in Mexico and the murders of two American law-enforcement officials. However, a new report from Univision to be broadcast tomorrow, previewed here by ABC News, may put the issue back on the front pages. One source called Univision’s findings the “holy grail” that Congressional investigators have been seeking:
Often lost amid the rancor in Washington are the stories of dozens of people killed by guns that flowed south as part of the undercover operation, and later slipped out of view from U.S. officials. Univision’s Investigative Unit (Univision Investiga) has identified massacres committed using guns from the ATF operation, including the killing of 16 young people attending a party in a residential area of Ciudad Juárez in January of 2010.
The guns didn’t stop in Mexico, either:
Additional guns, previously unreported by congressional investigators, found their way into the hands of drug traffickers across Latin America in countries such as, Honduras and Colombia, as well as the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. A person familiar with the recent congressional hearings called Univision’s findings “the holy grail” that Congress had been searching for.
The Daily Caller also reports on Univision’s findings and the impact they may have on the scandal:
“The consequences of the controversial ‘Fast and Furious’ undercover operation put in place by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in 2009 have been deadlier than what has been made public to date,” the network said. “The exclusive, in-depth investigation by Univision News’ award-winning Investigative Unit — Univision Investiga — has found that the guns that crossed the border as part of Operation Fast and Furious caused dozens of deaths inside Mexico.”
Among other groups of Fast and Furious victim stories Univision says it will tell in the special to air Sunday evening at 7 p.m., is one about how “16 young people attending a party in a residential area of Ciudad Juárez in January of 2010″ were gunned down with weapons the Obama administration gave to drug cartel criminals through Fast and Furious.
“Univision News’ Investigative Unit was also able to identify additional guns that escaped the control of ATF agents and were used in different types of crimes throughout Mexico,” the network added. “Furthermore, some of these guns — none of which were reported by congressional investigators — were put in the hands of drug traffickers in Honduras, Puerto Rico, and Colombia. A person familiar with the recent congressional hearings called Univision’s findings ‘the holy grail’ that Congress had been searching for.”
Sharyl Attkisson at CBS News reminds us that the Obama administration is still hiding Kevin O’Reilly, a key figure in Operation Fast and Furious:
O’Reilly, then a White House National Security staffer, had phone and email exchanges about Fast and Furious from July 2010 to Feb. 2011 with the lead ATF official on the case: ATF Special Agent in Charge Bill Newell. Just days after Newell testified to Congress on July 26, 2011 that he’d shared information with O’Reilly, whom he described as a long time friend, O’Reilly was transferred to Iraq and not available for questioning. Thereafter, he declined interviews with congressional investigators and the IG.
In a letter sent to O’Reilly’s attorney Thursday, Issa and Grassley state that O’Reilly’s “sudden transfer” to Iraq took him out of pocket in their investigation, and placed him in a position that had already been given to somebody else, raising “serious questions about O’Reilly’s assignment in Baghdad (and) the motivation for his transfer there.” …
“Given that O’Reilly was the link connecting the White House to the scandal, and that the President subsequently asserted executive privilege over the documents pertaining to Fast and Furious, it is imperative that the American people get to the bottom of O’Reilly’s involvement with Fast and Furious,” says the letter to O’Reilly’s attorney.
It goes on to say that if O’Reilly does not agree to an interview within 30 days, congressional Republicans will have no choice but to “use compulsory process” or subpoena power to require his testimony.
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KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – U.S. military deaths in the Afghan war have reached 2,000, a cold reminder of the human cost of an 11-year-old conflict that now garners little public interest at home as the United States prepares to withdraw most of its combat forces by the end of 2014.
The toll has climbed steadily in recent months with a spate of attacks by Afghan army and police — supposed allies — against American and NATO troops. That has raised troubling questions about whether countries in the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan will achieve their aim of helping the government in Kabul and its forces stand on their own after most foreign troops depart in little more than two years.
On Sunday, a U.S. official confirmed the latest death, saying that an international service member killed in an apparent insider attack by Afghan forces in the east of the country late Saturday was American. A civilian contractor with NATO and at least two Afghan soldiers also died in the attack, according to a coalition statement and Afghan provincial officials. The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity because the nationality of those killed had not been formally released. Names of the dead are usually released after their families or next-of-kin are notified, a process that can take several days. The nationality of the civilian was also not disclosed.
In addition to the 2,000 Americans killed since the Afghan war began on Oct. 7, 2001, at least 1,190 more coalition troops from other countries have also died, according to iCasualties.org, an independent organization that tracks the deaths.
According to the Afghanistan index kept by the Washington-based research centre Brookings Institution, about 40 per cent of the American deaths were caused by improvised explosive devices. The majority of those were after 2009, when President Barack Obama ordered a surge that sent in 33,000 additional troops to combat heightened Taliban activity. The surge brought the total number of American troops to 101,000, the peak for the entire war.
According to Brookings, hostile fire was the second most common cause of death, accounting for nearly 31 per cent of Americans killed.
Tracking deaths of Afghan civilians is much more difficult. According to the U.N., 13,431 civilians were killed in the Afghan conflict between 2007, when the U.N. began keeping statistics, and the end of August. Going back to the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, most estimates put the number of Afghan civilian deaths in the war at more than 20,000.
The number of American dead reflects an Associated Press count of those members of the armed services killed inside Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion began. Some other news organizations use a count that also includes those killed outside Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, the global anti-terror campaign led by then-President George W. Bush.
The 2001 invasion targeted al-Qaida and its Taliban allies shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, which claimed nearly 3,000 lives.
Victory in Afghanistan seemed to come quickly. Kabul fell within weeks, and the hardline Taliban regime was toppled with few U.S. casualties.
But the Bush administration’s shift toward war with Iraq left the Western powers without enough resources on the ground, so by 2006 the Taliban had regrouped into a serious military threat.
Obama deployed more troops to Afghanistan, and casualties increased sharply in the last several years. But the American public grew weary of having its military in a perpetual state of conflict, especially after the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq at the end of last year. That war, which began with a U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to oust Saddam Hussein, cost the lives of nearly 4,500 U.S. troops, more than twice as many as have died in Afghanistan so far.
“The tally is modest by the standards of war historically, but every fatality is a tragedy and 11 years is too long,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a fellow at the Brookings. “All that is internalized, however, in an American public that has been watching this campaign for a long time. More newsworthy right now are the insider attacks and the sense of hopelessness they convey to many. “
Attacks by Afghan soldiers or police — or insurgents disguised in their uniforms — have killed 52 American and other NATO troops so far this year.
The so-called insider attacks are considered one of the most serious threats to the U.S. exit strategy from the country. In its latest incarnation, that strategy has focused on training Afghan forces to take over security nationwide — allowing most foreign troops to go home by the end of 2014.
Although Obama has pledged that most U.S. combat troops will leave by the end of 2014, American, NATO and allied troops are still dying in Afghanistan at a rate of one a day.
Even with 33,000 American troops back home, the U.S.-led coalition will still have 108,000 troops — including 68,000 from the U.S. — fighting in Afghanistan at the end of this year. Many of those will be training the Afghan National Security Forces that are to replace them.
“There is a challenge for the administration,” O’Hanlon said, “to remind people in the face of such bad news why this campaign requires more perseverance.”
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WASHINGTON, DC – A new report blasts Amtrak, the nation’s largest passenger rail carrier, for dangerously overlooking drug and alcohol use by its employees.
The report released Thursday, an internal audit by Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General, says drug and alcohol use by employees has steadily risen since 2006. The majority of employees who failed drug tests were reported to have tested positive for cocaine and marijuana, according to the report.
Amtrak’s employees failed drug and alcohol tests at a staggering 51% higher rate than the rail industry average, the report said. Amtrak officials estimate that they’ve spent $1.5 million to screen employees in 2012 alone, but employees have exceeded industry averages failing drug tests in each of the past five years.
Federal regulations requiring railroad companies to implement drug and alcohol testing were put in place after a deadly 1987 Amtrak collision with a freight train in Chase, Maryland. In that accident, investigators concluded that a Conrail freight train engineer was under the influence of marijuana and ran three signals before colliding with the passenger train, killing 16.
