Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

Millennium Challenge Corporation, Billions go Offshore

Posted on by

President’s Budget Includes $1.25 Billion for Millennium Challenge Corporation

The current Millennium Challenge Corporation CEO is Dana Hyde.

Hyde grew up in a small town in eastern Oregon and received her undergraduate degree in political science from UCLA.

From 1989 to 1991, Hyde served as a legislative assistant for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She subsequently worked on President Bill Clinton’s first campaign for the White House. After Clinton’s inauguration, Hyde served as special assistant to the president in the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs, coordinating policy initiatives with the chiefs of staff of national security agencies. She remained in that post until 1995. She later served as special assistant to the Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Justice Department.

She received her law degree from Georgetown and passed the bar in 1997. From 1998 to 2000, Hyde worked as an attorney at the law firm Zuckerman, Spaeder. Then, from 2001 to 2002, she practiced law as part of the international arbitration group at WilmerHale. She also worked in London for the firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering.

One of Hyde’s most prominent roles was as counsel to the 9/11 commission, where she served from 2003 to 2004. She focused on crisis management issues and the immediate response of the White House, the Pentagon, and the Federal Aviation Administration to the attacks.

After leaving the commission, Hyde was executive director of the Partnership for a Secure America. This organization has as its goal the advancement of bipartisan work on national security and foreign policy issues.

In 2009, after serving on the Obama-Biden transition team, Hyde was named a senior advisor for management and resources at the State Department. Then, in 2011, Hyde moved to the Office of Management and Budget, becoming associate director for general government programs.

Justification document for Congress

Where We Work

MCC forms partnerships with poor countries that show they are committed to good governance, economic freedom, and investing in their citizens. Click here to see the countries and then remind yourself about the terror and corruption in each.

Initiatives

Aid Effectiveness

Since its creation in 2004, MCC has been advancing and accelerating the conversation on aid effectiveness.

Climate Change

MCC is committed to helping our partner countries adapt to climate change and mitigate emissions through climate resilient, low carbon economic development.

Country-Led Poverty Reduction

Country ownership—or country-led development—has been broadly embraced by the international donor community as a critical element of international development aid.

Democracy

One of MCC’s core principles is that aid is most effective in countries with a sound commitment to accountable and democratic governance.

Digital Strategy

MCC has been at the forefront of transparency in delivering aid.

Environmental and Social Performance

MCC works with partner countries to integrate internationally-accepted principles of environmental and social sustainability into the design and implementation of compacts.

Fighting Corruption

Controlling corruption a key indicator in selecting countries for compact eligibility and throughout the compact lifecycle. MCC—with the MCAs—promotes measures to prevent, detect and combat corruption before it occurs and to address problems after they emerge.

Food Security

With its partner countries in the lead, the MCC portfolio of investments has been on the forefront of addressing food security priorities since MCC’s first compact in 2005.

Gender and Social Inclusion

MCC recognizes that gender and social inequality are significant constraints to economic growth and poverty reduction.

Governance Data Alliance

MCC leads the charge to uncover the best data available to fight corruption by partnering with experts to form a Governance Data Alliance. MCC and the alliance are committed to filling the gaps for measuring governance.

MCC & The African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA)

MCC has obligated nearly $3 billion for trade capacity building in AGOA countries on infrastructure like roads and power, on upping productivity of small and medium-size businesses and export-heavy sectors, and leveraging policy and regulatory reforms.

MCC and Power Africa

Through its compacts in partner countries, MCC has committed approximately $1.5 billion to support Power Africa, the U.S. Government’s effort to double access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa.

MCC and the Sustainable Development Goals

MCC supports its partner countries in their efforts to achieve the SDGs and improve the lives of their people by fighting poverty through inclusive economic growth.

MCC and the U.S. Global Development Policy

MCC applies the principles of economic growth, strong policies, country-led plans and rigorous evaluation to create a more stable and prosperous future for the world’s poor.

MCC’s Public-Private Partnership Platform

Development needs around the world will not be met by foreign assistance alone. Official development assistance must increasingly catalyze other resources to finance development – including private-sector investment. Here’s one way MCC is doing just that.

