Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

Rahm Takes Family to Cuba for Vacation, Huh?

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Emanuel Snaps at Politico Reporter for Revealing His Plans to Vacation in Cuba

In part WSJ: Should he call it a vacation? Lawyers said it was ok, so long as Mr. Emanuel and his family fall under one of the 12 categories.

“There are people who go on an archaeological dig on vacation, or harvest wine or go take classes,” said Augosto Maxwell, head of the Cuba practice at Miami-based law firm Akerman. “I don’t think it’s inappropriate at all to call it a vacation.”

A likely way for the Emanuels to travel to Cuba would be through a people-to-people exchange. They could travel with a group, or a travel company could arrange a private schedule for their family with activities that would fall under the “people-to-people” category.

People who travel to Cuba under the people-to-people category currently can’t go on their own and must go on organized trips with full schedules that usually include meetings, lectures, visits to small businesses, community projects, etc.

Before the regulations were loosened, Beyonce and Jay-Z took a much criticized trip to the island, but ultimately the Treasury Department determined their travel was legal as it was organized by a nonprofit with a license to organize “people-to-people” trips. Since the policy shift, organizations no longer need special licenses to organize such trips.

Other celebrities who have traveled to Cuba since the loosening of rules include Rihanna, Usher, Mick Jagger, Katy Perry, Paris Hilton and Naomi Campbell. The island has also received visits this year from three cabinet secretaries, three governors and scores of lawmakers. President Barack Obama hopes to travel to Cuba before leaving office.

Cuba needs cows and sugar, perhaps that is why Rahm Emanuel is really going there to represent some crony business opportunities. The black market thrives in Cuba, so  Rahm should be quite familiar with that.

Meanwhile, we have normalized relations with Cuba, well kinda sorta. So who is part of that team to continue nurturing the relationship?

A lingering chapter of the Cold War closed in December 2014, when the United States announced it would re-establish full relations with Cuba. Leading the reconciliation were two White House aides, Ben Rhodes and Ricardo Zuniga, who spearheaded more than 70 hours of secret talks with Havana on previously intractable issues such as prisoner swaps and easing economic sanctions.

In 2015, the State Department’s Roberta Jacobson and the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s Josefina Vidal seized the diplomacy baton, meeting to hash out the détente’s nuts and bolts. They sometimes clashed (on both countries’ harboring of fugitives, for instance) and faced complex politics (for example, Fidel Castro’s public call for the relinquishing of U.S. control of Guantánamo Bay, which the United States isn’t prepared to accept). Yet they still laid the groundwork for a new era of cooperation: In July, the United States and Cuba reopened their respective embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time in a half-century.

 

Hidden Inside the Highway Bill

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8 tidbits from the highway bill

By Jamie Dupree

As Congressional negotiators unveiled a more than 1300 hundred page highway construction bill on Tuesday, a quick peek inside the plan showed that it contains provisions that are about much more than just building new roads and bridges across the United States.

For those who want to look at the entire bill, you can read the measure here.

If you read on, here are eight items from the finalized highway bill that caught my eye:

1. Renewal of the Export-Import Bank – More conservative Republicans had tried to get rid of this government agency, but there were simply too many supporters in both parties in the House and Senate, as a provision to renew the charter of the Export-Import Bank was included in this bill.

2. Amtrak must cut out its food losses – After Congressional hearings and internal reports that detailed how Amtrak loses millions each year, this bill forces Amtrak to make major changes, and end those financial losses on food and beverage sales within five years. One report found that a $9 cheeseburger sold on board a train really cost Amtrak $16 – as taxpayers picked up the extra cost.

3. Sec. 1409 Milk Products – Here is your research assignment: find out why this language is being added to Section 127 (a) of Title 23, United States Code – “(13) Milk Products – A vehicle carrying fluid milk products shall be considered a load that cannot be easily dismantled or divided.”

4. Motorcyclist Advisory Council – If you ride a motorcycle, you might be able to join a motorcyclist advisory council that would be created by this bill. It would seek input from motorcycle riders on the design of barriers, roads, and the “architecture and implementation of intelligent transportation system technologies.’

