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Posts Tagged ‘Treasury Department’

When Parody Eclipses Reality

by Flyovercountry ( 148 Comments › )
Filed under Communism, Corruption, Eric Holder, Progressives at April 10th, 2014 - 7:00 am

Political Cartoons by Steve Kelley

This one should be clear. My problem with the above cartoon is not so much that it isn’t funny. My problem is that it’s most definitely a true representation of the view held by our President and his Attorney General. My problem is that it’s in no way an exaggeration. It is an accurate description of the state of things today in regards to our Executive Branch in general, and with our Department of Justice in particular. Any notice of this state of affairs brings choruses of, “don’t watch Fox News,” as if that’ll solve somehow, the growing problem of a completely lawless Presidential Administration. That somehow, we’ll be free from a level of corruption so pervasive that Caligula and Nero would probably be lecturing our current defacto man child ruler on how to at least appear to be subservient to those for whom he purportedly works, (“we the people.”)

Today, the House Ways and Means Committee took the extraordinary step, and as far as I can tell this marks another first for any Administration, of voting to charge an officer of the IRS with Charges of Criminal Contempt, and to formally ask that the Department of Justice file other criminal charges to add to Lois Lerner’s Contempt Charge. Tomorrow, the full House Membership will undoubtedly follow suit, and for the first time in U.S. History, an officer of the IRS will face real jail time for official work duties performed at that nefarious federal agency. Bear in mind, one of the Articles of Impeachment brought against Richard Nixon was for his discussing, but not actually following through on, using the IRS as a political weapon with which to intimidate and thwart political adversaries.

You may recall that this is one of those things which so outraged our President that he promised to, “get to the bottom,” of what was going on within his own Treasury Department. About a year later, and he went on television and announced that there was not even the slightest hint of a smidgen of wrong doing at the IRS. It must have been some exhaustive investigation, since Lois Lerner had already invoked her Fifth Amendment Rights while under subpoena to testify in front of the Congressional Ways and Means Committee. For those of you who do not know what this means, Lois basically stated that if she answered any questions, she believed sincerely that those answers if honest, would lead to her being convicted of a felony for which she had not yet been charged. So, there’s that smoking gun. For good measure in the does-not-compute-department-of-bizarre-attempts-to-cover-things-up, she invoked her Fifth Amendment Rights once more, after President Zero made his not-even-a-smidgen-of-wrongdoing statement in his interview with Bill O’Reilly. So, there’s the repeat of that smoking gun.

As much as I’d like to celebrate the fact that our House has finally, and after nearly four years of looking into the lawlessness of this Administration, done something that resembles holding anyone to account for their actions, there is still a huge jackass shaped problem in the room. That would be, who runs this most politicized Department of Justice in U.S. History. Does anyone really believe that Eric Holder will allow this to be prosecuted in an honest and forthright manner? Remember, Eric Holder handled that Obama effort to get to the bottom of things that found not a smidgen of wrongdoing personally. Eric Holder also has his own criminal contempt charge in place, and has been acting as Attorney General under this cloud for nearly two years, another historic first by the way for Team Zero. Holder’s obvious options here will be to drop the ball completely and refuse to prosecute. He can take up the prosecution, and sandbag the process, guaranteeing that Lerner is cleared of all allegations and protected from further prosecution via the double jeopardy rules in place. Or they can throw Lerner under Barack’s Bus, and promise her that if she takes the buck, they’ll pardon or commute on the Bamster’s way out of town. No matter how you slice it, we ain’t getting satisfaction on this one, not until we win enough elections to chase these pigs out of town.

Special Note: Since I said elections, and moreover committed the sin against the third party zealots of placing the concept of winning elections within a verboten framework, using the term we, indicating that I am in some way rooting for Republicans, let me do my third party penance now. All hail the Gods of the Third Party. Hail to thee, hail to thee, hail to thee! I hope that’s sufficed.

In order to drive this point home, Here’s a list of firsts achieved by this historic Presidency thus far. Please pay particular attention to the top two sections, which are all examples of the Obama Administration’s lawlessness. It just doesn’t get any better than this folks, I can’t remember when I’ve been so proud.

