Category Archives: Treasury

Was bin Ladin in the IRS Files for Obamacare?

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I remember very well saying a few years ago that any foreigner, including Usama bin Ladin could get Obamacare benefits. Never understood how true my conclusions were. Further, there was a movement in the House to impeach the IRS Commissioner. Then we learned that more hard drives have been destroyed, others were found in storage and billions in refunds went to a handful of same mail address locations in obscure places outside the United States.

Not only is Obamacare a failure itself, but it really does not become full law until 2017 and it is a law we can no longer begin to afford when the IRS cant recover bogus subsidies to illegals.

Fasten your seat belt.

Senate report: Illegal immigrants benefited from up to $750M in ObamaCare subsidies

FNC: Illegal immigrants and individuals with unclear legal status wrongly benefited from up to $750 million in ObamaCare subsidies and the government is struggling to recoup the money, according to a new Senate report obtained by Fox News.

The report, produced by Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, examined Affordable Care Act tax credits meant to defray the cost of insurance premiums. It found that as of June 2015, “the Administration awarded approximately $750 million in tax credits on behalf of individuals who were later determined to be ineligible because they failed to verify their citizenship, status as a national, or legal presence.”

The review found the credits went to more than 500,000 people – who are either illegal immigrants or whose legal status was unclear due to insufficient records.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services confirmed to FoxNews.com on Monday that 471,000 customers with 2015 coverage failed to produce proper documentation on their citizenship or immigration status on time – but stressed that this does not necessarily mean they’re ineligible.

“Lack of verification does not mean an individual is ineligible for financial assistance, but only that a Marketplace did not receive sufficient information to verify eligibility in the time period outlined in the law,” CMS spokesman Aaron Albright said.

The Senate report also accused the administration of lacking a solid plan to get that money back – and predicted that in the end, the IRS will be “unable to fully recoup the funds.”

“The information provided to the Committee by the IRS and HHS reveals a troubling lack of coordination between the two agencies … and demonstrates that the IRS and HHS neglected to consider how they would recover these wasteful payments,” the report says.

Under the law, the feds can dole out these payments on a temporary basis if a recipient’s legal status is unclear, but are supposed to cut off funding and coverage if the recipient does not later come up with the paperwork. Up to a half-million “ineligible” people, according to the report, applied in this way — with their credits paid in advance to the insurers. The IRS, though, is supposed to get overpayments back from the individuals themselves.

The Senate report, based on a review launched by committee Chairman Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., derisively describes this approach as “pay and chase.”

In other words, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services pays credits and subsidies to the insurance companies on behalf of the applicants – and the feds then “chase” after any overpayments to ineligible people once they are discovered.

“This ‘pay and chase’ model has potentially cost taxpayers approximately $750 million,” the report says. The 500,000 individuals in question have been removed from coverage, according to the findings, as the government seeks to get the money back.

The Senate report says the IRS and HHS initially failed to coordinate on a plan for recouping funds, and claimed that a subsequent plan from the IRS to recoup the money is still “ineffective and insufficient.”

In a July letter to Johnson, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen assured that the agency is “committed to identifying and efficiently addressing” improper payments. He reiterated that anyone “not lawfully present” who enrolls for ObamaCare coverage “must repay” the advance premium credit payments, and would be breaking the law if they don’t.

Obama Going for it All Including Moon Shot

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There are organizations out there trying to get some great bills passed. Too bad they wont affect Obama himself. But when it comes to Congress wanting a pay raise, how about a Fiscal Responsibility Act first?

Obama’s go-for-broke budget

Congress has already dismissed the proposal, sight unseen.

Politico: President Barack Obama may be a lame duck, but his aggressively liberal final budget request coming Tuesday will show he’s far from a mute one.

Even as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders quarrel over who’s a “progressive” and who’s not, the president will propose a sweepingly progressive policy agenda that includes a $10-a-barrel oil tax, an expensive Medicaid expansion, a $4 billion initiative to promote computer science in public schools and the first down payment on a “moon shot” research initiative to cure cancer led by Vice President Joe Biden.

Never mind that Congress, in a break with tradition, said it won’t even hold hearings on this year’s budget request. That’s because the request “will continue to focus on new spending proposals” instead of tackling “our $19 trillion in debt,” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) said last week. Complete details on proposed total spending, projected deficits and other information will be released Tuesday morning.

Given Congress’ sight-unseen dismissal, the president’s go-for-broke strategy makes sense, said Peter Orszag, who was White House budget director during Obama’s first term and director of the Congressional Budget Office before that.

“If the document is legislatively irrelevant,” Orszag said, “you might as well use it to expand the policy dialogue and lay out sensible proposals even if they will not become law this year or next.” This year’s budget proposal “lays the groundwork for Democrats to refine and embrace a more ambitious legislative agenda over time.”

