[PJ] At least two House IT staffers are reportedly under active criminal investigation by the U.S. Capitol Police for stealing equipment and data and remain employed Tuesday, amid mounting questions regarding how they were able to pass their background checks.
On Saturday, The Daily Caller reported that three brothers -- Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan -- were "abruptly relieved of their duties on suspicion that they accessed congressional computers without permission." However, some are still working because, according to a report in Politico Monday, the brothers are "shared employees" -- employees hired by multiple offices which use them as needed for IT services. Each office would need to fire them, and "multiple Democrat lawmakers" have not yet terminated the employment of each staffer.
The three brothers were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives last Thursday, according to the Daily Caller.
However...
#1
To give you another example of why the House operates differently:
According to a congressional source on the Hill, the House passed a rule last year requiring all employees with access to IT to pass background checks in order to flag potential problems such as the credit and legal issues... FBI background checks were applied to all IT employees retroactively. The only way around a background check would have been if a "hiring authority" in a congressional office had signed a waiver attesting to the "trustworthiness and judgment" of the privileged user.
#5
This is the "black voter suppression" case that Jeff Sessions was prosecuting. The allegations of racism stem from a 1985 voter fraud prosecution that then-U.S. Attorney Sessions brought at the behest of African Americans who feared other African Americans’ votes were being stolen to elect one set of African-American candidates over another. Several African Americans, including Albert Turner who was an aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., were the defendants.
There wasn’t much dispute on the facts of the case: Albert Turner forged, voted for, requested and/or redelivered absentee ballots for almost 500 voters – almost entirely African Americans –against his African-American political opponents. There are two interpretations of what happened here: was the conduct proxy voting or voter assistance?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/09/2017 16:08 Comments ||
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[Breitbart] Jim Jordan: Further delay is ’not what we told the voters.'
Congress must hurry up and repeal Obamacare this spring to avoid the wrath of voters who expected Republicans to ease the anxiety about soaring rates and dwindling insurance options in their home states, conservative lawmakers said Wednesday.
Replacing the Affordable Care Act’s heavy mandates with free market reforms is crucial, they said, but it can wait. What can’t wait is a flat repeal, which the conservatives said needs to happen "within the next two or three months."
"I think repeal becomes a lot more difficult if you load it down with all the heavy details involving what comes next, where we don’t have a whole lot of consensus," Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican, said at a roundtable meeting hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
He is at odds with Republican leaders, who have said they want to have a replacement in hand when they repeal the 2010 law. They say insurance markets need the certainty of knowing what comes next.
#3
So they only pass repeal legislation when they know the president won't sign it. Given a once in a lifetime opportunity to actually do something, they all wet the bed. Nice.
#4
Don't try to do it all at once. You'll just pooch it up. Baby steps.
1) Repeal the mandate
2) Make it possible to by a plan the customer wants
3) Make it legal to sell insurance across state lines
There! Was that so hard?
#5
Democrats didn't wait to enact this piece of crap, Republicans should not hesitate to repeal it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/09/2017 11:16 Comments ||
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#6
If the freaking congress would repeal McCarran Ferguson it would all start to work well enough that repealing the mandate would solve the most painful parts of Obumblecare(?) until a careful crafted series of repeals were inacted.
McCarran Ferguson was passed in 1941 giving regulatory control of Insurance to the states. If McCarran Ferguson were repealed, insurance would come under interstate commerce and insurance could be sold across state lines and change the dynamic on rate setting.
[Breitbart] Online journalist Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report criticized Republicans on Twitter for their sluggish momentum in Washington D.C., suggesting that they be "sued for fraud" after promising immediate action on repealing Obamacare and important tax policy.
Drudge also questioned the Trump administration’s committment to an "executive order targeting ’conflict minerals'" but not getting rid of the Obamacare tax penalty.
"I think it’s hardly stalling," Spicer said, after Breitbart News asked him to react to Drudge’s assessment. Would it be too much to ask to see a copy of an outline, a preliminary plan ?
He defended the Republican party’s pace on important issues like Obamacare.
"I think it’s a mammoth thing to repeal and replace," Spicer said, reassuring supporters that the president was still committed to his promise.
#3
"I think it’s a mammoth thing to repeal and replace,"
If you repeal it, it doesn't matter how big it is. What will it be replaced by? Something equally mammoth? Hardly sounds like something the feds should get involved with, especially since the Constitution is only four pages long.
#4
I fail to see the point in replacing ObummerCare with anything at all. Let the insurance companies compete with each other in the most dog eat dog manner and that will benefit the consumer more than anything the government can possibly do. The constitution does not guarantee health care. The government can only muck it up.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/09/2017 11:21 Comments ||
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#5
ACA is a beast containing everything from loans and incentives for physicians to convert to electronic health records to how doctors are reimbursed under Medicare.