Measuring Governance

In selecting partner countries, MCC relies on independent public data that captures as clearly as possible the actions governments take to fight corruption. MCC is seeking improved and expanded indicators from the institutions that produce this data.

NGO Consultations

NGO consultations are at the core of MCC’s compact development process. By listening to the voices and experience of the broader NGO community, MCC leverages all available expertise from others to maximize our investments.

Open Government

MCC has been at the forefront of transparency in delivering aid.

Partnership for Growth

MCC and other U.S. Government agencies have joined together to coordinate Partnership for Growth (PFG), a partnership between the United States and a select group of high-performing developing countries to accelerate and sustain broad-based economic growth.

Smart Aid Series

Since its founding, MCC has sought innovative ways to reduce poverty through economic growth. Smart Aid brings together development practitioners and MCC staff to share best practices, lessons learned, and engage in a dialogue to effectively move aid forward.

Country Scorecards

The country scorecards consolidate an individual country’s scores for each of the policy indicators MCC uses to determine eligibility for its assistance programs. By using information collected from independent, third-party sources, MCC allows for an objective comparison of all candidate countries.

 Filter by

The Potty President: Obama’s Legacy Policy

Posted on by

So, no other crisis, issue, topic or war is on his plate….the focus for the Obama regime is the potty. Sheesh…this is extortion and defining yet a third gender…being genderless.

Remember, this is a president that alleges he is concerned about personal internet activity privacy…physical privacy? Not so much.

Jared Fox, the city Department of Education’s LGBT Community Liaison, also released a statement backing the directive, adding, “We have guidelines in place to ensure every school building provides a safe and supportive learning environment that allows students to use the bathroom of their gender identity.”

Safe? Really? Define safe and then define who determines the gender identity. What ever happened to the 10th Amendment anyway?

 What about the locker rooms?

Even the top government lawyer, Loretta Lynch is fretting over a rebirth of Jim Crowe using genderless bathrooms as the 2016 example.

NYT’s WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is planning to issue a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

A letter to school districts will go out Friday, adding to a highly charged debate over transgender rights in the middle of the administration’s legal fight with North Carolina over the issue. The declaration — signed by Justice and Education department officials — will describe what schools should do to ensure that none of their students are discriminated against.

It does not have the force of law, but it contains an implicit threat: Schools that do not abide by the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid.

The move is certain to draw fresh criticism, particularly from Republicans, that the federal government is wading into local matters and imposing its own values on communities across the country that may not agree. It represents the latest example of the Obama administration using a combination of policies, lawsuits and public statements to change the civil rights landscape for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people.

After supporting the rights of gay people to marry, allowing them to serve openly in the military and prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against them, the administration is wading into the battle over bathrooms and siding with transgender people.

“No student should ever have to go through the experience of feeling unwelcome at school or on a college campus,” John B. King Jr., the secretary of the Department of Education, said in a statement. “We must ensure that our young people know that whoever they are or wherever they come from, they have the opportunity to get a great education in an environment free from discrimination, harassment and violence.”

Courts have not settled the question of whether the nation’s sex discrimination laws apply in matters of gender identity. But administration officials, emboldened by a federal appeals court ruling in Virginia last month, think they have the upper hand. This week, the Justice Department and North Carolina sued each other over a state law that restricts access to bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms. The letter to school districts had been in the works for months, Justice Department officials said.
“A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so,” according to the letter, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times.
A school’s obligation under federal law “to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex requires schools to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities even in circumstances in which other students, parents, or community members raise objections or concerns,” the letter states. “As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”

As soon as a child’s parent or legal guardian asserts a gender identity for the student that “differs from previous representations or records,” the letter says, the child is to be treated accordingly — without any requirement for a medical diagnosis or birth certificate to be produced. It says that schools may — but are not required to — provide other restroom and locker room options to students who seek “additional privacy” for whatever reason.

Attached to the letter, the Obama administration will include a 25-page document describing “emerging practices” that are in place in many schools around the country. Those included installing privacy curtains or allowing students to change in bathroom stalls.