From the Doug Ross Journal list of Presidential Firsts linked to above:

• First President to Violate the War Powers Act (Unilaterally Executing American Military Operations in Libya Without Informing Congress In the Required Time Period – Source: Huffington Post)
• First President to Triple the Number of Warrantless Wiretaps of U.S. Citizens (Source: ACLU)
• First President to Sign into Law a Bill That Permits the Government to “Hold Anyone Suspected of Being Associated With Terrorism Indefinitely, Without Any Form of Due Process. No Indictment. No Judge or Jury. No Evidence. No Trial. Just an Indefinite Jail Sentence” (NDAA Bill – Source: Business Insider)

• First President to Refuse to Tell the Public What He Did For Eight (8) Hours After Being Informed That a U.S. Ambassador Was Facing Imminent Death During a Terror Attack (Source: Mediate)
• First President to Lie About the Reason For an Ambassador’s Death, Blaming it on an Internet Video Rather Than What He Knew to be the Case: the Al Qaeda-linked Terror Group Ansar al-Sharia (Source: House Oversight Committee, et. al.)
• First President to Have an Innocent Filmmaker Thrown in Jail After Lying About the Cause for a Deadly Attack on U.S. Diplomats, Using the Filmmaker as a Scapegoat (Source: CNN)

• First President to Use the IRS to “Unfairly Target Political Enemies” as Well as pro-Catholic and pro-Jewish Groups (Source: Sen. Ted Cruz)
• First President to Unlawfully Seize Telephone Records of More than 100 Reporters to Intimidate and/or Bully Them (Source: Associated Press)
• First President to Witness a Single Cabinet Secretary Commit Multiple Hatch Act Violations Without Acting, Speaking Out, Disciplining or Firing That Person (Source: New York Times)

• First President to Personally Lobby Senators to Violate Senate Rules and Destroy the Filibuster Through “The Nuclear Option” to Consolidate More Executive Power (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to create his own propaganda news network and “bypass journalists … [having] developed [his] own network of websites, social media and even created an online newscast to dispense favorable information and images” (Source: Associated Press)
• First President to Barricade Open-Air Government Monuments During a Partial Government Shutdown (Source: Rep. Steve Stockman)

• First President to Have His Attorney General Held in Criminal Contempt of Congress For His Efforts to Cover Up Operation Fast and Furious, That Killed Over 300 Individuals (Source: Politico)
• First President to claim Executive Privilege to shield a sitting Attorney General from a Contempt of Congress finding for perjury and withholding evidence from lawful subpoenas (Source: Business Insider)
• First President to Issue Unlawful “Recess-Appointments” Over a Long Weekend — While the U.S. Senate Remained in Session (against the advice of his own Justice Department – Source: United States Court of Appeals)

• First President to Fire an Inspector General of Americorps for Catching One of His Friends in a Corruption Case (Source: Gawker)
• First President to “Order a Secret Amnesty Program that Stopped the Deportations of Illegal Immigrants Across the U.S., Including Those With Criminal Convictions” (Source: DHS documents uncovered by Judicial Watch)
• First President to Sue States for Enforcing Voter ID Requirements, Which Were Previously Ruled Legal by the U.S. Supreme Court (Source: CNN)

• First President to Encourage Racial Discrimination and Intimidation at Polling Places (the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case, Source: Investors Business Daily)
• First President to Refuse to Comply With a House Oversight Committee Subpoena (Source: Heritage Foundation)
• First President to Arbitrarily Declare an Existing Law Unconstitutional and Refuse to Enforce It (Defense of Marriage Act – Source: ABC News)

• First President to Increase Surveillance of American Citizen Under the Patriot Act by 1,000 Percent in Four Years (Source: NBC News)
• First President to Demand a Company Hand Over $20 Billion to One of His Political Appointees (BP Oil Spill Relief Fund – Source: Fox News)
• First President to Have a Law Signed By an ‘Auto-pen’ Without Being “Present” (Source: The New York Times)