Employees in safety-sensitive positions are subject to closer federal regulatory scrutiny when it comes to drug and alcohol testing. But the inspector general’s report suggests that Amtrak officials have turned something of a blind eye toward enforcing its own policies for testing employees and complying with regulations.
In a blistering criticism of the role senior management at Amtrak has played in its failure to curtail the problem, the inspector general noted, “Amtrak’s current senior management’s lack of knowledge about the extent of drug and alcohol use, the lack of engagement in the program, and the limited response to (the Federal Railroad Administration’s) concerns about its physical observations raise serious questions about Amtrak’s commitment to controlling drug and alcohol use.”
Officials are required to physically observe each employee for signs and symptoms of drug and alcohol use once every three months, on average, the report said. Amtrak is required to randomly perform drug testing on at least 25% of its employees in safety sensitive positions and alcohol testing on at least 10% of safety-sensitive positioned employees each year.
Employees who are in safety-sensitive positions have maximum hours-of-service regulations and minimum off-duty hour requirements between shifts. Amtrak has more than 4,400 employees who meet those requirements, including locomotive engineers, conductors, train dispatchers, signal maintenance employees and mechanics.
The report suggested a number of ways Amtrak could prevent employees from showing up to work drunk and on illegal drugs. The recommendations include increasing the frequency of drug and alcohol testing, reviewing results and comparing them to industry averages, demonstrating that drug and alcohol control is a priority for Amtrak senior management, improving the physical observation of employees and increased training of supervisors.
Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General conducts and supervises audits, inspections, evaluations and investigations for the rail company. It provides reports to customers, the public and Congress. The Amtrak inspector general is responsible for preventing and detecting fraud, waste, abuse and reviewing security and safety policies in agency programs and operations.
2011 was a record year in terms of ridership for Amtrak. It carried nearly 30.2 million passengers, an average of more than 82,000 passengers on 300 trains daily. According to Amtrak, its ridership has increased in eight of the past nine years.
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WASHINGTON, DC – The Obama administration notified Congress on Friday that it would provide Egypt’s new government an emergency cash infusion of $450 million, but the aid immediately encountered resistance from a prominent lawmaker wary of foreign aid and Egypt’s new course under the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The aid is part of the $1 billion in assistance that the Obama administration has pledged to Egypt to bolster its transition to democracy after the overthrow last year of the former president, Hosni Mubarak. Its fate, however, was clouded by concerns over the new government’s policies and, more recently, the protests that damaged the American Embassy in Cairo.
The United States Agency for International Development notified Congress of the cash infusion on Friday morning during the pre-election recess, promptly igniting a smoldering debate over foreign aid and the administration’s handling of crises in the Islamic world.
An influential Republican lawmaker, Representative Kay Granger of Texas, immediately announced that she would use her position as chairwoman of the House appropriations subcommittee overseeing foreign aid to block the distribution of the money. She said the American relationship with Egypt “has never been under more scrutiny” than it is in the wake of the election of President Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“I am not convinced of the urgent need for this assistance and I cannot support it at this time,” Ms. Granger said in a statement that her office issued even before the administration announced the package.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking at a meeting of the Group of 8 nations in New York, said on Friday that the world needed to do more to support the governments that have emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings, including those in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.
“The recent riots and protests throughout the region have brought the challenge of transition into sharp relief,” Mrs. Clinton said, without mentioning the assistance to Egypt specifically. “Extremists are clearly determined to hijack these wars and revolutions to further their agendas and ideology, so our partnership must empower those who would see their nations emerge as true democracies.”
The debate comes as the issue of foreign aid in general made an unexpected appearance in the presidential campaign.
In a speech in New York on Tuesday, Mr. Obama’s Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, called for revamping assistance to focus more on investments in the private sector than on direct aid — a shift administration officials have said is under way.
While Mr. Romney did not address aid to Egypt directly, he cited Mr. Morsi’s membership in the Muslim Brotherhood as one of the alarming developments in the Middle East, along with the war in Syria, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and the killing of the American ambassador to Libya.
“A temporary aid package can jolt an economy,” he said. “It can fund some projects. It can pay some bills. It can employ some people some of the time. But it can’t sustain an economy — not for long. It can’t pull the whole cart, because at some point the money runs out.”
The $1 billion in aid, announced by Mr. Obama in May 2011, was initially intended to relieve Egypt’s debts to the United States, though negotiations stalled during the country’s turbulent transition from military rule to the election of Mr. Morsi this summer.
In recent weeks, negotiations over the assistance picked up pace, and the administration decided to provide $450 million instead, including $190 million immediately, because the country’s economic crisis has become acute, with an estimated budget shortfall of $12 billion.
The assistance outlined in letters to Congress on Friday would be contingent on Egypt’s setting in motion economic and budgetary changes that the International Monetary Fund is now negotiating as part of a $4.8 billion loan.
The administration has also thrown its support behind that loan, and officials said they hoped it would be completed before the end of the year. A $260 million infusion would come when the much larger loan is completed, according to officials familiar with the package. By law, all assistance to Egypt is contingent on the country’s meeting certain requirements, including adherence to basic democratic values and the Camp David peace treaty with Israel.
The protests over an anti-Muslim video and the storming of the American Embassy in Cairo on Sept. 11 came even as senior White House and State Department officials led a large business delegation to promote economic assistance and trade in Egypt.
Mr. Morsi’s slow response to the protests raised concerns in Washington, although administration officials later cited improved cooperation over the embassy’s security.
The $1 billion in assistance has been cobbled together from funds already appropriated by Congress, but the administration is required to notify lawmakers of its intention to release any of the funds. Ms. Granger presumably can put a hold on that release and pursue legislation to reverse the appropriation.
Mrs. Clinton lobbied lawmakers last week during closed-door briefings that focused on the tumult across the region, including the attack at the American diplomatic mission in Libya that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
In addition to the $1 billion in assistance, the administration is working with Egypt to provide $375 million in financing and loan guarantees for American financiers who invest in Egypt and a $60 million investment fund for Egyptian businesses. All of that comes on top of $1.3 billion in military aid that the United States provides Egypt each year.
A senior State Department official said that the administration would consult with members of Congress in the days ahead “to make the case that this budget support is firmly in U.S. interests in seeing peace, stability and democracy in Egypt and the wider neighborhood.”
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WASHINGTON, DC – The Obama administration issued new guidance intended for defense contractors Friday afternoon, reiterating the administration’s position that the companies should not be issuing layoff notices over sequestration.
The Labor Department issued guidance in July saying it would be “inappropriate” for contractors to issue notices of potential layoffs tied to sequestration cuts. But a few contractors, most notably Lockheed Martin, said they still were considering whether to issue the notices — which would be sent out just days before the November election.
But the Friday guidance from the Office of Management and Budget raised the stakes in the dispute, telling contractors that they would be compensated for legal costs if layoffs occur due to contract cancellations under sequestration — but only if the contractors follow the Labor guidance.
The guidance said that if plant closings or mass layoffs occur under sequestration, then “employee compensation costs for [Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification] WARN act liability as determined by a court” would be paid for covered by the contracting federal agency.
Senate Republicans, who accused the White House of trying to hide job losses after the first guidance, said Friday that the new OMB statement “puts politics ahead of American workers.”
“The Obama Administration is cynically trying to skirt the WARN Act to keep the American people in the dark about this looming national security and fiscal crisis,” Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said in a statement. “The president should insist that companies act in accordance with the clearly stated law and move forward with the layoff notices.”
The fight over WARN Act notices began in June when Lockheed Martin CEO Bob Stevens said his company might send the notices to all 123,000 of its employees.
Some companies were hesitant to follow Lockheed, but several others told McCain in letters earlier this month they might send the notices, too, despite the Labor Department guidance.
But the new guidance would appear to address one of the chief concerns from the companies — that they could be liable to compensate employees who were laid off if the companies don’t issue the notices.
The GOP senators complained, however, that this tactic would push the cost of the layoffs onto taxpayers.
A Lockheed Martin spokeswoman told The Hill that the company is still reviewing the documents.
