[DAILYCALLER] Vermont’s Attorney General has settled the state’s claims of fraud against Jonathan Gruber, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who served as a technical consultant for President Barack Obama It’s very rare that I come to an event where I’m like the fifth- or sixth-most interesting person.... and as one of the chief architects of Obamacare ... aka the Affordable Care Act, an ineptly designed and worse executed piece of legislation designed to bring 17 percent of the U.S. economy under the direct control of the government. The previous iteration, known as Hillarycare, was laughed out of Washington. This stinker was passed on a party-line vote without being read... Under the terms of the settlement, Gruber will no longer work as a taxpayer-funded economic consultant for the state’s health care system and he won’t seek to be paid any money he might be owed, reports the Rutland Herald, a Vermont newspaper.
For its part under the agreement, the Vermont’s attorney general will not pursue legal action under the Vermont Civil False Claims Act.
Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan announced the settlement on Friday after state Sherlocks wrapped up an inquiry into Gruber’s billing practices.
Officials in Vermont had hired Gruber as an economic consultant to assess, examine and provide economic models for a now-abandoned plan to roll out a single-payer health care system across the tiny state.
The single-payer health care scheme, called Green Mountain Care, was the brainchild of former Gov. Pete Shumlin.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2017 00:00 ||
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[STLTODAY] With five written words Thursday morning, one of Missouri’s most controversial state politicians spawned a U.S. Secret Service investigation, potentially endangered her own political career -- and flung St. Louis squarely into the middle of America’s raging racial-political debate in the wake of the unrest in Charlottesville, Va.
"I hope Trump is assassinated!" Missouri state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, wrote during a morning Facebook exchange, referring to Republican President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... She quickly deleted her post, but not quickly enough. By midafternoon, the political verdicts of her own party were rolling in:
U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill ...Now, why would I pay taxes on my airplane? Send the bill to the taxpayers!... , D-Mo.: "I condemn it. It’s outrageous. And she should resign."
U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis: "(C)alling for the liquidation of the President is a federal crime. ... (She is) an embarrassment to our state. She should resign immediately."
Missouri Democratic Party Chair Stephen Webber: "The ... Party will absolutely not tolerate calls for the liquidation of the President. I believe she should resign."
Missouri Senate Democratic Caucus leader Sen. Gina Walsh: "(She) should be ashamed of herself for adding her voice to this toxic environment."
Republican Gov. Eric Greitens said in a statement: "We can have differences in our country, but no one should encourage political violence. The senator should resign."
Lt. Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, and state Auditor Nicole Galloway, a Democrat, also called for Chappelle-Nadal’s resignation.
In an interview, Chappelle-Nadal acknowledged she wrote the offending line on her personal Facebook page in response to another commenter before deleting it.
"I didn’t mean what I put up. Absolutely not. I was very frustrated. Things have got to change," Chappelle-Nadal told the Post-Dispatch. "It was in response to the concerns that I am hearing from residents of St. Louis. I have deleted it, and it should have been deleted, but there is something way more important that we should be talking about."
She added later: "I am not resigning ... What I said was wrong, but I am not going to stop talking about what led to that, which is the frustration and anger that many people across America are feeling right now."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
and yet, after the kerfuffle, nothing seems to have happened! Virtue signaling and ass covering in Demospeak means not really doing anything else but feeling really good about your public image.
[National Review] It leaves out a lot of highly pertinent information.
Let’s say you’re a prosecutor in Washington. You are investigating a husband and wife, naturalized Americans, who you believe have scammed a federal credit union out of nearly $300,000. You catch them in several false statements about their qualifications for a credit line and their intended use of the money.
The strongest part of your case, though, involves the schemers’ transferring the loot to their native Pakistan. So . . . what’s the best evidence you could possibly have, the slam-dunk proof that their goal was to steal the money and never look back?