In a blog post accompanying the letter, senior officials at the Justice and Education Departments said they issued it in response to a growing chorus of inquiries from educators, parents and students across the country, including from the National Association of Secondary School Principals, to clarify their obligations and “best practices” for the treatment of transgender students.

“Schools want to do right by all of their students and have looked to us to provide clarity on steps they can take to ensure that every student is comfortable at their school, is in an environment free of discrimination, and has an opportunity to thrive,” wrote Catherine E. Lhamon, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, and Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Thomas Aberli, a high school principal in Louisville, Ky., said the new guidance would help administrators across the country who are trying to determine the best way to establish safe and inclusive schools. He said his school had little to work with when it drafted a policy that was put in place last year. More here from the NYT’s.

House Republicans Win Obamacare Lawsuit

Posted on by

Today, when reporters questioned Josh Earnest about the Obamacare lawsuit loss to the House, his response: “They’ve been losing for 6 years and they’ll lose it again”. The judge ordered a ‘stay’ on the money.

FNC: A federal judge ruled Thursday for House Republicans in a challenge brought against the Obama administration over the legality of certain spending under ObamaCare.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled the spending unconstitutional — while putting the decision on hold pending appeal.

The ruling Thursday marks a win for House Republicans who brought the politically charged legal challenge, and a legal setback for the administration.

“Today’s ruling by the DC federal court is an important step toward restoring the separation of powers and stopping President Obama’s power grab. The Constitution is very clear: it is Congress’ job to write our laws and it is the President’s duty to enforce them,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a statement.

At issue was a $175 million program authorizing payments to insurers that Republicans claimed were not appropriated by Congress. On the question of whether the money could be distributed anyway under another program, Collyer wrote in her opinion: “It cannot.”

“None of the Secretaries’ extra-textual arguments – whether based on economics, ‘unintended’ results, or legislative history – is persuasive,” she wrote. “The Court will enter judgment in favor of the House of Representatives and enjoin the use of unappropriated monies to fund reimbursements due to insurers” under that section.

Collyer said the law is “clear,” and money was not allocated for that program.

She then said she would stay the injunction, giving the administration a chance to appeal. Collyer, with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is a George W. Bush appointee nominated in 2002.

The controversial payments to insurers were meant to reimburse them over a decade to reduce co-payments for lower-income people.

The House argued that Congress never specifically appropriated that money and denied an administration request for it, but that the administration is spending the money anyway.

The White House previously described the case as a “partisan attack” and predicted it would be dismissed.

Asked Thursday about the latest decision, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said this isn’t Republicans’ first legal fight over ObamaCare but warned “they’ll lose it again.”

He reiterated that the administration is confident in its legal arguments here.

The administration is expected to appeal Thursday’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

****

“Paying out Section 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution,” Collyer wrote in her decision. “Congress authorized reduced cost sharing but did not appropriate monies for it, in the FY 2014 budget or since. Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one.”

The ruling is not final; the Obama administration will near certainly appeal this ruling to an appellate court.

While the Affordable Care Act authorized these cost-sharing subsidies when it was passed in 2010, the House lawsuit says it never appropriated the necessary funding to be sent over to Health and Human Services. Here’s the relevant bit of the lawsuit on this issue:

Congress has not appropriated any funds for Section 1402 Offset Program payments to Insurers for Fiscal Years 2014 or 2015.

Notwithstanding the lack of any congressional appropriation for Section 1402 Offset Program payments, defendants [Jack] Lew and the Treasury Department, at the direction of defendants [Sylvia] Burwell and HHS, began making Section 1402 Offset Program payments to Insurers in January 2014, and, upon information and belief, continues to make such payments.

The Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) has reported that Section 1402 Offset Program payments to Insurers for Fiscal Year 2014 were estimated to be $3.978 billion. Later, the lawsuit argues that “the House has been injured, and will continue to be injured, by the unconstitutional actions of defendants [Treasury Secretary Jack] Lew … which, among other things, usurp the House’s legislative authority.” More here from Vox.

