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Oh Look, an Illegal Immigrant Summer Camp

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As written on this blog that we must watch Germany when it comes to protests over immigration, it appears that things are spooling that activism here in America is in our future.

Who would imagine summer camp involves teaching activism and we are to accept this as a good thing?

This summer camp just churned out 80 activists

LATimes: Growing up in wealthy Marin County, Yaqueline Rodas didn’t know many people like herself: a young immigrant from Guatemala in the country without legal status. She knew even fewer political activists.

So it was with amazement and a little anxiety that she found herself standing one morning in June in a circle with 82 strangers, each of whom had also been brought to the U.S. illegally as a child, and each of whom was now officially an activist-in-training.

It was the first day of Dream Summer, an annual program that brings young immigrants from across the country to Los Angeles for a 10-week crash course designed to produce the next generation of immigrant rights leaders.

As the students sipped coffee and exchanged shy introductions in a meeting room in the basement of a Koreatown church, Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, which organized the program, explained the objective.

“It is to build a powerful social justice movement that will transform this country,” Wong said. He cracked a smile: “No pressure.”

Dream Summer, which concluded its fifth year Thursday with a graduation ceremony in downtown Los Angeles, has already changed the immigrant rights movement. Its alumni include many leading “Dreamer” advocates, including several who led the push for President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. (DACA, as it is known, granted temporary deportation protection to more than half a million young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.)

The program includes two weeks of workshops in Los Angeles on topics as varied as public speaking, the immigrant detention system and the history of the NAACP. Participants also spend eight weeks in internships at social justice organizations around the country.

The idea is for them to learn what has worked for other social movements. But the program’s biggest value, those involved say, may be the connections forged by young immigrants from different regions with similar backgrounds, similar frustrations and similar dreams.

“Look around the room,” Wong urged the students that first day in June. “Now you’re a part of a whole network, a whole community.”

Rodas, who applied for the program on a whim after a classmate at UC Santa Barbara recommended it, said the summer had changed her sense of place in the world.

It helped her realize that there were others like her who had experienced discrimination, and who also were bothered by their parents’ struggle to find well-paying work. And it helped her find a purpose.

“Now I know I want to do something to help my community,” said Rodas, who spent the summer helping immigrants without legal status sign up for health insurance.

Chando Kem, 21, spent the first few days of the program commuting from his home in Long Beach. But soon he was spending nights on the floor of the hotel rooms of the out-of-town participants to maximize the time with his new colleagues.

During his internship, at the Filipino Migrant Center in Long Beach, Kem was asked to produce video testimonials featuring immigrants who had experienced wage theft. During the process, he realized that he should interview his own father for the film.

When his family arrived from Cambodia, when Kem was 7, his dad worked at a Chinese restaurant where he was underpaid and denied proper lunch breaks, Kem said. “Before I thought, ‘OK, this is the way things are,'” he said. “Now it’s like no, that’s wrong.”

The organizers of Dream Summer say it was born out of failure and frustration.

They started the program in 2011 after Congress failed to pass the federal Dream Act, which would have given people who came to the United States before the age of 16 a pathway to citizenship. Opponents said it would have rewarded immigrants who broke the law.

That year, several of the program’s young participants were placed with campaigns working on behalf of the California Dream Act. It passed later that year, allowing youth to apply for state financial aid at universities.

Other Dream Summer alumni would go on to lead efforts against Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for controversial policies targeting immigrants in the country illegally, and to take on Obama’s deportation record. One graduate, Lorella Praeli, is now Latino outreach director for Democratic hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The program is not only for new activists.

At 33, Paulo Jara-Riveros was one of the oldest participants this summer. Brought to the U.S. from Peru at age 15, he returned to Peru to pursue his studies in 2011.

Two years later, Jara-Riveros was a part of a major protest in which two dozen young people with long ties to the U.S. surrendered to federal authorities at the Texas-Mexico border to protest American immigration policies. Jara-Riveros, a transgender man who says he faced discrimination in Peru, has applied for asylum and is waiting for a ruling in his case.

This summer he worked for a health organization that serves transgender immigrants. The experience was emotionally trying, he said. His takeaway: Activists must also tend to their own needs.

“Sometimes when you’re working in activism you get caught up in the work and you forget to take care of yourselves,” he said.