That’s easy: One after the other, the wife and husband pulled up stakes and tried to high-tail it to Pakistan after they’d wired the funds there -- the wife successfully fleeing, the husband nabbed as he was about to board his flight.
Well, here’s a peculiar thing about the Justice Department’s indictment of Imran Awan and Hina Alvi, the alleged fraudster couple who doubled as IT wizzes for Debbie Wasserman Schultz and many other congressional Democrats: There’s not a word in it about flight to Pakistan.
The indictment undertakes to describe in detail four counts of bank-fraud conspiracy, false statements on credit applications, and unlawful monetary transactions, yet leaves out the most damning evidence of guilt. In fact, the indictment appears to go out of its way not to mention it.
Skipping down to the closing para:
To summarize, the indictment is an exercise in omission. No mention of the Awan group’s theft of information from Congress. Not a hint about the astronomical sums the family was paid, much of it for no-show "work." Not a word about Wasserman Schultz’s keeping Awan on the payroll for six months during which (a) he was known to be under investigation, (b) his wife was known to have fled to Pakistan, and (c) he was not credentialed to do the IT work for which he had been hired. Nothing about Wasserman Schultz’s energetic efforts to prevent investigators from examining Awan’s laptop. A likely currency-transportation offense against Alvi goes uncharged. And, as for the offenses that are charged, prosecutors plead them in a manner that avoids any reference to what should be their best evidence.
There is something very strange going on here.
'Strange' or possibly just some routine house cleaning. Mike Pompeo sworn in as Director, CIA on 23 Jan 2017. On or about 15 Feb 2017, Awan IT story broke.
#1
The FBI investigated only the alleged scam operation.
The attempted flight and successful flight of one of the two are not illegal actions in themselves. They are evidence of intent to defraud, but are not, in my opinion, indictable.
The connection with the DNC suggests irresponsibility on the part of the Representatives who hired them, and what has happened calls out for an investigation as to what classified information these people have been able to obtain.
But working for these Representatives is not a crime in itself.
Since a crime was committed at the DNC, namely the leak or theft of private or classified information, an investigation of whether these people are responsible for that crime seems reasonable, given the degree of moral turpitude that the FBI claims to have found about them.
Someone has suggested that a Special Prosecutor be assigned to conduct such an investigation, and the former Mayor Giuliani might be a suitable prosecutor for it.
Posted by: Daniel ||
08/22/2017 1:27 Comments ||
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#2
The FBI investigated only the alleged scam operation.
I am confused. For the sake of argument, if let's say, a Robert Mueller investigation discovered 'intent to defraud and flight' might they have continued to dig a bit further ?
I suspect we all know cousin Susan is snorting and why she's made those frequent shopping excursions to the city all of these years. This case reeks of espionage, theirs and possibly ours as well. While I doubt it will happen, I think we should drop the denial and be honest.
#5
Like the Lois Lerner case...? Pleads the Fifth and then the case is consigned to oblivion because there is no *cough* chance of conviction *cough* ?
[FOXNEWS] A federal judge has ordered the Internal Revenue Service to release the names of specific employees involved in targeting Tea Party groups, after years of litigation over what conservatives have long called "chilling" behavior by one of the government’s "most feared" agencies.
Judge Reggie B. Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia also said the IRS ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... must provide information about which groups were targeted and why, along with a strategy to make sure such targeting doesn't happen again.
The IRS is involved in multiple lawsuits with conservative groups related to the Tea Party targeting scandal; this particular case involves True the Vote.
"We’re thrilled the judge has taken this step and it feels good to have it recognized that they need to be held to account," True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht told Fox News on Monday. "What happened to me was very personal--my name was thrown around the IRS, and the names of the people involved need to be known. What they did was criminal."
The targeting scandal drew much attention in 2013 when the IRS, headed at the time by Lois Lerner ...the former head of the IRS Exempt Unit. She is a past president of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws and a member of the Massachussetts bar. She was held in contempt of Congress for her role in the IRS targeting of regime political enemies and refusing to testify. The dog ate her computer's hard drive with all her emails on it... , admitted it was applying extra scrutiny to conservative groups applying for nonprofit status.
