Category Archives: Treasury

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.

 

Who is This David Kendall, the Clinton’s Lawyer

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If and it is a big IF, some of the Hillary emails in question were not marked with any classified designations, then one must take a hard look at all of Hillary’s inner circle with particular emphasis on Huma Abedin. Why? Huma sent emails to Hillary which was a collection of several classified electronic dispatches that were classified and summarized them into a regular and unprotected email. Confused? More here. Heh, there were passages about snipers, people movement and vehicles.

It seems the New York Times has an axe to grind with the Clintons, imagine that. But the NYT is the go to media outlet when it comes to the White House and it cannot be forgotten that it was in fact the New York Times that was first to draw blood with regard to the Clintons. This was likely due to, but not proven at the hands of Valerie Jarrett protecting the White House from any concocted Clinton scheme and scandal.

Do, who is David Kendall? There must be some praise to the New York Times as they did list some, albeit, some Clinton scandals but the list if far from complete.

As a side matter, it will also come down to who can out-lawyer who in Washington DC…will Kendall always win?

From Whitewater to Email: David Kendall, the Clintons’ Dogged Lawyer

WASHINGTON — At first, he had to worry about a remote piece of land in Arkansas that no one wanted. Then there were billing records that went missing before mysteriously reappearing in the White House. And of course there was the blue dress.

Today, the object of concern for David E. Kendall is a tiny thumb drive that sat in a safe at his law firm until a couple weeks ago before attracting the attention of Congress, the F.B.I. and the news media. Once again, the whirlpool of Washington politics has arrived at Mr. Kendall’s doorstep as he defends perhaps the world’s most famous client.

For more than 20 years, Mr. Kendall has been on the front lines for Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton as their personal lawyer, battling investigators and litigants in the superheated environment where law and politics meet. From Whitewater to impeachment, he has waged legal warfare to keep the Clintons’ political careers on track. So as Mrs. Clinton faces questions about her use of a personal email server as secretary of state, no one is surprised she turned to Mr. Kendall.

The latest furor has put Mr. Kendall under a spotlight in a way that discomfits the tight-lipped and camera-shy lawyer. From Mrs. Clinton’s foes come public questions about why he had the thumb drive containing her email and whether he secured it properly. From Mrs. Clinton’s friends come private questions about whether he has managed the situation effectively and whether he should be more outspoken to protect a Democratic presidential candidate leading in the polls.

“They always say, ‘Is Kendall the lawyer to do this or that?’” said James Carville, the former political strategist for Mr. Clinton who expresses great admiration for Mr. Kendall. “I never saw that there was a huge conflict. But you know, sometimes lawyers are lawyers and spokespeople are spokespeople.”

Mr. Kendall, said Mr. Carville, is not a public pit bull. “He has no bluster about him,” Mr. Carville said. “He’s aggressive, but he doesn’t have an in-your-face kind of thing about him. I don’t think he views that as his role. The chances that he’s going to talk to the press are way beyond remote.”

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Kendall declined to comment last week. But he enjoys Mrs. Clinton’s deep confidence.

“He has their complete trust, and he’s earned their complete trust,” said Robert Barnett, another lawyer for the Clintons and a partner with Mr. Kendall at Williams & Connolly in Washington. “There’s nobody more dedicated to his clients than David Kendall. There’s nobody who spends more time thinking about how to help his clients than David Kendall.”

To critics, that is the problem. Mr. Kendall, who turned over the thumb drive to the Justice Department on Aug. 6, has become so integrated into the Clinton apparatus that he risks crossing the line from lawyer to participant, they said. Two Republican senators wrote him letters in recent weeks questioning his handling of the thumb drive.

“The problem with the Clintons is once you begin working with them or acting as their agent you often get caught up in their scandals,” said Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a watchdog group suing over Mrs. Clinton’s email. “So now Mr. Kendall is stuck having to explain his handling of the classified information Mrs. Clinton gave him.” More from the NYT’s here.

Who is at Fault When it Comes to Syria Refugees?

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This matter comes down to no policy on the war in Syria and the misguided, yet no less corrupt leaders in this matter include the National Security Council at the White House, Barack Obama himself and the failed control and management at the State Department which began with Hillary Clinton and now with John Kerry.