For Miguel Bibanco, a 20-year-old from Fresno, the program was not just about changing immigration policy. It was also about modeling an ideal society. He pointed to workshops that highlighted the experiences of minorities within the immigrant community, including lesbians, gays and transgender people and immigrants from Asia.

“It’s not just Latinos,” Bibanco said. “If we want a society that is inclusive, we need to start by including them in the activism process.”

On Thursday, he and Rodas snacked on taquitos and quesadillas at the program’s graduation ceremony, held at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

As the participants posed for pictures with their diplomas, they heard from Los Angeles City Councilman Gil Cedillo, who wrote the California Dream Act while he was a state assemblyman.

Cedillo evoked the heated rhetoric nationally around immigration. This summer, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has ratcheted up his crusade against illegal immigration, calling this month for a revocation of the constitutional amendment that guarantees citizenship to those born in the U.S.

“We’re being vilified,” said Cedillo, who called this “one of the most critical times in our country.”

He told the participants in the program that they were model members of the community. They were “hopeful, not hateful,” he said, “optimistic, not pessimistic.”

“Thank you,” he said. “You’ve shown up.”

Another Day of Hillary Email Disarray

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No Mandated Audit

DHS has no record of State Dept. giving info for Clinton server audit, despite rules

FNC: The State Department does not appear to have submitted legally required information regarding Hillary Clinton’s secret computer server to the Department of Homeland Security during her term as secretary, FoxNews.com has learned.

All federal government agencies are mandated to submit a list of systems, vulnerabilities and configuration issues to DHS every 30 days. The department then performs a “cyberscope audit” to ensure security, a responsibility the agency has had since 2010.

FoxNews.com learned of the lapse as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request submitted June 11. It is not clear if State Department officials in charge of compliance with the DHS audits knew of their boss’s server, which has been shown to have included “top secret” information in emails.

Clinton headed the agency from 2009-2013. The DHS established the “Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation” program in 2010, amid growing concerns government systems could be vulnerable to cyber attack. But Clinton’s computer server, through which she and key aides sent and received tens of thousands of emails, was apparently never audited, according to DHS, which conducted a comprehensive search of Office of Cyber Security and Communications records after FoxNews.com lodged its request.

“Unfortunately, we were unable to locate or identify any responsive records,” wrote Sandy Ford Page, chief of Freedom of Information Act operations for DHS.

The revelation means DHS never audited Clinton’s server, and the State Department allowed Clinton to operate outside the federal mandate aimed at hardening defenses in federal networks, one cyber expert told Fox News.

The State Department has not provided a substantive response to a similar FOIA submitted by FoxNews.com in early June.

The State Department did not comment on media requests about why it did not comply with the DHS security review requirement.

“There are reviews and investigations under way, including by the IG and Congress,” said State Department Spokesman Alec Gerlach. “It would not be appropriate to comment on these matters at this time.”

Denver-based Platte River Networks upgraded and maintained the server Clinton shares with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, after she left the State Department.

The company is not on the list of contractors approved by the Pentagon’s Defense Security Service, the only federal agency with the authority to review and approve private contractors. The department administers the National Industrial Security Program on behalf of the Pentagon and 30 other federal agencies, including the State Department. About 13,000 companies have received clearance.

“But Platte River is not one of them,” a spokesman for the DSS told Fox News. “As Platte River Networks is not a cleared facility under the National Industrial Security Program, DSS has no cognizance over the facility and cannot comment further.”

Clinton, the leading contender for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, and the State Department have been under fire in recent months after it was revealed Clinton had a “homebrew” server and private Blackberry system that could have left classified or sensitive government data open to hackers.

Clinton maintains her use of a private email server was allowed under government regulations and her system was secure.

But this followed the news Clinton wiped her server of some 31,000 private email messages, turning over just 30,000 hard copies of her emails to the State Department amid a congressional investigation into her actions during the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, where four U.S. personnel including the U.S. ambassador to Libya were killed.

While Clinton has maintained that she neither sent nor received information marked classified on her private server or Blackberry, Reuters reported last week that dozens of emails that passed through Clinton’s server while she was secretary of state, under the U.S. government’s own regulations, were automatically considered classified.

That includes 30 email threads starting as early as 2009, which contained information on foreign governments, Reuters said.