5. Higher fines for automakers – The highway bill has a provision that allows the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to levy fines of up to $105 million on automakers that withhold information on automobile safety defects. The current limit on fines is $35 million.

6. Positive Train Control – The highway bill authorizes $199 million in grants to help pay for “positive train control” – a computerized technological effort that would help prevent train crashes and accidents, by automatically bringing a train to a stop. Supporters argue that same system could have prevented a recent crash outside of Philadelphia, where an Amtrak passenger train jumped the tracks, killing eight people and injuring over 200 others.

7a. Studies and more studies – Congress loves to order the executive branch to study things. And this bill is no different, as it requires a half dozen studies – they include, a study on the performance of bridges, a study on locomotive horns at highway-rail grade crossings, and one on the national roadside survey of alcohol and drug use by drivers.

7b. Reports and more reports – Congress loves to order the Executive Branch to file reports on all sorts of subjects, and this highway bill is no different. I found at least a dozen new reports – everything from a report on refunds to registered vendors of kerosene used in noncommercial aviation to a report on vertical track deflection to a report on the design and implementation of wireless roadside inspection systems.

Recreational boating – The highway bill also includes language on recreational boating, which would include up to $1.5 million for “a survey of levels of recreational boating participation and related matters in the United States.”

Hillary and the Russian Uranium Scandal

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Don’t you wonder why Debbie Wasserman Schultz has not challenged Hillary on this? Exactly what do those Hillary supporters know and ignore?

Judicial Watch Sues Treasury for Records on Hillary Clinton-Russian Uranium Scandal

Update: The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) responded today that it allegedly had no records.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking communications between the U.S. Department of the Treasury and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of the Treasury (No. 1:15-cv-01776)).

The goal of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit is to gain access to documents involving a uranium deal approved by then-Secretary of State Clinton that is tied to major Clinton Foundation donor Frank Giustra and Russian-state issues.

The lawsuit was filed after the Treasury Department ignored a FOIA request sent on May 29, 2015.  Judicial Watch’s request seeks emails between key Treasury agencies and Hillary Clinton non-governmental email accounts:

  • All records of email communications between the Office of Foreign Assets Control and any “clintonemail.com” address, including but not limited to [email protected] and [email protected];
  • All records of email communications between the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. and any “clintonemail.com” address, including but not limited to [email protected] and [email protected]; and
  • All records of email communications between the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury and any “clintonemail.com” address, including but not limited to [email protected] and [email protected].

Judicial Watch is investigating a controversial 2010 deal involving Uranium One, the Canadian company currently at the center of the Clinton Foundation donor scandals and ARMZ, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian atomic energy agency, which recently took a 51 percent controlling interest in Uranium One.  The lawsuit seeks information about the approval of this deal and whether the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) ignored the mandatory 75-day review approval process, approving the deal in just 52 days.  Mrs. Clinton, as Secretary of State, was a member of CFIUS.

Peter Scheweizer’s book Clinton Cash first raised questions about the Uranium One deal, which benefited many donors to the Clinton Foundation, including Giustra, who, among other dealings, helped set up a Clinton Foundation entity in Canada that had the effect of hiding donations from foreign governments and others from public disclosure, despite promises of disclosure by Hillary Clinton and the Foundation.

As the New York Times reported on April 23, the Clinton Foundation hid many of the beneficiaries of the deal approved by Mrs. Clinton and CFIUS:

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show.

The documents from Treasury should shed light on the apparent conflict of interest between then-Secretary of State Clinton and the Clinton Foundation regarding the expedited approval process.  Under United States law, uranium is considered a strategic asset; therefore, any such deal must be approved by a committee of U.S. government officials. The CFIUS board, which is tasked with reviewing all foreign acquisitions of American national security assets, consists of seven cabinet members, including the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Treasury. In 2010, Jose W. Fernandez represented the State Department on the CFIUS board, and the documents sought by Judicial Watch lawsuit should clarify whether Clinton failed to disclose to Fernandez that several executives at Uranium One made millions of dollars in contributions to the Clinton Foundation immediately before and after CFIUS reviewed and approved the ARMZ-Uranium One deal.