Teach Younger Voters Hillary’s History

Posted on by

This will not be in any chronological order:

Paula Jones lawsuit

ChinaGate

TrooperGate

Mena Airport Drug Scandal

Rose Law Firm

WhiteWater and Savings and Loan

Hillary’s Radical Summer, Black Panthers

Hillary’s College Thesis, Saul Alinsky

White House TravelGate

Vince Foster is Dead

HillaryCare

Bill, Jeffrey, Planes and Sin Island

Yes, Bill was Impeached

Clinton did Steal White House Stuff

Clinton Showdown with FBI Liaison

Bill Clinton let bin Ladin Go

Bill Ordered Sandy to Stuff the Documents in his Pants

Need more? Okay, one more?

They Stole all the ‘W’s…. lots of damage

  

Whitewater: Twelve Versions of Hillary Clinton Draft Indictment, 451 Pages, Withheld By National Archives

JudicialWatch: New details continue to emerge from Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act fight with the National Archives over the release of draft indictments of Hillary Clinton in the Whitewater case. According to the Archives, release of the indictments—drafted by an independent counsel examining the Clintons’ relationship to a corrupt Arkansas S&L and an alleged cover-up—would violate grand jury secrecy and Mrs. Clinton’s personal privacy. FOIA request denied.

Judicial Watch declined to take “no” for an answer, and so off to court we went. The case is now in the hands of a federal judge.

In the course of litigation, new facts have come to light. Under FOIA, the Archives must produce a “Vaughn Index”—a tantalizing and at times maddening document. A Vaughn Index is the government saying: we are not giving you the documents, but here is an “index” of what we are not giving you, and why we are not giving it to you. Your tax dollars at work.

In the National Archives Vaughn Index for the case, we learn that the government is sitting on at least twelve versions of the the draft indictment of Mrs. Clinton, including one “listing overt acts.” From the public record, we know that the Whitewater case centered around whether Mrs. Clinton, while First Lady, lied to federal investigators about her role in the corrupt Arkansas S&L, concealed documents (including material under federal subpoena), and took other steps to cover-up her involvment. Prosecutors ultimately decided not to indict Mrs. Clinton, concluding that they could not win the complicated, largely circumstantial case against such a high-profile figure.

The draft indictments range from three to forty pages—the former likely excerpts or “scraps” from longer documents, the Vaughn Index indicates. Some of the drafts doubtless are copies but many clearly are not. A total of 451 pages of draft indictments are being withheld by the Archives.

In its final brief in the case, Judicial Watch took a wrecking ball to the Archives’ grand jury secrecy and personal privacy claims. Judicial Watch noted “the truly enormous quantities of grand jury material already made public” in the independent counsel’s final report. Judicial Watch provided the court with a detailed list of grand jury and non-grand jury material that had already been made public. If there ever was a valid claim to grand jury secrecy in this closely scrutinized case, it is long gone.

The Judicial Watch brief noted that the Archives “fails to identify a single, specific privacy interest Mrs. Clinton still has in the draft indictments” following publication of the independent counsel’s report and “hundreds of pages of grand jury materials, non-grand jury materials, and independent counsel legal theories and analysis that are already in the public domain.”

A typical FOIA privacy claim centers on unwarranted invasions of personal privacy. But in Mrs. Clinton’s case, the brief noted, the Archives “makes no claims that disclosure of the draft indictments will reveal any particular personal, medical or financial information about Mrs. Clinton, much less anything intimate or potentially embarrassing.”

Mrs. Clinton of course is one of the most famous women in the world, a former First Lady, senator and secretary of state, and the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for president of the United States. The findings of an investigation into whether Mrs. Clinton told the truth to federal investigators and withheld evidence under subpoena while she was First Lady is clearly matter of public interest as voters weigh her suitability for the highest office in the land.

Clinton Cash, Coming to a Theater Near You

Posted on by

‘Clinton Cash’ doc set to stir up controversy as it debuts at Cannes

MSNBC: CANNES, France — A massive police force will be guarding the Cannes Film Festival this year. But the only scuffle on the horizon may come in response to the right-wing producers of a devastating new documentary about Bill and Hillary Clinton’s alleged influence peddling and favor-trading. That film, “Clinton Cash,” screens here May 16 and opens in the U.S. on July 24 — just before the Democratic National Convention.