The FBI has opened an investigation to determine whether or not Clinton’s private email server was secure and if classified material was improperly shared or stored on the Clintons’ private email account.

A federal court hearing last week only added to the intrigue. The State Department asserted in a court filing that it did not give personal electronic devices to Clinton and may have destroyed the smartphones of her top aides, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills.

“If the State Department was not providing secure email devices to Mrs. Clinton, who was? Best Buy? Target? Mrs. Clinton clearly did whatever she wanted, without regard to national security or federal records keeping laws,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who took the State Department to court over its lack of disclosure on the email and server issues.

Huma Lawyers up to Fight Back

Lawyer for Huma Abedin, a Hillary Clinton Aide, Strikes Back at Accuser

A lawyer for Huma Abedin, a top adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton, has accused Charles E. Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, of damaging Ms. Abedin’s reputation through “unfounded allegations” about her time at the State Department.

The lawyer, Miguel Rodriguez, sent a letter to the State Department on Friday responding forcefully to two sets of questions posed by Mr. Grassley, Republican of Iowa: whether Ms. Abedin, while a department official, had been overpaid during her maternity leave and a vacation, and whether she had demonstrated a conflict of interest by aiding one of her part-time employers through her work at the State Department.

Ms. Abedin was granted permission by the State Department to work as a “special government employee” while also performing work for certain outside clients. Mr. Grassley has focused recently on her consulting work in 2012 for the firm Teneo, which was founded by Douglas J. Band, a longtime adviser to former President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Grassley has suggested that emails existed showing that Mr. Band had asked Ms. Abedin to press Mrs. Clinton to seek a White House appointment for Judith Rodin, the head of the Rockefeller Foundation, a Teneo client. Ms. Rodin is a longtime friend of the Clintons.

But Mr. Rodriguez, in his letter on Friday, cited a Washington Post article pointing out that Ms. Rodin, a longtime friend of Mr. Clinton’s, received that White House appointment in 2010, before the Rockefeller Foundation had retained Teneo “and before Teneo hired Abedin.”

Mr. Grassley has also recently disclosed that the State Department’s inspector general had found that Ms. Abedin received nearly $10,000 in excess pay during her maternity leave. But Mr. Rodriguez wrote that Ms. Abedin was contesting that finding because she “extensively worked” during those periods, as the inspector general’s “report itself found.”

“Chairman Grassley also has asked about Ms. Abedin’s 2011 trip to France and Italy,” the letter said. “That trip was intended to be a vacation, and Ms. Abedin personally paid for it.” But, he added, Ms. Abedin — who is married to former Representative Anthony D. Weiner, who resigned from Congress in June 2011 — worked during that trip as well.

Mr. Rodriguez, in his letter, alluded to a recent report that Mr. Grassley had received information from a confidential source about an internal investigation into Ms. Abedin that was completed in May by the State Department inspector general.

“We are deeply concerned that Chairman Grassley’s letter has unfairly tarnished Ms. Abedin’s reputation by making unsubstantiated allegations that appear to flow from misinformation that Chairman Grassley has been provided by an unnamed — and apparently unreliable — source,” Mr. Rodriguez wrote. Those allegations, he wrote, included the “suggestion that Ms. Abedin has violated any criminal statute.”

He also noted Mr. Grassley’s assertion that there were about 7,300 emails mentioning both Ms. Abedin and Mr. Band, but he said that this was because the two remained on many of the same mass email distribution lists thanks to their longstanding ties to the Clintons.

“These are but two examples of the unfortunate and unfounded allegations that have been made about Ms. Abedin,” Mr. Rodriguez wrote. “No staffer — indeed, nobody at all — should be subject to such unfounded attacks based on ill-informed leaks, much less someone who has made countless personal sacrifices in distinguished service to the country she loves.”

Mr. Grassley, who also serves on the Senate Finance Committee, has been aggressive in questioning Ms. Abedin’s status as a special government employee since it was revealed in 2013.

A former investigator on the Finance Committee who worked with Mr. Grassley there and was at one point expected to work for him on the Judiciary Committee, Emilia DiSanto, is now a deputy inspector general at the State Department.

The U.S. Refugee Immigration Costs Back to 1997

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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES REFUGEE AND ENTRANT ASSISTANCE report is full of the budget numbers. You have no concept of what bad law and policy has cost the American taxpayers. Imagine these decades of dollars as well as grants, USAID, the Merida Initiative, State Department programs, military assistance and the Millennium Challenge dollars added in, we effectively own these countries.