The United Nations is at the core of the mismanagement and Western countries are left to clean up the mess, while some are now saying NO.

U.N. Calls on Western Nations to Shelter Syrian Refugees

“In the case of Syrian refugees, our intelligence on the ground is alarmingly slim, making it harder to identify extremists,” said Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

The United Nations high commissioner for refugees, António Guterres, has stepped up calls for industrialized countries, including the United States, to shelter 130,000 Syrian refugees over the next two years.

The figure is a fraction of the nearly four million refugees who have poured into the countries bordering Syria — chiefly Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey — straining their resources and plunging many displaced people into poverty.

So far, the high commissioner’s pleas have not been met. Governments around the world have promised to take in just under two-thirds of what the United Nations is urging, while a great many more Syrians have chosen to make perilous journeys by land and sea in search of asylum in Europe. More here from the New York Times.

McCaul Says Admitting Unvetted Syrian Refugees into the U.S. is “Very Dangerous”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Chairman Michael McCaul, of the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote a letter to President Obama last Thursday expressing concerns over the Administration’s announced plans to resettle some 2,000 Syrian refugees in the United States this year. Terrorists have made known their plans to attempt to exploit refugee programs to sneak terrorists into the West and the U.S. homeland. Chairman McCaul’s letter points out the potential national security threat this poses to the United States.

Chairman McCaul: “Despite all evidence towards our homeland’s vulnerability to foreign fighters, the Administration still plans to resettle Syrian refugees into the United States. The Director of the National Counterterrorism Center and the Deputy Director of the FBI both sat before my Committee this Congress and expressed their concern with admitting refugees we can’t properly vet from the global epicenter of terrorism and extremism in Syria. America has a proud tradition of welcoming refugees from around the world, but in this special situation the Obama Administration’s Syrian refugee plan is very dangerous.”

Read Chairman McCaul’s letter HERE.

 

The Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will hold a hearing on June 24th to examine the refugee resettlement program and discuss vulnerabilities to our security exposed by the Administration’s plan.

It was last year that Barack Obama lifted restrictions on the refugee program.

U.S. eases rules to admit more Syrian refugees, after 31 last year

President Barack Obama’s administration announced on Wednesday that it had eased some immigration rules to allow more of the millions of Syrians forced from their homes during the country’s three-year civil war to come to the United States.

Only 31 Syrian refugees – out of an estimated 2.3 million – were admitted in the fiscal year that ended in October, prompting demands for change from rights advocates and many lawmakers.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been taken in by neighboring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

The rules changes granted exemptions on a case by case basis to the “material support” bar in U.S. immigration law, according to an announcement in the Federal Register signed by Secretary of State John Kerry and Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security.

That bar had made it impossible for anyone who had provided any support to armed rebel groups to come to the United States, even if the groups themselves receive aid from Washington.

The advocacy group Human Rights First said, for example, that the existing law had been invoked to bar a refugee who had been robbed of $4 and his lunch by armed rebels, and a florist who had sold bouquets to a group the United States had designated as a terrorist organization.

“These exemptions will help address the plight of Syrian refugees who are caught up in the worst humanitarian crisis in a generation,” Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, chairman of the U.S. Senate subcommittee on human rights, said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear how many Syrians would be affected by the rules change.

By early January, 135,000 Syrians had applied for asylum in the United States. But the strict restrictions on immigration, many instituted to prevent terrorists from entering the country, had kept almost all of them out.

Washington has provided $1.3 billion in humanitarian assistance to aid Syrian refugees. This year, the United Nations is also trying to relocate 30,000 displaced Syrians it considers especially vulnerable. Witnesses at a Senate hearing last month had testified that Washington would normally accept half.

How Servers are Really Involved in Hillary’s Server-Gate

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Hillary admits during an interview she has an iPad and iPhone along with her NON-Government issued Blackberry.

Okay, we were told that Bill had one and it was not expandable for Hillary to use when she was a senator. She bought one of her own. Then we hear about a server that was in a bathroom, a server that was in a data center in New Jersey, yet are we sure we have an accurate could, an accurate handle on locations and what does the FBI have at this point?