Scandals
• First President to publicly announce an enemies list (consisting of his opponents campaign contributors; and to use the instrumentalities of government to punish those on the list – Source: Heritage Foundation)
• First President to Attempt to Block Legally-Required 60-Day Layoff Notices by Government Contractors Due to His Own Cuts to Defense Spending — Because The Notices Would Occur Before the Election. (Source: National Journal)

• First President to Intentionally Disable Credit Card Security Measures (in order to allow over-the-limit donations, foreign contributions and other illegal fundraising measures – Source: Power Line)

• First President to send 80 percent of a $16 billion program (green energy) to his campaign bundlers and contributors, leaving only 20% to those who did not contribute. (Source: Washington Examiner)
• First President to Propose an Executive Order Demanding Companies Disclose Their Political Contributions to Bid on Government Contracts (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to issue an Executive Order implementing a “Racial Justice System”, a system that tries to achieve “racially equivalent outcomes” for crimes (Source: Daily Caller)

• First President to Leak Confidential IRS Tax Records to Groups Aligned Politically With Him for Partisan Advantage (Source: The Hill Newspaper)
• First President to Use the EPA to Punish Political Enemies and Reward Political Allies (Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute)
• First President to Send Millions in Taxpayer Dollars to His Wife’s Former Employer (Source: White House Dossier)

• First President to Openly Use the Department of Justice to Intimidate Political Opponents and Threaten Companies to Donate to His Campaign (Source: Peter Schweizer, Extortion)
• First President to Direct His Census Dept. to Make Up Favorable Employment Data In Run-Up to His Reelection Campaign (Source: New York Post)
• First President to Have His Administration Fund an Organization Tied to the Cop-Killing Terrorist Group, the Weather Underground (Source: National Review)

Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.

House Proposes Legislation To Have The Treasury Dept. Control Employee Wages

by WrathofG-d ( 5 Comments › )
Filed under Democratic Party, Politics at March 31st, 2009 - 11:30 am

The U.S. Democrat majority is taking further steps to completely control the private sector.  Like all tyranny, what was borne out of a crisis, is exacerbated by professed “good intentions”.  If we continue down this path, all major aspects of the private sector could be owned and controlled by the Federal Government.  I fear that the actions we see today are going to be used as precedent for future actions along these lines, and thus the damage to our Liberty being done today to ‘cure the crises’ will be irreparable.

Oh, and if you object to the Government taking full control of the once-called private sector, you are “corrupt” and unpatriotic!  Read the article below.

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The House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill.  The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees — not just top executives — of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government.  It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place.  And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to “prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards,” according to the bill’s language.  That includes regular pay, bonuses — everything — paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested.  And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is “unreasonable” or “excessive.” And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate “the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates.”

The bill passed the Financial Services Committee last week, 38 to 22, on a nearly party-line vote. (All Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans, with the exception of Reps. Ed Royce of California and Walter Jones of North Carolina, voted against it.)

The legislation is expected to come before the full House for a vote this week, and, just like the AIG bill, its scope and retroactivity trouble a number of Republicans.  “It’s just a bad reaction to what has been going on with AIG,” Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey, a committee member, told me. Garrett is particularly concerned with the new powers that would be given to the Treasury Secretary, who just last week proposed giving the government extensive new regulatory authority. “This is a growing concern, that the powers of the Treasury in this area, along with what Geithner was looking for last week, are mind boggling,” Garrett said.

Rep. Alan Grayson, the Florida Democrat who wrote the bill, told me its basic message is “you should not get rich off public money, and you should not get rich off of abject failure.”  Grayson expects the bill to pass the House, and as we talked, he framed the issue in a way to suggest that virtuous lawmakers will vote for it, while corrupt lawmakers will vote against it.

“This bill will show which Republicans are so much on the take from the financial services industry that they’re willing to actually bless compensation that has no bearing on performance and is excessive and unreasonable,” Grayson said. “We’ll find out who are the people who understand that the public’s money needs to be protected, and who are the people who simply want to suck up to their patrons on Wall Street.”

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DON’T JUST SIT THERE….DO SOMETHING!

Contact your House of Representatives!

In addition, here is the contact information for Barney Frank, and Alan Grayson if you are so motivated.