After studying ACA ad nauseum working on my doctorate in health administration, I REALLY want to see this abortion of legislation thrown on the dust bin of history with its namesake. BUT I have to say the legislation is insidious with its "tendrils everywhere". An abrupt swinging of the axe could cause chaos in our health care system.
We need to repeal it but we should do it in a more reasoned, logical, deliberate method than the approach used by Pelosi and Reid to pass it which was to just jamb the thing out without careful regard for its contents. The bill is a mess but repealing it will take months...1100 pages, 15000 employees hired to enforce it, thousands of regulations written to enable it...it is a mess...and you don't clean up a mess without getting some on your hands.
The Pubs need to step up and do some dirty work and leave their standing Thursday lunch reservations at Sans Souci alone.
#7
I don't think the ACA was 'jammed out' but carefully crafted to have tendrails everywhere just as SPOD said. Just so it cannot be easily removed without killing the patient.
#9
So, they're seriously thinking about 'replacing' a massively unpopular, expensive and complete fucking failure of a 100% partisan law with... something else?
What's that they say about insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? It won't fucking work.
Repeal it now, worry about anything later, and leave the Democrats out of it.
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] Democrat Chris Kennedy, 53, has said he will run for Illinois governor in 2018
Kennedy sent an email and video to his supporters to announce his running
He brings name recognition as son of Senator Robert Kennedy and nephew of former President John F Kennedy
Announced he is running because Illinois is heading 'in the wrong direction'
And with the election of Chris Kennedy, Illinois will be rocketing in the wrong direction. Yeah. We need more Kennedys in govt. And more dynasties, too.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/09/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
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#1
As an Illinoisian I am just plain tired of being "saved" by people whose worst experience in life was a late limo driver. YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS BEFORE YOU DECLARE AN ANSWER. Kennedy has no concept of what the problems in Illinois are and their root causes. Maybe the Donks should run Bruno from Danville instead. Oh that's right he voted for Rauner and Trump instead.
#7
As a member of a neighboring state, let me just say I welcome all crackheads and gang members fleeing to more profitable ground.
/sarc
Posted by: Charles ||
02/09/2017 14:48 Comments ||
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#8
because of Union extorted pensions, cities and counties and various agencies in Illinois are all headed for bankruptcy (although perhaps not the State itself)
Electing a leftist for gov will simply accelerate this situation
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/09/2017 16:19 Comments ||
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"Last night, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders squared off in a public debate on the future of Obamacare.
Only problem? It was hosted by CNN ‐ and supporters of President Donald Trump on social media claim they found evidence the network rigged the debate... again!
"Cruz, a Texas Republican and Affordable Care Act opponent, wants to lower health care costs by increasing competition in the health insurance industry. Sanders, a Vermont independent and one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act, wants a government-run, single-payer system to compete with insurance companies to lower costs," the Boston Herald reported on the showdown.
But accusations have surfaced that the intellectual square-off wasn’t on neutral ground, as was promised.
Conservative viewers claim they found proof CNN was planting audience questions.
Eagle-eyed internet users on the president’s Reddit discussion forum caught a glimpse of a strange email one woman was seen holding. The following picture quickly spread --
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
02/09/2017 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[2 views]
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#1
Against Cruz, it doesn't matter. He laid waste to them. That said, nuke the CNN HQ in Atlanta. It's the only way to be sure.
h/t Instapundit
Pay is flowing so generously at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that hundreds of bureaucrats there receive more than most members of Congress.
The Senate majority and minority leaders are paid $193,000 annually. Two hundred and one CFPB employees outdo Sens. Mitch McConnell and Charles Schumer in pay.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan of Wisconsin receives $223,000 per year, but that’s less than what 54 CFPB employees are paid.
Another 170 CFPB employees earn more than the secretaries of defense and state, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence. All cabinet salaries are capped at $199,700, but not at the bureau. Thirty-nine CFPB employees earn more than the $230,000 paid to Vice President Mike Pence.
#2
OK, that's a lot of money, but I'm sure they're all welcoming Syrian refugees into their homes and giving generously to minimum wage workers. It's a Robin Hood thing.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/09/2017 9:44 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[PJ] At least two House IT staffers are reportedly under active criminal investigation by the U.S. Capitol Police for stealing equipment and data and remain employed Tuesday, amid mounting questions regarding how they were able to pass their background checks.
[Breitbart] Online journalist Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report criticized Republicans on Twitter for their sluggish momentum in Washington D.C., suggesting that they be "sued for fraud" after promising immediate action on repealing Obamacare and important tax policy. 