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OHIO – A program that provides subsidized phone service to low-income individuals has nearly doubled in size in Ohio in the past year — now covering more than a million people. At the same time, federal officials say they’re reining in waste, fraud and abuse in the program.
The Federal Communications Commission announced recently that reforms have saved $43 million since January and are expected to save $200 million by year’s end. In Ohio, savings are expected to be $2.9 million a year.
The savings were realized in part because the government gave out fewer cellphones to ineligible people and took steps to avoid issuing duplicate phones.
But the size of the program in the state — and profits to the increasing number of cellphone companies involved — has exploded in recent months, according to a Dayton Daily News analysis of program data.
The program in Ohio cost $26.9 million in the first quarter of 2012, the most recent data available, versus $15.6 million in the same timeframe in 2011. Compared to the first quarter of 2011, the number of people in the program nearly doubled to more than a million.
Growth could cost everyone who owns a phone. The program is funded through the “Universal Service Fund” charge on phone bills — usually a dollar or two per bill — and the amount of the fee is determined by the cost of this and other programs.
A growth of $100 million in this program could result in an increased fee of a few cents on the average bill, according to officials from the agency that administers the program. The total cost of the program nationwide was $1.5 billion in 2011, up from $1.1 billion in 2010.
Growth in the program is fed by the 2008 decision to extend it to prepaid cellphone companies, which get up to $10 every month that someone is subscribed. The number of cellphone companies offering the service in Ohio grew from four in 2011 to nine currently, with seven more awaiting approval from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
Advocates for the poor say this growth is to be expected; eligibility is dependent on having a low income or being in a program such as food stamps or heating assistance, and that population is ballooning, they say.
“I am unable to have a cellphone and I need one for emergencies,” said Aliesa Azbill of Dayton, who is in a work training program at Community Action Partnership. She said the 250 free minutes she gets per month through SafeLink isn’t enough to use it for much more than emergencies.
She said it has come in helpful when her home phone has lost service or her 12-year-old daughter goes to the library and she wants her to be able to reach someone in an emergency since public phones have become rare.
Azbill heard about the phone program about six months ago from a friend, and has since told more people about it. Community Action Partnership outreach coordinator Deborah Ferguson said her anti-poverty agency tells people about the program because it helps them reach people when services or jobs become available.
Reforms to the program this year included a one-time crackdown that de-enrolled tens of thousands of people in Ohio found to have more than one phone. The program allows only one line per household; requires future applicants to prove they are eligible, instead of simply attesting to it on a form; and makes people re-enroll each year instead of doing so automatically.
Next year, phone companies will have to check new applicants against a list of current enrollees to screen out duplicates.
“We put in a number of protections to ensure that eligible consumers are signing up and households aren’t getting more than one benefit,” said the FCC’s Kimberly Scardino, who oversees the Lifeline program.
FCC officials point out that many of the reforms became effective in June. So the growth of the program could slow or halt, though they won’t make any predictions.
Studies estimate duplicate service makes up only about 7 percent of the program, and the enrollment has grown nationally from 11.5 million participants in the first quarter of 2011 to 16.5 million in the same period this year. The number of eligible people is estimated at between 20 and 30 million, according to the Universal Service Administrative Company, which administers the program.
“It’s certainly growing, and it’s growing because there are more companies entering the program and offering more services to people,” said USAC Spokesman Eric Iversen.
This growth worries people like Tom Schatz, president of the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste.
“There are still questions about whether or not cellphones should be provided at all,” he said. “The entire premise of the program should continue to be examined by Congress.”
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WASHINGTON, DC – The Social Security numbers of some of the nation’s most highly decorated Army war heroes from Iraq and Afghanistan were posted this week by a civilian contractor on a publicly available website.
The Army has launched an investigation to find out how the privacy of its heroes was violated.
Of more than 500 names and profiles on the site, 31 contain Social Security numbers. Six are Medal of Honor recipients, two of whom are alive. There are also Social Security numbers for 25 soldiers who earned the Distinguished Service Cross, 22 of whom are living.
Army spokesman George Wright told The Washington Times on Friday the service has launched an investigation to determine how the Army data was handled. He said the contractor was contacted and told to remove the site.
“We take this matter seriously,” Mr. Wright said.
By Friday evening, The Times could still access the Web address for the list of heroes, their accomplishments in battle, and, in 31 cases, the Social Security numbers.
The site was discovered by a veteran doing research on war heroes.
Former Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta earned the Medal of Honor, presented by President Obama, for saving the lives of comrades in Afghanistan on Oct. 25, 2007. He left the Army last year and is attending college.
The Times provided him a copy of his data on the website.
“My reaction is ‘What a bummer!’” he said in an email. “Our Socials are not public information for a reason. I don’t know why someone would make them public.”
1st Sgt. Leroy Petry is the Army’s lone Medal of Honor recipient on active duty. A Ranger, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism during a firefight in Afghanistan.
Contracted by The Times and shown the data, Sgt. Petry said he immediately contracted Army Special Operations Command.
“It’s disappointing. You always have the fear of fraud,” he said. “The bigger question is how did they get it and is the person who released it being held responsible.”
Doug Sterner, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, has been urging the Pentagon to set up a database of citations for valor in the war on terror. He is the curator of the Hall of Valor website on MilitaryTimes.com.
What struck Mr. Sterner is how complete the database is. “It’s an impressive piece of work,” he told The Times. “This is the single most complete and accurate compilation of Army awards I have found since World War II.”
The Army Times reported the site was created by an employee of Brightline Interactive, which is helping the Army’s public affairs office build a “Gallery of Heroes” to be displayed at conventions.
Before the Army Times story was posted, The Washington Times contacted Brightline. A man who identified himself as the chief operating officer denied any knowledge of the website and suggested it was from another company.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Friday said the American people “have flat-out been lied to” by President Barack Obama and his administration about the violence in Libya — and this cover-up is worse than Richard Nixon’s scandal because “nobody died in Watergate.”
“Let’s just get blunt. No way to sugar coat this — We’ve been lied to. We have flat-out been lied to. They know they’ve lied,” Huckabee told Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.” “It’s as if airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center and somebody says, ‘those were just accidents. The planes veered off course.’ Everybody with two eyes and IQ above plant life understands that what happened in Egypt and what happened in Libya was not some spontaneous reaction to a stupid 13-minute video on YouTube. It was a planned, coordinated, orchestrated attack led by terrorists.”
Huckabee, who hosts “Huckabee” on Fox and the radio program “The Mike Huckabee Show,” then likened the Libya situation to Watergate.
“Richard Nixon was forced out of office because he lied and because he covered some stuff up. I’m going to be blunt and tell you this — nobody died in Watergate,” Huckabee said. “We have some people who are dead because of this. There are some questions to be answered and Americans ought to demand to get answers and it doesn’t matter what the politics are.”
Co-host Bill Hemmer later followed-up, asking, “You’re comparing the events of today to Watergate?
“I sure am,” Huckabee said.
“This White House has been discredited and its credibility, certainly the promises of transparency have been completely decimated by their actions,” Huckabee added.
“It’s very strong language, but I know you’ve thought about this,” Hemmer replied.
Huckabee stood by his comments later Friday, telling listeners of his radio show that he gave a “very honest answer.” He also brought up Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal and his denial of the affair to Americans.
“Yes, those were serious breaches of trust, but it did not result in the deaths of anyone in either case,” Huckabee said.
Huckabee added, however, that he was “not suggesting” Obama be impeached. “What I am suggesting is the American people demand accountability,” he said.
And earlier Friday morning, Fox News host Geraldo Rivera stopped by “Fox & Friends” and called what happened in Libya and its aftermath “the one cancer on the presidency.” He dubbed the situation “Benghazi-gate” because “it contains the grim prospect that the administration knew or should have known the true nature.”
“It is the biggest foreign policy blunder — it is the only chink in the armor of the Obama administration. As they surge in these polls, this is the one cancer on the presidency,” Rivera said.
UPDATE (4:25 p.m.): Huckabee again doubled-down the Watergate comparison on Fox News’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto.”