"That was wrong," Lerner said at the time in the press. "That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. ... The IRS would like to apologize for that."
But director of investigations and research at Judicial Watch Chris Farrell, whose organization is also involved in litigation with the IRS on this issue, told Fox News that the IRS owes litigants "real accountability."
"This was creepy, chilling stuff," Farrell told Fox News. "Judge Walton has accomplished more with one ruling than all of the rest of the federal government--all three branches--over the last six years."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
DOJ (Holder, Lynch) and the FBI began an investigation into this in May 2013 Mueller, (Comey). In October 2015, the DOJ announced it was closing the investigation and would not seek criminal charges.
Lois Lerner is working for H & R Block--the busy season is around April a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. The Justice Department, under Lynch, said they would not pursue criminal contempt charges against Lerner despite the House bringing contempt charges against her.
Move on, nothing to see here. "No reasonable prosecutor would bring this case to trial" (w/great sarc).
#3
"That was wrong," Lerner said at the time in the press. "That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. ... The IRS would like to apologize for that."
I'd be a little more convinced of Ms. Lerner's sincerity if she'd been wearing an orange jump suit and handcuffs when she made that statement.
Please tell me how the Russians hacking the DNC email server could have done more to interfere with our democracy than the IRS did under the Obama administration.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/22/2017 10:54 Comments ||
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#6
The Democrats just are not very imaginative in their discourse. A little satire now and then please. I'm tired of being called a homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, xenophobic, sexist, deplorable, privileged white male Southern bigot who is unredeemable.
#7
I am at the point that I actually laugh at people when they trot out that predictable label in a serious way. It signals to me there is no point in further conversation or discussion, because they are obviously not going to be friends and are clearly too stupid to be worth my time. And as the conversation ends I tell that, word for word!
[Daily Caller] The leader of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is weighing whether to have the group join Democratic party attempts to impeach President Donald Trump, the caucus announced during a Monday call with media.
Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond, the chairman of the CBC, announced he is planning a meeting to decide if the members of the caucus will join impeachment efforts, reports McClatchyDC.
"You can make an argument based on pure competency and fitness to serve, and that’s the conversation the caucus will have," Richmond said during the conference call. "Am I concerned about high crimes and misdemeanors? Absolutely. Am I concerned about this president’s fitness to serve? Absolutely."
Other CBC members like Democratic Reps. Al Green and Maxine Waters have also repeatedly called for the impeachment of Trump.
"Instead of disabled people in wheelchairs, the only person who should be dragged anywhere is Trump -- down the hall, to impeachment," Waters said after a few people were handcuffed in June during a protest against the health care reform bill.
#1
Since the Congressional Black Caucus doesn't let Republicans join... even if they are black... this is news?
I remember when they told Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Ok) to buzz off because he had cooties.
#3
Drudge had it as "Black Caucus to discuss impeachment". Given that so many are out and out criminals and racialist imbeciles I thought it was good they were finally concerned about their futures
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/22/2017 7:23 Comments ||
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#4
"Might?" I would swear they were fully in to overthrowing a legally elected president.
#5
"Might?" I would swear they were fully in to overthrowing a legally elected president.
Posted by DarthVader
Could have something to do with Trump's new Solar Eclipse contact lenses. They really should have been available to everyone free of charge under Obamacare.
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.
[DAILYCALLER] Vermont’s Attorney General has settled the state’s claims of fraud against Jonathan Gruber, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who served as a technical consultant for President 
...the former head of the IRS Exempt Unit. She is a past president of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws and a member of the Massachussetts bar. She was held in contempt of Congress for her role in the IRS targeting of regime political enemies and refusing to testify. The dog ate her computer's hard drive with all her emails on it...