Lame-duck presidential budget requests nearly always receive catcalls from Congress, especially when it’s controlled by the opposite party.

In February 2008, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi scored President George W. Bush’s “misguided” final budget for cuts in health care and energy assistance and a too-large budget deficit. The final product was a mashup from Congress, the outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration. It yielded a $1.4 trillion deficit — the largest in U.S. history, in large part because of the financial crisis. The current deficit is an estimated $544 billion.

President Bill Clinton’s final budget, submitted in February 2000, was less contentious, in part because it adhered to a 1997 agreement with the Republican-controlled Congress on debt reduction. Clinton had the opposite problem: His budget’s spending levels were judged too high, and its budget surplus — which ended up being $1.3 billion — drew sharp criticism from Republicans, including candidate Bush, who wanted to return it to the public in the form of tax cuts. The novel problem of a budget surplus proved short-lived; it vanished the following year, and hasn’t been heard from since.

Where Obama’s lame-duck policy agenda differs, suggests presidential historian Michael Beschloss, is in the scope of its ambition. “Modern presidents have tended to focus on a particular project” in their last year, Beschloss said — “for instance, Eisenhower and Reagan trying to wind down the Cold War, or Johnson trying to find peace in Vietnam.” But Obama is different. He’s “looking for ways in his final year to pursue an agenda on many fronts” in hopes not only of “getting something done” but also “nudging his successor to do certain things.”

It is the policy, perhaps, of a departing president who — given this year’s unusually chaotic GOP primary race — feels more confident than most that his party will keep the White House.

The boldest of all the budget proposals is the $10-a-barrel crude oil tax. Energy taxes are always a hard sell — nobody’s raised the federal gasoline tax, for instance, since 1993 — and although consumers may be less resistant because of low pump prices, oil companies will be more so because falling gas prices have them reducing exploration and laying off workers.

The revenues would go not toward deficit reduction, but toward more green forms of transportation such as subways, buses and light rail. House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady immediately denounced the plan as a “horrible idea” and a “waste of time,” and even some congressional Democrats will likely oppose it. But environmentalists are greeting it as an overdue down payment on reducing emissions that contribute to climate change. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said it “underscores the inevitable transition away from oil.”

The president’s proposed Medicaid expansion would extend the Affordable Care Act’s promise of three years’ full federal funding for ACA-created Medicaid coverage, which expires this year. The proposal is an inducement to the 19 states that continue not to participate in the program, which was created for families whose incomes were too low to qualify for federal subsidies to purchase private insurance plans through Obamacare exchanges.

Under the budget proposal, states would still get only three years’ full federal funding, after which they would gradually have to pick up 10 percent of program costs. The carrot is that they would no longer have to act by the end of 2016. A stick originally envisioned by the ACA’s authors — that states could not refuse the ACA Medicaid expansion without withdrawing from Medicaid entirely — was itself swatted away in the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling that otherwise upheld Obamacare. The new extension is a rebuke of sorts to House Republicans who have voted repeatedly to repeal Obamacare and who last month sent to the White House a repeal bill that for the first time passed both the House and Senate — which the president promptly vetoed.

The budget’s new K-12 computer science program isn’t intrinsically partisan — both Democrats and Republicans favor enhancing school kids’ computer skills, not to mention big tech companies like Microsoft. But its $4 billion price tag raises GOP hackles, as does the notion of attaching more strings to federal aid to schools. “Rather than calling for additional federal programs or new funding streams,” an aide to Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) complained, “the president can help students by using his bully pulpit to highlight states working in innovative ways to help their children succeed.”

The “cancer moon shot” is similarly uncontroversial in theory; after all, it was President Richard Nixon, a Republican, who proposed waging a federal “war on cancer” back in 1971. But the down payment of nearly $1 billion that the White House seeks is high, and congressional Republicans won’t like that the plan would largely bypass the appropriations process and give Vice President Joe Biden a relatively free hand in allocating some of the funds. In addition, the plan would compel medical researchers to quicken the pace at which they share data, an idea that is already receiving considerable pushback in academia. Jeffrey Dazen, editor of the esteemed New England Journal of Medicine, publicly decried the use of medical research by “data parasites.”

The likelihood of legislative action on any of these agenda items is virtually nil.