“If Watergate was about a president lying and covering up, if Bill Clinton got impeached because he lie and covered up, if this president and his administration has lied and covered up, are we going to hold him accountable in the same way that we have others? It cost Nixon his job. It almost cost Clinton his White House. Are we going to re-elect a president who wasn’t being honest with us?” Huckabee said Friday.
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WASHINGTON, DC — Extremists from groups linked to al Qaida struck the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in a “deliberate and organized terrorist attack,” the top U.S. intelligence agency said Friday, as it took responsibility for the Obama administration’s initial claims that the deadly assault grew from a spontaneous protest against an anti-Islam video.
The unusual statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence appeared to have two goals: updating the public on the latest findings of the investigation into the assault, and shielding the White House from a political backlash over its original accounts.
“In the immediate aftermath (of the assault), there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo,” spokesman Sean Turner said in the statement. “We provided that initial assessment to executive branch officials and members of Congress, who used that information to discuss the attack publicly.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates and sets policies for the 16 other U.S. intelligence agencies, is led by retired Air Force Gen. James Clapper, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in August 2010.
U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in the assault staged by scores of assault rifle- and rocket-propelled grenade-toting assailants on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, have accused the administration of misleading the country about the nature of the attack to protect Obama’s campaign claim that his policies have hurt al Qaida’s ability to launch attacks and eased anti-U.S. hatred in the Muslim world.
In his statement, Turner said that U.S. intelligence agencies’ understanding of what happened in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, has evolved as they’ve collected and analyzed information on the incident. “As we learned more about the attack, we revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists,” he said.
“It remains unclear if any group or person exercised overall command and control of the attack, and if extremist group leaders directed their members to participate,” he said. “However, we do assess that some of those involved were linked to groups affiliated with, or sympathetic to, al Qaida.”
Turner didn’t name a specific group. Other U.S. officials have said that they were focusing on the possible involvement of the North African affiliate of the terrorist network, al Qaida in the Maghreb, known as AQIM, and local Islamic militant groups.
The statement did not quiet the political backlash.
Shortly after it was issued, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., called for the resignation of Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who was the first senior official to detail the administration’s initial account that the attack was spontaneous during appearances on Sunday morning television talk shows.
Rice “was the vehicle by which they transmitted this misleading message to the American people and the world,” King told CNN.
Rice’s spokeswoman, Erin Pelton, responded by noting that Rice’s comments “were prefaced at every turn with a clear statement that an FBI investigation was underway” and that she was providing “the best information . . . that the administration had at the time . . . provided by the U.S. intelligence community.”
In their initial accounts, Rice and other senior administration officials insisted there was no indication the attack was “pre-planned.” It grew, they said, from a spontaneous protest outside the consulate that was inspired by the violent demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo against a video denigrating the Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam. The video, which has triggered a rash of violent anti-American protests across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, was made in the United States.
The accounts, however, were quickly challenged. President Mohammad Magarief, the head of the Libyan National Congress, the recently elected interim government, said that the assault was organized and planned by foreigners, some with links to al Qaida, involved members of a local Islamist militant group, and was deliberately timed for the anniversary of 9/11.
Witnesses corroborated Magarief’s account in interviews with McClatchy, saying there was no protest before the attack, which they described as complex and well-organized.
Senior lawmakers also questioned the administration’s version.
“It is my conclusion that it was a planned, coordinated event,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told McClatchy in an interview.
Senior Republican lawmakers cited the differences in questioning the administration account as well as the security around the consulate. They pointed out that Americans in Libya were known to have been under threat, Benghazi had seen a rash of attacks on foreign targets by Islamist militants, and the country remains haunted by armed groups nearly a year after the U.S.-backed ouster of the late dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Appearing before a Senate committee on Sept. 19, Matthew Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, became the first senior administration official to publicly confirm that Stevens and the three other Americans died in a terrorist attack.
It took another day before White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that it was “self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”
Obama, facing a tough re-election campaign, has refrained from calling the incident a terrorist attack even as he decried the incident and the deaths of the Americans before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.
Pressed on Wednesday by reporters on why Obama hasn’t used the term, Carney replied, “It is certainly the case that it is our view as an administration, the president’s view, that it was a terrorist attack.”
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WASHINGTON, DC – Of the twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare, below are the five worst that will be foisted upon Americans for the first time on January 1, 2013:
The Obamacare Medical Device Tax – a $20 billion tax increase: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will increase the cost of your health care – making everything from pacemakers to prosthetics more expensive.
The Obamacare “Special Needs Kids Tax” – a $13 billion tax increase: The 30-35 million Americans who use a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs will face a new government cap of $2,500 (currently the accounts are unlimited under federal law, though employers are allowed to set a cap).
There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are several million families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families.
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WASHINGTON, DC – At Fort Myer, Va., a small Army base across the river from Washington, D.C., Chaplain Mark Worrell is talking to about 100 soldiers, reciting the grim numbers.
“This year, 2012, there have been more suicides in the Army than combat deaths,” he says.
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WASHINGTON, DC – A convicted TSA security officer says he was part of a “culture” of indifference that allowed corrupt employees to prey on passengers’ luggage and personal belongings with impunity, thanks to lax oversight and tip-offs from TSA colleagues.
“It was very commonplace, very,” said Pythias Brown, a former TSA officer at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey who admits he stole more than $800,000 worth of items from luggage and security checkpoints over a four-year period.
“It was very convenient to steal,” he said.
Speaking publicly for the first time after being released from prison, Brown told ABC News his four-year-long crime spree came to an end only because he tried to sell a camera he stole from the luggage of a CNN producer on E-bay but forget to remove all of the news networks’ identifying stickers.
“It became so easy, I got complacent,” Brown said.
Brown is one of almost 400 TSA officers who have been fired for stealing from passengers in the past decade. According to the TSA, 381 TSA officers have been fired for theft between 2003 and 2012, including 11 so far in this year.
In a statement to ABC News, the agency said it has “a zero-tolerance policy for theft and terminates any employee who is determined to have stolen from a passenger.”
The agency disputes that theft is a widespread problem, however, saying the number of officers fired “represents less than one-half of one percent of officers that have been employed” by TSA.
Congressional critics say the theft problem is no surprise, given TSA’s failure to do proper background checks on personnel hired to handle security screening.
“TSA is probably the worst personnel manager that we have in the entire federal government,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Florida, chairman of the House Transportation Committee. “It is an outrage to the public and, actually, to our aviation security system,” he said.
Assigned to screen luggage behind the ticket counters, Brown said he often worked alone, was told when overhead surveillance cameras to prevent theft were not working, and was never asked about suspicious behavior.
“It was so easy,” said Brown, “I walked right out of the checkpoint with a Nintendo Wii in my hand. Nobody said a word.”
He said he soon learned how to read the X-ray scans to find the most valuable items to steal.
“I could tell whether it was cameras or laptops or portable cameras or whatever kind of electronic was in the bag,” Brown said.
At the time of his arrest, Brown was offering for sale some 80 cameras, video games and computers on his personal eBay page.
“It was like being on drugs, it was,” he told ABC News. “I was like, ‘What am I doing?’ but the next day I was right back at it.”
Brown described one instance when he got a tip off about complaints from passengers about thefts.
“One gentleman that used to work in the office one day came to me and said, ‘They were talking about you in the office. Be careful.’ I said, ‘Okay.’”
Brown told ABC News he decided to go public and admit his crimes in an effort to warn airline passengers about what could happen with luggage screened by TSA.
Even the special TSA locks sold for luggage won’t work, Brown says, because TSA employees learned how to pick them without being detected.
The convicted TSA officer said he believes that most people working for the agency are honest but that poor morale and a low pay scale led some to be tempted to steal.
“They didn’t think it was okay, but they did it and said, ‘I don’t care. They ain’t paying me. They’re treating me wrong.’ But then when people started seeing they could profit off of it, then it became massive,” said Brown.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Your phone bill will likely be higher this year — $7 more, in one scenario — to help pay for a government program you may never have heard of.
Last month, the Federal Communications Commission increased a tax on long-distance charges to help fund a government-sponsored phone service called Lifeline that provides more than 12 million low-income Americans with discounted or free cellular plans.