Separate Judicial Watch FOIA litigation forced the disclosure last year of documents that provided a road map for over 200 conflicts-of-interest rulings that led to $48 million for the Clinton Foundation and other Clinton-connected entities during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.  Previously disclosed documents in this lawsuit, for example, raise questions about funds Clinton accepted from entities linked to Saudi Arabia, China and Iran, among others.  The August 13, 2014, investigative report that first disclosed the Clinton financial dealings, “State Department approved 215 Bill Clinton speeches, controversial consulting deal, worth $48m; Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff copied on all decisions,” is available here.

The approval of this deal made millions of dollars for the Clinton Foundation, gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production in the U.S., and made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers.

“Hillary Clinton’s cash and secrecy on this Russian uranium deal looks corrupt and criminal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And now that his Treasury Department violated FOIA to cover up yet another Clinton scandal, there is no daylight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on this scandal that placed our nation’s security at risk.”

Unaccompanied Immigrant Children Placed With Convicted Criminals

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FoxLatino: “Although the whistle-blower claims to have relayed these concerns to supervisors in August of 2015,” the senators wrote in a letter to the secretaries of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, whose departments are responsible for processing the youths, according to the Los Angeles Times, “apparently these individuals have no immediate plans to remove [unaccompanied minors] from their criminal sponsors, but are ‘discussing options.'”

In August reports emerged that federal authorities had placed a half a dozen teenage Guatemalan boys in the care of human traffickers in Ohio. The boys were forced to live trailers and work 12 hours a day at an egg farm, while having their paychecks confiscated and threatened with death if they sought help.

“Based on what I’ve learned to date, I am concerned that the child placement process failure that contributed to the Ohio trafficking case is part of a systemic problem rather than a one-off incident,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said. “We continue to demand answers from the administration with the goal of uncovering how this abuse occurred and reforming the system to protect all minors against human trafficking.”

Immigration News: Unaccompanied Immigrant Children Placed With Convicted Criminals, Says Whistleblower

TheLatinPost: Two Republican senators have questioned if the Obama administration placed unaccompanied immigrant children with convicted criminals.

Republicans Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and John Cornyn of Texas have asked U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson if “unaccompanied alien children” (UAC) were released to sponsors with criminal records. The senators said a whistleblower alerted the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Grassley chairs, and made the allegation.

“According to the whistleblower, data compiled on a subset of UAC sponsors demonstrated that at least 3,400 sponsors of 29,000 listed in a UAC database have later been determined to have criminal convictions including re-entry after deportation, DUI, burglary, distribution of narcotics, domestic violence, homicide, child molestation, and sexual assault. Several of these criminal sponsors are even associated with, or actively engaged in, the practice of sex trafficking and human smuggling,” wrote Cornyn and Grassley in a letter to the HHS and DHS secretaries.

As the senators noted in their letter, an apprehended immigrant child is first processed by DHS’ law enforcement, and then transferred to HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to conduct background checks with the DHS’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in hopes to find a sponsor. The “whistleblower” alleged the background checks were “not thoroughly performed and sponsors are not properly vetted or even fingerprinted.”

Grassley and Cornyn wrote several questions for the DHS and HHS secretaries to respond until Dec. 7. Questions include:

– Of the sponsors currently listed in the UAC portal (database), how many have criminal records?

– Are background checks conducted and fingerprints taken on all potential UAC sponsors? Please explain.

– If a sponsor’s criminal record is discovered after the sponsor has already accepted UACs, what processes or procedures do the agencies have to ensure the UACs are not left in the criminal sponsor’s care? Please explain.

– How many UAC sponsors have been convicted of child molestation? How many UAC sponsors have been convicted of homicide? How many UAC sponsors have been convicted of crimes of violence including sexual assault and domestic violence?

– Do background checks of UAC sponsors include running the sponsor’s name through the National Crime Information Center? If not, why not? Please provide a list of all databases and background checks that are queried for all UAC sponsors.