Still, observes Rutgers historian David Greenberg, author of a new book about presidential spin: “No one wants to admit that the last year will be an uneventful one.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/obamas-radical-final-budget-218944#ixzz3zbtYLPAO

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/obamas-radical-final-budget-218944#ixzz3zbtQUHcX

 

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/obamas-radical-final-budget-218944#ixzz3zbtHTeC9

 

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/obamas-radical-final-budget-218944#ixzz3zbt9O7NB

 

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/obamas-radical-final-budget-218944#ixzz3zbt2eChp

Obama Tells Israel, Take it or Leave it

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Note: Haaretz is pro Obama regime and anti-Netanyahu
Obama to Israel as Netanyahu Hesitates Over Aid Package: Next Prez Won’t Give You a Better Deal

An unnamed US official urged Israel Sunday to accept a military aid offer which falls short of Israeli expectations, claiming the country would get no better offer from the next administration. According to Haaretz, the official said, “Israel will certainly not find a president more committed to Israel’s security than is President [Barack] Obama.”

Three rounds of talks to renegotiate US contributions to Israel’s military have largely led nowhere. A ten-year memorandum of understanding, signed in 2008, provided Israel with $3 billion annually. It is set to expire in the near future, and US congressional sources told Reuters that Israel is seeking an increase to $5 billion a year, starting in 2017. The same sources estimated the final agreement would settle between $4 and $5 billion.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a weekly cabinet meeting, “Perhaps we won’t succeed in reaching an agreement with this administration and will have to reach an agreement with the next administration.” This prompted the angry response from US officials.

“Even as we grapple with a particularly challenging budget environment, this administration’s commitment to Israel’s security is such that we are prepared to sign an MOU [memorandum of understanding] with Israel that would constitute the largest single pledge of military assistance to any country in U.S. history,” the senior official told Haaretz.

“Israel is of course free to wait for the next administration to finalize a new MOU should it not be satisfied with such a pledge, but we would caution that the US budgetary environment is unlikely to improve in the next 1-2 years and Israel will certainly not find a president more committed to Israel’s security than is President Obama.”

The same official emphasized that negotiations are “taking place in the context of a challenging budgetary environment in the United States that has necessitated difficult tradeoffs amongst competing priorities including not just foreign assistance and defense but also domestic spending.” Currently, over 50 percent of America’s foreign military spending goes to Israel.

“Despite these [budgetary] limitations, based on extensive consultations with Israel on its threat environment and in-depth discussions within the U.S. government regarding Israel’s defense needs, we are confident that a new [memorandum] could meet Israel’s top security requirements and preserve its qualitative military edge,” the official added.

White House officials stressed that Israel’s security is a top priority of the Obama administration, as demonstrated by its spending to date. “From the $20.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing to the additional $3 billion in missile defense funding the United States has provided under his leadership, no other U.S. Administration in history has done more for Israel’s security.”

A senior Israeli official noted that, while negotiations are ongoing, it would likely take presidential intervention to make any real progress. “It’s not a subject for staff, but rather for decisions by leaders,” he said. This may happen in the near future, as Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is scheduled to visit his American counterpart, Ashton Carter, in Washington next month, followed two weeks later by a visit to the US by Netanyahu, who is expected to meet with Obama at that time.

***

16 Aug 2007

 

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed by Israel and the United States at a ceremony today (16 August) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The MOU outlines defense aid to be provided to Israel by the Americans to the tune of $30 billion in the next decade.

Representing the United States at the ceremony were Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns and US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones. On the Israeli side, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fisher, Director General of the Foreign Ministry Aaron Abramovich, Director General of the Ministry of Defense Pinchas Buchris and Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Salai Meridor, attended.

*** Contacts between Israel and the United States on the security memorandum of understanding are expected to be stepped up a notch. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is expected to visit Washington at the beginning of March to meet with his American counterpart, Ashton Carter. About two weeks later, Netanyahu will come to Washington to attend the conference of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. In all probability, he will also meet with Obama in an effort to achieve a breakthrough in the talks.

Will Kerry Give Mahmoud Abbas a P5+1 Deal?

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ToI: Former Palestinian peace negotiator Nabil Shaath said in an interview earlier this month that he often asks Westerners whether Arabs have to “hijack your planes and destroy your airports again” to make the world take notice of the Palestinian cause

In a February 1 interview with the Palestinian Authority’s Awdha TV, translated by MEMRI, Shaath slammed American efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Asked about a French proposal for an international peace conference, Shaath replied, “Well, anything is better than American control of the negotiations. Anything. The US has never been a reliable honest broker. Never. It is the strategic ally of Israel. Period. Therefore any discussion of a different formula is a positive thing.”

But, he added, “an international conference is not what is needed. What is needed is a smaller framework. Today, at the African Union summit, President [Mahmoud] Abbas reiterated that we want something similar to the 5+1 framework” of six world powers who negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran.