The tax, known as the universal connectivity fee, is assessed of carriers and generally passed along directly to customers. After the recent increase, the fee stands at an all-time high of 15.3 percent, up from 14.4 percent.
Last year, Lifeline ran up a $1.34 billion bill, exceeding the revenue generated by the fee. For many customers, the adjustment will cost just a “few extra pennies” a month, an FCC spokesman told The Daily.
Others may see a bit more of an effect: For the hypothetical customer whose monthly bill totals includes $50 in relevant long-distance charges, the universal connectivity fee would jump by about 60 cents, according to a scenario authenticated with the FCC. On an annual basis, the fee increase would cost this customer about $7.
Though that’s pocket change for some, the move has shined a new spotlight on a program that critics in Congress say is flawed and subject to abuse. “This government giveaway is another example of unnecessary and wasteful spending,” said Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, who wants to eliminate the subsidy he labels a backdoor tax.
But supporters say the program saves lives and keeps people in tough economic straits connected to the world. Many participants say they would have trouble getting by without it. “It saves me half as much as I was paying before,” said Helen Phillips, 40, of Tulsa, Okla. She supplements her temp jobs with SSI payments and receives help from a food pantry as well as subsidized cellular service under Lifeline. “Most of the time I use it for work and to call my family and friends,” she said.
To qualify for the program, a person must have an income at or less than 135 percent of the poverty level and already be accepting government support like food stamps or Medicaid. For a family of four, the eligibility threshold would be about $30,000. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint all offer Lifeline, as do many smaller carriers. The program also provides assistance to customers in rural and tribal areas and discounts on Internet access for eligible schools, libraries and health care providers.
But not all users are happy with the program. Teressa Brown, 42, also of Tulsa, said she received faulty equipment from her provider, one of the many independent carriers that have jumped into the business. “My phone went out on me in less than a month,” she said. “I requested for another one and they said they would replace it, but they told me I needed to rush them $40. I told them I would not do that.”
Cases like Brown’s have lawmakers in a twist. The poor service reports plus accusations of customers using multiple cellphones when permitted only one a household have sparked action in Washington.
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, is pushing for a more stringent steward at the phone switch.
“If this program is to be sustainable,” he said, “the FCC must reform it promptly, ending duplicative support for multiple carriers to serve a single household, preventing carriers from receiving support for services that consumers do not use, and pushing carriers to actually verify that their customers are eligible to participate in the program.”
The FCC is not directly in charge of Lifeline but has oversight and polices it. The service is outsourced to the Universal Service Administration Co., a nongovernmental, not-for-profit agency.
The talk of fraud is overstated, said Universal Service Administration spokesman Eric Iverson. “The consumer has to complete this certification saying under perjury, ‘I am eligible for this service,’” he said. “The companies tell us how many eligible consumers there are every month and we provide them up to $10 dollars per consumer as a subsidy.”
All states provide federal discounts of as much as $10 a month to those qualifying and all but nine offer added discounts of varying rates. The total of free minutes granted can range from 98 to 250.
Mark Wigfield of the FCC said that the Department of Justice deals with consumer fraud. “We’re responding to [critics] and reforming the rules,” he said. “It is one phone line per household. We recently clarified the rules to make sure people understood that.” He acknowledged, though, that multiple families can reside at the same address.
Economic woes have led more people to reach for Lifeline. “It’s gone up in recent years with more companies participating in the program,” Iverson said. “More people are qualifying.”
Cheryl Leanza, a media policy consultant, emphasized Lifeline’s cost benefits. “Your phone is more valuable if you can call anyone instead of just an assortment of people,” she said.
“Everybody with a telephone benefits the people that are on the network. We’re not talking about a lot of money,” she said.
After suffering two brain aneurisms, retired bottling factory worker Virginia Bandy, 71, moved from Chicago to Auburn, Ala., to be closer to family. Her concerned daughter insisted she get a cellphone and Lifeline helped. “Hopefully I don’t have to have an emergency and need to use it,” Bandy said.
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WASHINGTON, DC — The Justice Department’s use of electronic devices to intercept phone numbers, email addresses and online information has climbed by 64 percent since 2009, according to a study of records released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Government data shows that from 2009 to 2011, the combined number of court orders for so-called pen registers and trap and trace devices on phones rose from 23,535 in 2009 to 37,616 in 2011, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Though used far less frequently, the combined number of court orders targeting individuals’ email and network communications data rose from 360 in 2009 to 1,661 through the end of 2011. When combined, the total intercepts represent a 64 percent increase.
The civil liberties advocacy group made the FOIA request, analyzed the released documents and issued a report on them Thursday.
A pen register records all numbers dialed from a particular telephone line. A trap-and-trace device records the telephone numbers of inbound callers to a suspected criminal telephone.
The Justice Department says civil liberties are safeguarded by obtaining court approval to use such surveillance.
The devices are not used to capture phone conversations or the content of emails.
“In every instance cited here, a federal judge authorized the law enforcement activity,” Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said. “As criminals increasingly use new and more sophisticated technologies, the use of orders issued by a judge and explicitly authorized by Congress to obtain non-content information is essential for federal law enforcement officials to carry out their duty to protect the public and investigate violations of federal laws.”
The standard for obtaining a court order for such surveillance requires that the information sought is relevant to an investigation. That standard is far less than the law requires to obtain a warrant to conduct a physical search: probable cause to believe a crime has been committed.
An ACLU staff attorney, Catherine Crump, said the process for these less intrusive warrants is a “rubber stamp” devoid of any kind of meaningful court review.
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WASHINGTON, DC – What seemed like a joke at one of D.C.’s oldest fire houses prompted an official investigation this week.
Someone at Engine 10 on Florida Avenue in Northeast drew a mustache on the official photo of D.C. Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe and turned it upside down, which led to a destruction of property investigation, sources told News4.
A deputy chief and a lieutenant dressed down the company, demanding respect for the chief and threatening criminal charges.
“You don’t want to be in here in this agency or under the direction of the fire chief, there’s nothing holding you back,” an official can be heard saying on a recording obtained by News4. “But as long as he’s the fire chief, we all have to respect him.”
“The reason I asked who handled the pictures is because there are going to be some charge,” that official said. “At that point, whatever the fire chief decides to do, because at that point, you’re at his mercy.”
Police were called, and a formal crime report was filed. Evidence technicians apparently dusted the photo frame for fingerprints.
The chief’s mercy may not be so severe. He downplayed the incident Thursday.
“I heard about it, but it’s probably just something that’s blown out of proportion,” Ellerbe said. “I talked to our internal affairs, told them don’t even worry about it.”
“I guess whether they like me or not I’ll be the chief, but I can’t worry about that stuff,” he added. “We have a lot of serious stuff to take care of, to think about, and putting mustaches on pictures is not one of those high priority items.”
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PARSIPPANY, NEW JERSEY — Students at Parsippany Hills High School held a strategy session on Thursday to discuss a potential lunch strike, on Friday, over what they have called inadequately sized meals.
“This year you’re eating lunch and you’re like ‘Did I even eat?’ You’re not even full,” senior Brandon Faris told CBS 2′s Derricke Dennis.
New federal guidelines stemming from first lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign have resulted in limits on protein and bread, and an increase in vegetables and fruits. The changes have also come at an increased cost.
All of it has also sparked a student campaign that has included online parody videos of students falling sleep in class and performing sluggishly in sports.
They hope to further their efforts with a cafeteria boycott that will cost the school money, and students like Faris said they want to know why they are paying the price for other people’s problems.
“If somebody’s obese why should someone like me who’s not obese have to suffer, and eat a small meal when I’d rather have a bigger meal?” he said.
Members of the food service industry told CBS 2 that new federal guidelines have caused a significant shift in portion size.
“There’s a lot less turkey on the sandwich, there’s 33 percent less turkey and the size of the bread has been reduced by a third,” explained Mark Vidovich, who runs Pomptonian Food Service.
The changes have caused some parents to step in and subsidize the small school lunches with brown bag meals from home.