 

Unaccompanied Alien Children: An Overview

Summary

In FY2014, the number of unaccompanied alien children (UAC, unaccompanied children) that were apprehended at the Southwest border while attempting to enter the United States without authorization increased sharply, straining the system put in place over the past decade to handle such cases. Prior to FY2014, UAC apprehensions were steadily increasing. For example, in FY2011, the Border Patrol apprehended 16,067 unaccompanied children at the Southwest border whereas in FY2014 more than 68,500 unaccompanied children were apprehended. In the first 8 months of FY2015, UAC apprehensions numbered 22,869, down 49% from the same period in FY2014.

UAC are defined in statute as children who lack lawful immigration status in the United States, who are under the age of 18, and who either are without a parent or legal guardian in the United States or without a parent or legal guardian in the United States who is available to provide care and physical custody. Two statutes and a legal settlement directly affect U.S. policy for the treatment and administrative processing of UAC: the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-457); the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296); and the Flores Settlement Agreement of 1997.

Several agencies in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’s) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) share responsibility for the processing, treatment, and placement of UAC. DHS Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehends and detains unaccompanied children arrested at the border while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) handles custody transfer and repatriation responsibilities. ICE also apprehends UAC in the interior of the country and represents the government in removal proceedings. HHS coordinates and implements the care and placement of unaccompanied children in appropriate custody.

Foreign nationals from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico accounted for almost all UAC cases in recent years, especially in FY2014. In FY2009, when the number of UAC apprehended at the Southwest border was 19,688, foreign nationals from Mexico accounted for 82% of all UAC apprehensions at the Southwest border and the three Central American countries accounted for 17% of these apprehensions. In FY2014, the proportions had almost reversed, with Mexican UAC comprising only 23% of UAC apprehensions and unaccompanied children from the three Central American countries comprising 77%.

To address the crisis, the Administration developed a working group to coordinate the efforts of federal agencies involved. It also opened additional shelters and holding facilities to accommodate the large number of UAC apprehended at the border. In June 2014, the Administration announced plans to provide funding to the affected Central American countries for a variety of programs and security-related initiatives; and in July, the Administration requested $3.7 billion in supplemental appropriations for FY2014 to address the crisis. Congress debated the supplemental appropriations but did not pass such legislation.

For FY2015, Congress appropriated nearly $1.6 billion for the Refugee and Entrant Assistance Programs in ORR, the majority of which is directed toward the UAC program (P.L. 113-235). For DHS agencies, Congress appropriated $3.4 billion for detection, enforcement, and removal operations, including for the transport of unaccompanied children for CBP. The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, FY2015 (P.L. 114-4) also permits the Secretary of Homeland Security to reprogram funds within CBP and ICE and transfer such funds into the two agencies’ “Salaries and Expenses” accounts for the care and transportation of unaccompanied children. P.L. 114-4 also allows for several DHS grants awarded to states along the Southwest border to be used by recipients for costs or reimbursement of costs related to providing humanitarian relief to unaccompanied children.

Congressional activity on two pieces of legislation in the 114th Congress (H.R. 1153 and H.R. 1149) would make changes to current UAC policy, including amending the definition of UAC, altering current law on the treatment of unaccompanied children from contiguous countries, and amending several asylum provisions that would alter how unaccompanied children who assert an asylum claim are processed, among other things. Several other bills have been introduced without seeing legislative activity (H.R. 191/S. 129, H.R. 1700, H.R. 2491, and S. 44). The full report is here.

 

When China Collapses Financially, it Takes Other Enterprises Down, Oil

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China loses control of economy and production is falling.

Investment in China has been a bad bet for many months.

One big issue could be some of the university investments and pension funds along with State pension funds. If you think 2008 was bad, things can could get worse. Let take a look at California.

California Public Pension Funds Lost $5 Billion On Fossil Fuel Investments In One Year

Two of California’s massive public pension funds lost more than $5 billion on investments in coal, oil and natural gas in just 12 months.

According to a report released by environmental group 350.org, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) lost $3 billion and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) lost $2.1 billion from their holdings in the top 200 fossil fuel companies between June 2014 and June of this year.