“Like it or not, the US will be part of it. But we want France, Germany, Britain, the EU, Russia, China, Brazil, India. From the Arab countries we want Egypt at least. We want a small international framework.”

***

Shaath then turned to what he described as Western apathy toward suffering in the Middle East.

“If the Syrian problem had not been exported to Europe through the refugees on the one hand and terrorism on the other, the Europeans would not have cared even if the entire Syrian people had died,” he charged.

“But when all of a sudden there were four million Syrian refugees in Europe, 1.2 million of them in Germany alone, and when this was accompanied by Islamic State operations in France and elsewhere, all these countries began to fear that IS might have infiltrated through the refugees. And this started a debate about racial transformation in Europe with the entrance of non-white, non-European, non-Anglo-Saxon races, like the Syrian refugees, the Africans and others. This is what made the Syrian problem the most pressing from their perspective.”

He added: “I always say to these people, after I tell them about Syria and IS: ‘Do we have to hijack your planes and destroy your airports again to make you care about our cause? Are you waiting for us to cut off your oil supply? You always wait for things to reach boiling point and explode, causing you harm, before you intervene to end the crimes and violations.’”  

Shaath served as the PA’s first foreign minister, and has served as a top peace negotiator and

The DoJ Hacked, DHS Files Compromised

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Hackers leaked DHS staff records, 200GB of files are in their hands

A hacker accessed an employee’s email account at the Department of Justice and stole 200GB of files including records of 9,000 DHS staffers and 20,000 FBI employees.

SecurityAffairs: Yesterday, the data related a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) staff directory were leaked online, a Twitter account shared the link to an archive containing 9,355 names.

The responsible for the data leakage first contacted Motherboard to share the precious archive.

Each record of the DHS Staff Directory includes name, title, email address, and phone number.

Going deep in the archive it is possible to note that it includes information of DHS security specialists, program analysts, InfoSec and IT and also 100 employees with a title “Intelligence”.

The same Twitter account has announced later the imminent release of an additional data dump containing 20,000 FBI employees.

DHS firewall

Are the records authentic?

Motherboard that obtained the archive reached the operations center of the FBI, and in one case the individual who pick up the phone presented himself with the same name associated with that number in the archive. A similar circumstance occurred with a DHS employee, Motherboard so confirmed that the information is legit.

Which is the source of data?

According to Motherboard, a hacker accessed an employee’s email account at the Department of Justice. As proof, the hacker sent the email message to Motherboard’s contributor Joseph Cox directly from the compromised account.

“A hacker, who wishes to remain anonymous, plans to dump the apparent names, job titles, email addresses and phone numbers of over 20,000 supposed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) employees, as well as over 9,000 alleged Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees, Motherboard has learned.” wrote Cox in a blog post.

“The hacker also claims to have downloaded hundreds of gigabytes of data from a Department of Justice (DOJ) computer, although that data has not been published.”

The hacker first tried to use the compromised credentials to access a DOJ staff portal, but without success, then he called the department directly and obtained the access through social engineering techniques.

The hacker accessed the DoJ intranet where the database is hosted, then he downloaded around the, out of 1TB that he had access to.

“I HAD access to it, I couldn’t take all of the 1TB,” the hacker told to MotherBoard.

The hackers confirmed his intention to release the rest of the data in the near future.Which is the motivation behind the attack?

It is not clear at the moment why the hacker released the archive, surely it’s not financially motivated. The hacker only left the following message when has leaked the data-

“This is for Palestine, Ramallah, West Bank, Gaza, This is for the child that is searching for an answer…” which are the verses of “Long Live Palestine”

The only certainty right now is that similar incidents are becoming too frequent, apparently the government staff is not properly trained on the main cyber threats or the hacking technique. Similar incidents show the lack of knowledge on the most basic security measures.
Whenever a hacker leaks so sensitive data, I think the number of his peers who had access to the same information with the intent to use them in other attacks or resell them, perhaps to a foreign government.

Pierluigi Paganini

*** As a reminder, in 2014 a much more dangerous hack intrusion happened at the DHS:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alerted critical infrastructure operators to recent breaches within the sector – including the hack of a U.S. public utility that was vulnerable to brute-force attacks.

This week, the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), a subgroup of DHS, revealed information about the incidents in a newsletter (PDF).

According to ICS-CERT, industrial control systems were compromised in two, new incidents: one, involving the hack of an unnamed public utility, and another scenario where a control system server was remotely accessed by a “sophisticated threat actor.”

After investigating the public utility hack, ICS-CERT found that the system’s authentication mechanism was susceptible to brute-force attacks – where saboteurs routinely run through a list of passwords or characters to gain access to targeted systems. The control system used a simple password mechanism, the newsletter revealed.

In