“I certainly don’t want him to feel hungry,” said Kelly Caccavele, a parent of a Parsippany Hills student.
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WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States — the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency.
Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with “communicating with the enemy”, a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death.
The documents, some originally classified “Secret/NoForn” — not releasable to non-US nationals — record a probe by the air force’s Office of Special Investigations into a cyber systems analyst based in Britain who allegedly expressed support for WikiLeaks and attended pro-Assange demonstrations in London.
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WASHINGTON, DC – We seemed to have reached a tipping point in the liberal media’s coverage of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. This morning, The Washington Post has published to the web a devastating timeline of Obama administration statements on the attack that clearly demonstrate Obama has been lying about the incident for political gain from day one. The Post writes:
In any kind of confused overseas event, initial reports are often wrong. But the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed, including the ambassador, is a case study of how an administration can carefully keep the focus as long as possible on one storyline — and then turn on a dime when it is no longer tenable.
For political reasons, it certainly was in the White House’s interests to not portray the attack as a terrorist incident, especially one that took place on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Instead the administration kept the focus on what was ultimately a red herring — anger in the Arab world over anti-Muslim video posted on You Tube. With key phrases and message discipline, the administration was able to conflate an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Egypt — which apparently was prompted by the video — with the deadly assault in Benghazi.
President Obama appears to be the only member of his administration still sticking to the original lie that the Benghazi attack was prompted by a video. The head of Obama’s National Counterterrorism Center, White House Spokesman Jay Carney, and even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have all admitted that the Benghazi attack was terrorism. But there was Obama Tuesday in the United Nations, droning about the initial YouTube cover story. He’s going to have to admit his video cover story is false eventually. If not now, then definitely in the debate next week. And when he does, he will face a slew of related questions. The Wall Street Journal sums up:
Imagine the uproar if, barely a month before Election Day, the Bush Administration had responded to a terrorist strike—on Sept. 11 no less—in this fashion. Obfuscating about what happened. Refusing to acknowledge that clear security warnings were apparently ignored. Then trying to shoot the messengers who bring these inconvenient truths to light in order to talk about anything but a stunning and deadly attack on U.S. sovereign territory.
Four Americans lost their lives in Benghazi in a terrorist attack that evidence suggests should have been anticipated and might have been stopped. Rather than accept responsibility, the Administration has tried to stonewall and blame others. Congress should call hearings to hold someone accountable for this debacle.
If Congress does not hold Obama accountable, eventually the American people will.
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WASHINGTON, DC – This video of an Obama supporter bragging about having an “Obama phone” has gone viral on the web, but where do these “free cell phones” come from?
The program is called Lifeline, established in 1984 was originally created to subsidize landline phone service for low income Americans, funded by government-collected telecommunication fees, paid by consumers.
In 2008, the program was expanded to support cell phones which quickly escalated the cost of the program. In 2008 the program cost $772 million, but by 2011 it cost $1.6 billion.
A 2011 audit found that 269,000 wireless Lifeline subscribers were receiving free phones and monthly service from two or more carriers. Several websites have been created to promote “free” government cell phones, including the”The Obama Cell Phone” website at Obamaphone.net.
Rep. Tim Griffin R-Ark. has proposed a bill to eliminate federal subsidies for free cell phones and has produced a great YouTube video highlighting the runaway cost of the program. The program has also been highlighted for reform by Senator Claire McCaskill D-Mo.
Pressure to reform the program led the FCC to announce an effort in February to “reduce the potential for fraud while cutting red tape for consumers and providers” by the end of 2013.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Americans must be wondering how much more of this “recovery” they can afford. New figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, compiled by Sentier Research, show that the typical American household’s real (inflation-adjusted) income has actually dropped 5.7 percent during the Obama “recovery.” Using constant 2012 dollars (to adjust for inflation), the median annual income of American households was $53,718 as of June 2009, the last month of the recession. Now, after 38 months of this “recovery,” it has fallen to $50,678 — a drop of $3,040 per household.
jobs
Yet it gets worse. Amazingly, incomes have dropped even more during the “recovery” than they did during the recession. In fact, they’ve dropped more than twice as much as they did during the recession. From the start to the end of the recession, the real median income of American households fell $1,413, or 2.6 percent. From the end of the recession to the present day, it has dropped $3,040, or 5.7 percent. This begs the question: What kind of “recovery” compares unfavorably with the recession from which it’s ostensibly recovering?
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WASHINGTON, DC – That is awesome! This woman in one fell swoop of her ignorant mouth and stupid mind confirmed everything conservatives have intrinsically known forever! Liberals are bigots, stupid and they only want want they are given without putting any effort into obtaining what they want ie the 47%!
What liberals/progressives from the blatantly stupid ones like this lady to the pseudo-intelligentsia hate is the truth! Romney has spoken the truth of what liberals have done to America and they hate it!
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WASHINGTON, DC – Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks.
In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family.
Author Robert Keith Gray writes in “Presidential Perks Gone Royal” that Obama isn’t the only president to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office. But the amount of money spent on the first family, he argues, has risen tremendously under the Obama administration and needs to be reined in.
Gray told The Daily Caller that the $1.4 billion spent on the Obama family last year is the “total cost of the presidency,” factoring the cost of the “biggest staff in history at the highest wages ever,” a 50 percent increase in the numbers of appointed czars and an Air Force One “running with the frequency of a scheduled air line.”
“The most concerning thing, I think, is the use of taxpayer funds to actually abet his re-election,” Gray, who worked in the Eisenhower administration and for other Republican presidents, said in an interview with TheDC on Wednesday.
“The press has been so slow in picking up on this extraordinary increase in the president’s expenses,” Gray told TheDC.
Specifically, Gray said taxpayer dollars are subsidizing Obama’s re-election effort when he uses Air Force One to jet across the country campaigning.
When the trip is deemed political, it’s customary for the president to pay the equivalent of a first class commercial ticket for certain passengers. But Gray says that hardly covers the taxpayer cost of flying the president and his staffers around on Air Force One.
“When the United States’ billion-dollar air armada is being used politically, is it fair to taxpayers that we only be reimbursed by the president’s campaign committee for the value of one first-class commercial ticket for each passenger who is deemed aboard ‘for political purposes?’” Gray asks in the book.
“And is that bargain-price advantage fair to those opposing an incumbent president?”
In the book, Gray admits Americans want their president to be safe and comfortable but argues the system should be reformed to stop the amount of unquestioned perks given to the president.
“There is no mechanism for anyone’s objection if a president were to pay his chief of staff $5,000,000 a year,” he told TheDC. “And nothing but a president’s conscience can dissuade him from buying his own reelection with use of some public money.”
Aside from a salary, the president gets a $50,000 a year expense account, a $100,000 travel account, $19,000 entertainment budget and an additional million for “unanticipated needs,” he notes.
Here is a sample of other pricey taxpayer funded perks exclusively reserved for the president:
The president can to appoint high-paid staffers without Senate confirmation: Obama has 469 senior staffers and 226 are paid more than $100,000 a year, according to the book. Seventy-seven are paid as much as $172,000 per year. He also has appointed 43 “czars.”
The president can vacation for free at Camp David: Gray writes that each round trip made to Camp David costs the taxpayers $25,350. It’s also estimated that the combined transportation and personnel costs for a Camp David visit are $295,000 per night.
The president has a full-time movie projectionist in the White House theater: Projectionists sleep at the White House and are there 24 hours a day in case anyone needs to see a movie. “Compared to the 450 times President Carter used the movie theater in his four years in the White House, the average American citizen, according to industry statistics, goes out to see a movie slightly less than five times a year,” Gray writes.
The president’s family’s gets certain travel and security expenses paid while vacationing: “First Lady Michelle Obama drew flack from the media and irate citizens when it was disclosed that, not counting Saturdays and Sundays, she spent 42 days on vacation — within the span of one year.”
The president’s dog gets its own high-paid staffer: “Bo made the news when he and his handler were flown to join the president on vacation in Maine,” Gray wrote about the Obama family dog. “It has been reported that the first family’s dog handler was paid $102,000, last year.”