Combined, the two funds lost a total of $840 million from their stock investments in coal companies alone — one-fourth of the value of their coal holdings.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported earlier this month that CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the US, lost $40 million on just one oil company, Pioneer Natural Resources Co.

Together, CalPERS and CalSTRS represent a total of nearly 2.6 million Californians and their families.

“This is a material loss of money, which directly impacts the strength of the pension fund,” Matthew Patsky, CEO of Trillium Asset Management, which performed the analysis on behalf of 350, said in a statement. “Fossil fuel stocks are volatile investments. Investors and fiduciaries should take this moment to reassess their financial involvement in carbon pollution, climate disruption and the financial risk fossil fuels plays in their portfolio.”

The report comes as California legislators are set to consider a bill that would force CalPERS and CalSTRS to divest from fossil fuels, at least in part.

State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De León introduced S.B. 185 earlier this year as part of a larger package of legislation intended to address global warming and its impacts. S.B 185 would require both CalPERS and CalSTRS to divest from companies that earn at least half of their revenue from coal mining operations.

The state senate approved the entire package of climate legislation in the Spring. S.B 185 is expected to be considered by California’s lower legislative chamber, the State Assembly, later this month.

“This bill is the right thing to do from both the economic and social perspective,” State Sen. Jerry Hill, who co-authored S.B 185, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “We should be moving to sources of energy, and investments, that are socially responsible and will take us from the 20th century and into the 21st.”

CalPERS has holdings in about 30 coal companies with a combined market value of $167 million that would be impacted by SB185, per the SF Chronicle. CalSTRS holds about $40 million in coal investments that would be affected.

“On behalf of teachers across the state, I have been urging CalSTRS to take our investments out of fossil fuels,” Jane Vosburg, a CalSTRS member and organizer with Fossil Fuel California, said in a statement. “Financial experts have long warned about the high risk of fossil fuel investments. Teachers’ pension funds should not be invested in an industry that threatens human civilization.”

If S.B. 185 passes, the California pension funds will become the latest institutions to join the growing divestment movement, a worldwide effort to compel pension funds, religious institutions, universities and other investors to divest their financial holdings in fossil fuel companies.

“It’s important to see that fossil fuels in general, and coal in particular, are risky bets for the pension system,” said Brett Fleishman, a senior analyst with 350.org. “When folks are saying divestment is risky, we can say, ‘Well, not divesting is risky.’

US crude oil dives below $40 a barrel in opening trade

New York (AFP) – US crude oil prices continued to fall Monday, diving below $40 a barrel to their lowest level since 2009, amid a global market selloff sparked by fears of China’s slowdown.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for October delivery tumbled by $1.39 to $39.06 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange around 1305 GMT. On Friday the contract had slipped below $40 in intraday trade.

As Iran now is increasing drilling output, oil will go lower in the price per barrel. Sounds good but not so much.

 

US Patent Office, Fraudulent Employees Play Golf

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Is there any government agency that is without scandal? The fleecing of the taxpayer is without limits.

The 29 page investigation report is here.

Since we tend to forget, how about a reminder that Barack Obama said he would go through the budget line by line.

Well in 2011: GOP: Obama never scoured budget ‘line by line’

The Hill: House Republicans are arguing President Obama broke a promise to scour the federal budget “line by line” to look for savings. 

Obama made the promise during the 2008 campaign, but House Energy and Commerce Investigations subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and committee Republicans insisted Wednesday there is no evidence that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) conducted such an exhaustive review.

Stearns also said that the $17 billion in program savings Obama’s budget office found was half of that found in the Bush administration.

Republicans said that Obama’s review does not differ from the ordinary presidential budget process and that the president has exaggerated any savings found by including tax increases and savings from drawing down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Congressional Research Service expert Clinton Brass said he would be “surprised” if the president would be able to take the time to read his entire budget. He testified that the administration has produced a list of programs to be terminated or reduced, but that such a list was also produced in prior administrations.

Democrats at a Wednesday hearing said Obama was speaking figuratively when he said he would conduct a line by line review.

“If this is a ‘gotcha’ hearing on whether the administration has actually done a line-by-line review, I reject its premise,” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said. “There is no question if it has examined the budget closely … I am afraid my colleagues have misunderstood a figure of speech.”