“It is not the practice of the Office of Refugee Resettlement to place unaccompanied children with sponsors who have serious criminal convictions,” ORR spokesman Mark Weber said in a statement. “The safety of the children is our primary concern and any allegation of even potential harm is taken seriously and will be investigated.”

Weber added that the ORR maintains a database for staffers to monitor sponsor’s names, addresses and assessments in addition to the number of time the sponsor requested a UAC.

According to the ORR, and based on info as of September, 27,520 unaccompanied minors have been released to sponsors during the 2015 fiscal year, which began in October 2014.

 

Obamacare Co-op in NY Refusing New Patients

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WatchDog: The Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan, or Co-Op, portion of the health care law established nonprofit health insurers that would receive federal funding and were intended to compete with private, for-private insurers on the exchanges as a way to lower prices. They were supposed to be small-scale single-payer systems that would be free from the profit motive; a progressive’s dream solution to the problem of providing health insurance for all.

Instead, they’ve turned into a nightmare. So far, 12 of the 23 co-ops have failed, defaulting on more than $1.2 billion in federal loans. Only two have been able to break even so far, and most of the remaining co-ops are eyeing massive premium increases – as high as 40 percent in some cases – to stay solvent.

A government program being poorly run is nothing new, of course. But the co-ops established under the health care law were subject to a series of regulations that make you wonder how they were ever supposed to succeed in the first place.

Collapse of NY’s largest Obamacare co-op has doctors refusing new patients

HotAir: Back in the middle of November we covered the announcement that one of the largest New York health insurance providers under the Obamacare co-op umbrella was in trouble. Health Republic had jumped on the Affordable Care Act bandwagon and signed up nearly a quarter million new subscribers, offering cut rate prices and surging to the top of the market in that area. Unfortunately, the expected cash bonanza from the government program failed to live up to expectations and the company quickly ran out of operating capital. Yesterday was the end of the line for Health Republic and they closed their doors.

Unfortunately for the citizens of New York, this failure didn’t just represent a blow to the company’s profits and the reputation of the White House’s signature legislative achievement. There have been real world consequences for the people who signed up for the plan, including running into doctors who won’t even accept appointments from people using the company’s services. (From The Watershed Post)

The shuttered company is no longer paying its claims, leaving doctors unsure whether they will ever be paid for seeing Health Republic patients. Some doctors have turned patients away, or are bargaining directly with patients over their medical fees…

Health Republic’s collapse has forced a panicked scramble among patients and doctors in upstate New York. Local doctors have worried that Health Republic will default on bills, and at least one practice, the Llobet Medical Group, has turned away patients who have Health Republic insurance.

“This was one of the biggest disasters ever,” said David Cordner, an administrator at Llobet Medical Group, a primary care practice with offices in Margaretville and Kingston. “I don’t understand why New York didn’t see this a lot sooner. Nobody got paid. Where was the money going?”

Where was the money going? Several New York legislators are asking exactly that question since a lot of taxpayer dollars were flushed down this rat hole before it was finally closed. Health Republic had received $265 million in federal loans to get started and that money has pretty much evaporated. Two state senators along with U.S. Congressman Chris Gibson have called for an investigation and are asking Governor Andrew Cuomo to explain where the money went and what he plans to do to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

“$265 million of taxpayer money disappeared and 215,000 New Yorkers are facing turmoil in their healthcare coverage,” he told the Watershed Post. “There is no question that there needs to be an investigation to see where there was wrongdoing. This happened on Governor Cuomo’s watch.”

Some of the personal stories which Watershed Post dug up are precisely the sort of outcome which people had feared, They talked to Candace Rudd, the owner of a hair salon, who called her doctor for an appointment and was told that her insurance was no longer accepted. They were willing to give her an appointment, but wanted a $100 cash payment to get in to see the doctor. Whether or not she’s able to afford that, there are far too many families who couldn’t in upstate New York’s struggling economy.

This is the larger, national potential for Obamacare on a local level. More than half of the state exchanges have closed at this point and nearly all the rest of them are in financial peril. But with the law in place, what happens to all of the collapsed segments of the system? Legally the states can’t simply walk away, but someone still has to pay the bills. Care to guess who that’s going to be?