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ORLANDO, FLORIDA – In the latest apparent case of what have been hundreds of thefts by TSA officers of passenger belongings, an iPad left behind at a security checkpoint in the Orlando airport was tracked as it moved 30 miles to the home of the TSA officer last seen handling it.
Confronted two weeks later by ABC News, the TSA officer, Andy Ramirez, at first denied having the missing iPad, but ultimately turned it over after blaming his wife for taking it from the airport.
The iPad was one of ten purposely left behind at TSA checkpoints at major airports with a history of theft by government screeners, as part of an ABC News investigation into the TSA’s ongoing problem with theft from passengers.
The full video report will be seen today on “Good Morning America,” “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” and “Nightline.”
“This is the tip of the iceberg,” said Rep. John Mica, R.-Florida, chair of the House Transportation Committee and a frequent critic of TSA senior management. “It is an outrage to the public, and actually to our aviation system.”
The TSA said Ramirez was no longer with the agency as of Wednesday afternoon. In a statement to ABC News, the agency said it has “a zero-tolerance policy for theft and terminates any employee who is determined to have stolen from a passenger.”
According to the TSA, 381 TSA officers have been fired for theft between 2003 and 2012.
The agency disputes that theft is a widespread problem, however, saying the number of officers fired “represents less than one-half of one percent of officers that have been employed” by TSA.
In the ABC News investigation, TSA officers at nine of the ten airport checkpoints followed agency guidelines and immediately contacted the owner, whose name and phone number were displayed prominently on the iPad case.
Luggage checked at the same airports with iPads and cash went through security undisturbed.
But in Orlando, the iPad was not immediately returned and two hours later its tracking application showed the device as it moved away from the airport to the home of the TSA officer.
After waiting 15 days, ABC News went to the home and asked Ramirez to return the iPad.
He denied knowing anything about the missing iPad and said any items left behind at security checkpoints are taken to lost and found.
The Orlando airport lost and found said there was no record of an iPad being turned in on the day in question.
Ramirez produced the iPad only after ABC News activated an audio alarm feature, and turned it over after taking off his TSA uniform shirt.
His explanation for the missing iPad in his home was that his wife had taken it from the airport.
“I’m so embarrassed,” he told ABC News. “My wife says she got the iPad and brought it home,” he said.
Moments later, his wife appeared at the door to say she had found it and “no told my husband.”
Asked how that was possible given that ABC News tape showed him handling the iPad at the security checkpoint, Ramirez shut the door and has not responded to questions since.
No TSA official, including director John Pistole, would agree to be interviewed by ABC News about the issue of theft and what steps TSA has taken to address the long-standing problem.
In its statement, the TSA said it “holds its employees to the highest ethical standards.”
A spokesperson said Pistole has established the Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate allegations of misconduct and that most TSA employees are “honest, hardworking people.”
Congressman Mica says TSA management has failed to properly do background checks on the employees it hires as officers, and had earlier this year asked the Government Accountability Office to do a full investigation of TSA’s theft problems.
“[If] you’re not vetting them before you put them on the job, and allow them to rummage through people’s personal effects, there is something wrong,” said Mica. Follow ABCNewsBlotter on Facebook
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WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Postal Service will default this week on a $5.6 billion congressionally mandated obligation to pre-fund retiree health benefits, marking the second time in two months the cash-strapped agency has done this.
The Postal Service last month failed to pay $5.5 billion for its fiscal 2011 prepayment obligation, which originally was due in September 2011 but was deferred by Congress until Aug. 1. That was the first time it ever defaulted on a payment to the Treasury Department. The $5.6 billion due this week, on Sept. 30, represents this fiscal year’s obligation.
Before this year, Congress helped USPS defer pre-funding payments required by a 2006 congressional mandate. Postal reform has challenged this Congress. Lawmakers warn that when they revisit the issue after the November election they likely won’t reach agreement on as major an overhaul as some deem necessary. USPS lost $5.2 billion in the third quarter of fiscal 2012, $2.1 billion more than during the same time period in 2011.
Health care for current retirees is paid for from the Postal Service’s general operating budget and will not be affected by the default. The agency’s inability to make its payments will not affect mail delivery or employee pay, said USPS spokesman David Partenheimer.
The Senate passed a postal-reform bill this spring and its architects have derided the House for stalling on a vote on its version of the bill. The two bills have some similarities, but would address retiree health care prepayment obligations differently. The Senate bill restructures the prepayments to make them more manageable; the House bill, which passed out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee earlier this year, requires the agency to pay $1 billion of its fiscal 2011 prepayment obligations and make up the remainder in fiscal 2015 and fiscal 2016.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the chief architect of the House bill, wanted to include postal reform measures in the six-month continuing resolution passed by Congress last week, but the proposal failed to make it into the legislation.
Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., a sponsor of the Senate bill, called that House effort a “piecemeal, short-term fix.” He also said that the default this week further erodes confidence in the future of the Postal Service.
“I urge the House to come together and pass a bill quickly so we can work out our differences in a conference committee and help achieve our shared goal of preserving the Postal Service for future generations,” Carper said in a statement provided to Government Executive.
Partenheimer said that USPS continued to encourage comprehensive reform in the current Congress, which is in recess. “Comprehensive reform of the laws governing the Postal Service is urgently needed in order for the Postal Service to fully implement its five-year business plan and return to long-term financial stability,” he said.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Fifty-five percent of small business owners and manufacturers would not have started their businesses in today’s economy, according to a new poll that also reports 69 percent say President Obama’s regulatory policies have hurt their businesses.
“There is far too much uncertainty, too many burdensome regulations and too few policymakers willing to put aside their egos and fulfill their responsibilities to the American people,” said Jay Thomas, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, which commissioned the poll along with the National Federation of Independent Businesses. “To fix this problem, we need immediate action on pro-growth tax and regulatory policies that put manufacturers in the United States in a position to compete and succeed in an ever-more competitive global economy.”
The poll reports another ominous statistic for job creation: “67 percent say there is too much uncertainty in the market today to expand, grow or hire new workers.” Why? Because “President Obama’s Executive Branch and regulatory policies have hurt American small businesses and manufacturers,” according to 69 percent of the business owners surveyed.
Here are the key findings in the poll, as highlighted by NAM:
67 percent say there is too much uncertainty in the market today to expand, grow or hire new workers.
69 percent of small business owners and manufacturers say President Obama’s Executive Branch and regulatory policies have hurt American small businesses and manufacturers.
55 percent say they would not start a business today given what they know now and in the current environment.
54 percent say other countries like China and India are more supportive of their small businesses and manufacturers than the United States.
“Instead of smoothing the way, our government continues to erect more barriers to growth through burdensome regulations that increase costs for small businesses and all Americans,” NFIB president Dan Danner said.
Those statistics suggest that even Democratic and independent small business owners criticized Obama, because only 46 percent of poll participants identified as Republicans, per Roll Call.
“It’s clear that small business owners and manufacturers are becoming increasingly more frustrated by the federal government’s inability to solve America’s economic problems,” Bill McInturff, whose Public Opinion Strategies conducted the poll. “Manufacturers place most of the blame squarely on policies coming out of Washington.”
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WASHINGTON, DC – “If free checking accounts were animals, they’d be on the World Wildlife Fund’s list of endangered species,” says Catherine New at The Huffington Post. This week, industry trade group Bankrate reported that only 39 percent of checking accounts in America are free (meaning they require no minimum balance and don’t charge a monthly fee). The free checking account used to be nearly ubiquitous — clocking in at a high of 76 percent in 2009 — but banks have been cutting back their largesse in a bid to squeeze more money out of customers. Here, a guide to the trend:
Why do banks need more revenue?
New government regulations and a struggling economy have eaten into bank profits. President Obama’s 2010 overhaul of the financial system, which is meant to protect consumers from bad banking practices, curbed the ability of banks to charge customers overdraft fees. Major banks have tried to offset the losses in numerous ways, most prominently by trying to charge customers for using their debit cards, which was met with a severe public backlash.
How much does a checking account cost now?