Republicans were irate that OMB would not send Budget Director Jack Lew to explain whether a line-by-line review was conducted. Committee ranking member Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) also said she regretted that OMB would not send anyone to testify.

Committee staff said that OMB told them Lew does not testify to subcommittees, and since there is no confirmed deputy director, there is no one available to testify.

At the hearing, Waxman said Congress should look in the mirror at its own budget failings. He pointed out that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) promised to do away with omnibus spending bills and is now contemplating one. He also said Congress has delegated important responsibilities to the deficit supercommittee.

*** None of these things are working out well at all, certainly since 2011. So how about that Patent Office?

Government Employee Paid to Golf, Play Pool

Half of worker’s hours at the U.S. Patent Office were fraudulent
FreeBeacon:

Taxpayers paid a government worker at the U.S. Patent Office to play golf and pool, according to an investigation by the Commerce Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) that found nearly half of the employee’s billed hours were fraudulent.

The employee, who worked as a patent examiner in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), earned over $70,000 a year despite “egregious time and attendance abuse,” which was not checked by managers at the office. The employee, referred to in the report as “Examiner A,” resigned after learning of the OIG’s investigation.

“According to the evidence, Examiner A received payment for over 18 full weeks of work, in aggregate, that he did not actually work,” the audit said. “Ultimately, USPTO management’s system of internal controls did not detect Examiner A’s time and attendance abuse; to the contrary, these issues did not come to light until a whistleblower submitted anonymous notes to the examiner’s supervisor and another manager.”

The anonymous letter in August 2014 that sparked the investigation said the employee “never shows up to work,” “seems to get away with anything,” and that he would only come into the office at the end of every quarter to submit “garbage” work.

“The note questioned how the supervisors could ‘allow this type of behavior’ to occur and why Examiner A had not ‘been fired by now for performance,’” the OIG said.

In all, the employee “committed at least 730 hours of time and attendance abuse, resulting in the payment of approximately $25,500 for hours not worked in FY 2014 alone.” The majority of the hours he did not enter the office building, or use his government-issued laptop.

The abused hours accounted for 43 percent of the employee’s total hours for the year. The hours amounted to 91 eight-hour workdays, or roughly 3 months. The OIG recorded 58 full workdays where there was no evidence that he entered the building.

However, the OIG said the employee likely got away with being paid for more hours he was not working because the employee was “given the benefit of the doubt.”

The employee was paid for full days of work, even though he often left to “hit golf balls at Golf Bar, play pool, or socialize at restaurants.”

The OIG examined instant messages between the employee and his coworkers about hitting the driving range.

One message occurred just before 1 p.m., after the employee spent less than 3 hours at the USPTO office.

“Ok, did u wanna [hit golf balls at Golf Bar] today at all?” he said. His coworker replied, “actually yeah, let’s just go there now?”

“I’ll walk over lemme just hit the restroom,” the employee said.

The other employee also said he was probably leaving soon anyway, saying, “godda go watch walking dead, etc.”

On another occasion the employee tried to convince a colleague to leave to play pool because he was “bored,” but they declined because they were “writing up a case.”

“Call me later if you wanna chill,” he said.

The USPTO did not review the employee’s time and attendance records despite “numerous red flags” the OIG said. The employee also was not fired despite receiving an “unacceptable” performance rating in 2012, 2013, and 2014, and “numerous complaints” about his work.

The employee’s supervisor said he “never suspected” that he was violating work policies, and cited that numerous employees at the USPTO have flexible work schedules that allow telecommuting.

The OIG has found attendance abuse in the agency before. Paralegals working for the agency were “paid to do nothing,” passing their time watching Netflix, doing laundry, and shopping online, costing taxpayers at least $5 million.

The audit warned that telework abuse could be widespread, given that nearly 10,000 patent office employees work from home at least once a week, and 5,000 work from home full time, or four to five days each week.

“While this report presents a case study of only one individual’s time and attendance abuse at USPTO, it illustrates the difficulties in preventing and detecting such activity in USPTO’s geographically dispersed workforce,” the OIG said.

“Although the USPTO has touted the benefits of its telework program, such as a reduction in rent, increases in employee satisfaction and retention, and a workforce much less affected by severe weather and traffic, this and other OIG efforts show that these programs also carry risks for abuse,” they said.

The OIG said the agency should try to recover the $25,500 in fraudulent pay through the legal system.