The allegations are as brazen as they are controversial: What other film at Cannes would come up with a plot that involves Russian President Vladimir Putin wrangling a deal with the alleged help of both Clintons, a Canadian billionaire, Kazakhstan mining officials and the Russian atomic energy agency — all of which resulted in Putin gaining control of 20 percent of all the uranium in the U.S.?

MSNBC got an exclusive first look at “Clinton Cash,” the flashy, hour-long film version of conservative author Peter Schweizer’s surprise 2015 bestseller, which The New York Times called the “the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle.” The Washington Post said that ”on any fair reading, the pattern of behavior that Schweizer has charged is corruption.” Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta denounced the book as a bunch of “outlandish claims” with “zero evidence.”

The film portrays the Clintons as a greedy tag team who used the family’s controversial Clinton Foundation and her position as secretary of state to help billionaires make shady deals around the world with corrupt dictators, all while enriching themselves to the tune of millions.

The movie alleges that Bill Clinton cut a wide swathe through some of the most impoverished and corrupt areas of the world — the South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, India and Haiti among others — riding in on private jets with billionaires who called themselves philanthropists but were actually bent on plundering the countries and lining their own pockets.

In return, billionaire pals like Frank Giustra and Gilbert Chagoury, or high-tech companies like Swedish telecom giant Ericsson or Indian nuclear energy officials — to name just a few mentioned in the film — hired Clinton to speak at often $750,000 a pop, according to “Clinton Cash.” When a favor was needed at the higher levels of the Obama administration to facilitate some of the deals, Hillary Clinton was only willing to sign off on them, the movie reports.

As a film, it powerfully connects the dots —  whether you believe them or not — in a narrative that lacks the wonkiness of the book, which bore a full title of “The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.”

It packs the kind of Trump-esque mainstream punch that may have the presumptive GOP nominee salivating. He recently declared, “We’ll whip out that book because that book will become very pertinent.”

The hour-long documentary is intercut with “Homeland”-style clips of the Clintons juxtaposed against shots of blood-drenched money, radical madrassas, villainous dictators and private jets, all set to sinister music.

Produced by Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, with Schweizer as the film’s talking head, the documentary might be easy to dismiss as just another example of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” the former secretary of state referenced so many years ago.

But what complicates matters for Hillary Clinton’s campaign is that the book resulted in a series of investigations last year into Schweizer’s allegations by mainstream media organizations from The New York Times and CNN to The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, many of which did not dispute his findings — and in some cases gathered more material that the producers used in the film. More recently, some information uncovered in the Panama Papers has echoed some of Schweitzer’s allegations in the movie and book.

The Clinton campaign loudly denounced the book as a “smear project” last year and Schweizer’s publisher, the Murdoch-owned Harper Collins, had to make some corrections to the Kindle version. But the changes, in the end, involved seven or eight inaccuracies, some of which were fairly minor in the context of the larger allegations, Politico reported.

Neither the Clinton campaign nor the Clinton Foundation responded to calls and emails requesting comment about the film Tuesday.

One of the most damning follow-ups to Schweizer’s most startling accusation — that Vladimir Putin wound up controlling 20 percent of American uranium after a complex series of deals involving cash flowing to the Clinton Foundation and the help of Secretary of State Clinton — was printed in The New York Times.

Like Schweizer, the Times found no hard evidence in the form of an email or any document proving a quid pro quo between the Clintons, Clinton Foundation donors or Russian officials. (Schweizer has maintained that it’s next to impossible to find a smoking gun but said there is a troubling “pattern of behavior” that merits a closer examination.)

But the Times concluded that the deal that brought Putin closer to his goal of controlling all of the world’s uranium supply is an “untold story … that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.”

“Other news outlets built on what I uncovered and some of that is in the film,” Schweizer, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, told NBC News Tuesday. “To me the key message is that while U.S. politics has long been thought to be a dirty game, it was always played by Americans. What the Clinton Foundation has done is open an avenue by which foreign investors can influence a chief U.S. diplomat. The film may spell all this out to people in a way the book did not and it may reach a whole new audience.”