Bankrate found that customers on average had to keep a minimum of $723 in their accounts to avoid a fee, which is up 23 percent from the previous year. The average monthly fee for a non-interest checking account is $5.48, up 25 percent from 2011. Bank of America, for example, is planning to charge certain customers between $9 and $25 to keep a checking account. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase are considering similar measures.
How can customers avoid paying a fee?
Bankrate advises bank customers to set up direct deposit, which banks sometimes accept as a substitute for a fee or a minimum balance. However, that doesn’t help people who work part time. In those cases, Bankrate recommends moving to a bank or credit union with free checking. Analysts note that 70 percent of large credit unions still offer free checking accounts.
Will customers switch banks?
Probably not. “Changing banks entails the hassle of rerouting direct-deposit payments and uprooting automated bill-paying arrangements,” says Robin Sidel at The Wall Street Journal. “Many bankers are pushing ahead with the new, higher fees in a bet that customers won’t switch.
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WASHINGTON, DC – More than two weeks after four Americans – including the U.S. ambassador to Libya – were killed in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, FBI agents have not yet been granted access to investigate in the eastern Libyan city, and the crime scene has not been secured, sources said.
“They’ve gotten as far as Tripoli now, but they’ve never gotten to Benghazi,” CNN National Security Analyst Fran Townsend said Wednesday, citing senior law enforcement officials.
Last Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters that an FBI team had reached Libya earlier in the week.
“In fairness to the secretary, it may be that she wanted to be coy about where they were in Libya for security concerns. That’s understandable. But the fact is, it’s not clear they’ve been in Libya for very long,” Townsend said on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360°.”
“They had difficulty, and we understand there was some bureaucratic infighting between the FBI and Justice Department on the one hand, and the State Department on the other, and so it took them longer than they would have liked to get into country. They’ve now gotten there. But they still are unable to get permission to go to Benghazi.”
FBI agents have made a request through the U.S. State Department for the crime scene to be secured, Townsend said, but that has not happened.
“The senior law enforcement official I spoke to said, ‘If we get there now, it’s not clear that it will be of any use to us,’” Townsend said.
The FBI team has conducted interviews of State Department and U.S. government personnel who were in Libya at the time of the attack, Townsend said, but the FBI’s request to directly question individuals who Libyan authorities have in custody was denied.
U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was one of four Americans slain in the September 11 assault, when the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi came under attack amid a large protest about a U.S.-made film that mocked the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.
Speaking to reporters last Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the assault was a “terrorist attack.”
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WASHINGTON, DC – Within 24 hours of the 9-11 anniversary attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, U.S. intelligence agencies had strong indications al Qaeda–affiliated operatives were behind the attack, and had even pinpointed the location of one of those attackers. Three separate U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said the early information was enough to show that the attack was planned and the work of al Qaeda affiliates operating in Eastern Libya.
Nonetheless, it took until late last week for the White House and the administration to formally acknowledge that the Benghazi assault was a terrorist attack. On Sunday, Obama adviser Robert Gibbs explained the evolving narrative as a function of new information coming in quickly on the attacks. “We learned more information every single day about what happened,” Gibbs said on Fox News. “Nobody wants to get to the bottom of this faster than we do.”
The intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast did so anonymously because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press. They said U.S. intelligence agencies developed leads on four of the participants of the attacks within 24 hours of the fire fight that took place mainly at an annex near the Benghazi consulate. For one of those individuals, the U.S. agencies were able to find his location after his use of social media. “We had two kinds of intelligence on one guy,” this official said. “We believe we had enough to target him.”
Another U.S. intelligence official said, “There was very good information on this in the first 24 hours. These guys have a return address. There are camps of people and a wide variety of things we could do.”
A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to comment for the story. But another U.S. intelligence official said, “I can’t get into specific numbers but soon after the attack we had a pretty good bead on some individuals involved in the attack.”
It’s unclear whether any of these suspected attackers have been targeted or arrested, and intelligence experts caution that these are still early days in a complex investigation.
The question of what the White House knew, and when they knew it, will be of keen interest to members of Congress in the election year. Last Thursday, the Obama administration formally briefed House and Senate members on the attack. Those briefings however failed to satisfy many members, particularly Republicans. “That is the most useless, worthless briefing I have attended in a long time,” Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, was quoted as saying.
“There was very good information on this in the first 24 hours. These guys have a return address.”
The Daily Beast reported last week that the U.S. intelligence community was studying an intercept between a Libyan politician and a member of the so-called February 17 militia, Libyans charged with providing security for the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. More intelligence has come in that shows members of Ansar al-Sharia, an al Qaeda–affiliated group operating in and around Benghazi, were attempting to coerce, threaten, cajole, and bribe members of the militia protecting the consulate.
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WASHINGTON, DC – In another sign that the economic recovery under President Obama is not producing gains for average Americans, median household incomes fell 1.1% in August to $50,678, according to a report released Tuesday by Sentier Research.
Since the economic recovery started in June 2009, household incomes are down 5.7%, the Sentier data show, and they are down more than 8% since Obama took office.
“Even though we are technically in an economic recovery, real median annual household income is having a difficult time maintaining its present level, much less recovering,” said Sentier co-founder and former Census Bureau official Gordon Green.
Earlier this month, the Census Bureau released its annual report showing that the number of people in poverty was nearly 3 million higher in 2011 than in 2009, an increase of 6%.
That report also found that average incomes for middle- and lower-income households fell in 2011 after adjusting for inflation. They rose only for the wealthiest 20% of households.
Middle-Class Squeeze
The average inflation-adjusted income for households in the middle 20% is now lower than it’s been since 1995, the census report found.
Meanwhile, another report released Tuesday finds that per-capita health costs jumped 4.6% last year, marking a turnaround from previous years, which had seen annual cost increases moderating. The Health Care Cost Institutereport found that rising prices are a “major driver” of the cost increases.
And a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released this month found that the number of uninsured climbed 1 million in the first three months of 2012 compared with last year.
Food-Stamp Nation
Other bad signs: The number of people on food stamps is up more than 220,000 in the first half of this year and up almost 12 million — or 34% — from June 2009 to June 2012.
The number of people in the labor force has fallen more than half a million in the past two months, with the participation rate down to 63.5%, a rate not seen in the past 30 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Almost 83,000 signed up for federal disability benefits in September, and more than 736,000 have joined in the first nine months of this year, according to the Social Security Administration. That’s a higher enrollment rate than the first nine months of the Obama presidency.
Analysts say the higher disability enrollment rates are in part a reflection of workers’ inability to find jobs.
On the other hand, the Consumer Confidence Index climbed in September to 70.3, a nine-point increase from August, according to the Conference Board.
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WASHINGTON, DC – It’s no surprise that Ralph Nader isn’t a fan of former President George W. Bush. After all, the longtime activist ran against him in both 2000 and 2004. But Nader’s even less a fan of President Barack Obama, if only because he thinks Obama was capable of so much more.
On issues related to the military and foreign policy, Obama’s worse than Bush, “in the sense that he’s more aggressive, more illegal worldwide,” Nader told POLITICO, going so far as to call Obama a “war criminal.”
“He’s gone beyond George W. Bush in drones, for example. He thinks the world is his plate, that national sovereignties mean nothing, drones can go anywhere. They can kill anybody that he suspects and every Tuesday he makes the call on who lives and who dies, supposed suspects in places like Yemen and Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that is a war crime and he ought to be held to account.”
Nader called Obama “below average because he raised expectation levels. What expectation level did George W. Bush raise?… He’s below average because he’s above average in his intellect and his knowledge of legality, which is violating with abandon.”
“I don’t know whether George W. Bush ever read the Constitution,” said Nader. “This man taught the Constitution, and this is what we got.”
Read the rest of this entry »
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WASHINGTON, DC – In an interview with Carl Cameron of FOX News today, Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan implied that President Barack Obama is attempting to cover up the details of what happened during the assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
“I think they want to do their very best to keep the people of America from understanding exactly what happened. We expect candor, we expect transparency, particularly, as it relates to terrorism,” Romney said.
“Why is he (Obama) not on the same page with his own administration officials who are saying that this is a terrorist attack? We’ll leave it up to you to decide whether it’s a coverup or not,” Ryan said.
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