Hillary’s emails WERE backed up to another server – and it may still exist – as the FBI works to figure out how well the data was scrubbed

DailyMail: Tens of thousands of emails once housed on former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s private computer server were moved to another device after a Colorado company took possession of the device in 2013, leaving open the possibility that copies of messages Clinton later chose to delete might still exist.
The FBI seized the server this week in a stunning move, signaling a new intensity in the investigation into whether Clinton knowingly send or received top-secret classified information through her private address while she was America’s top diplomat.
Bloomberg reported Thursday night that Barbara Wells, an attorney for Platte River Networks, Inc., confirmed that while the server hardware now controlled by the FBI ‘is blank and does not contain any useful data,’ its contents could still be safe and sound elsewhere.
That’s because the server’s messages were ‘migrated’ to another server that still exists, she said, before ending the Bloomberg interview without specifying where that device is located and who owns it – only that her company no longer has it.

‘The data on the old server is not now available on any server or device that is under Platte River’s control,’ Wells said.
A Monmouth University poll, released Wednesday, shows that 52 per cent of American voters believe the federal government should pursue a criminal investigation in the case.
That number might soon grow: The Monmouth survey was conducted before the server landed in the hands of law enforcement, along with three thumb drives held by her lawyer that reportedly contain raw copies of 30,490 emails she handed over to State Department investigators late last year.
A random sample of 40 of those messages examined by U.S. Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough’s office included two that contained information later classified as ‘top secret.’
Another 31,830 emails, however, were deleted at Clinton’s request after her staffers sifted through them and determined that they were personal in nature.
Republicans on Capitol Hill cried foul in March after she casually acknowledged during a combative press conference that she had made that decision without oversight from anyone in government.
Clinton and her presidential campaign have insisted, most recently in a 4,000-word explanation this week, that those messages were not work-related.

Clinton used an ‘@clintonemail.com’ address exclusively during her four years as secretary of state instead of keeping her correspondence on a ‘@state.gov’ account. That made it more likely that her emails were open to hackers, and made it impossible for the State Department to keep a complete archive.
An aide to a Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee told DailyMail.com that McCCullough has been pressed to give Congress regular updates if more classified information is discovered.
‘We’re not letting go of this,’ he said, while denying that going after Clinton was a political exercise.
‘I don’t care if it’s Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz,’ he said, naming a Texas senator who is running for president, but who is not a committee member. ‘If we don’t aggressively follow this wherever it leads, what good are we?’
It’s not clear if Clinton’s long-deleted data actually exists on another machine, even though Wells says it was once moved there.
But even if it’s gone for good, the FBI’s digital forensic experts may be able to recover some or all of it from the ‘clean’ Platte River server – depending on the method that was used to ‘wipe’ it.
Methods also exist to determine if traces of a malicious hack remain behind.
Hard drives store information in large sections that are separate from a ‘directory’ block – a sort of table of contents that tells a computer where to find each file’s many constituent pieces. Click here for a timeline of email facts, dates and people.

 

So Long to the Oreo Cookie

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A piece of Americana has taken the route south, Mexico. May we suggest the Hydrox cookie of yester-year?

Maybe at issue is the corporate tax structure. Maybe it is the increase in the misguided minimum wage. Maybe it is the diving work ethic. Maybe it is Michelle Obama’s attack on food. Maybe those liberal mayors like New York’s former mayor Bloomberg all regulating free choice of food. Maybe it is all that re-tooling of nutritional food labels. Maybe it is all of those.

How US Sugar Policies Just Helped America Lose 600 Jobs

The manufacturer of Oreo cookies recently announced plans to move production of Oreos from Chicago to Mexico, resulting in a loss of 600 U.S. jobs.

This should be a wake-up call to defenders of the U.S. sugar program and other job-destroying trade barriers.

The leading ingredient in Oreos is sugar, and U.S. trade barriers currently require Americans to pay twice the average world prices for sugar.

Sugar-using industries now have a big incentive to relocate from the United States to countries where access to their primary ingredient is not restricted.

If the government wants people making Oreo cookies and similar products to keep their jobs, a logical starting point would be to eliminate the U.S. sugar program, including barriers to imported sugar.

This obvious connection between the lost jobs and sugar quotas was missed by many observers. According to one online commenter: “This is why tariff[s] on products coming to U.S must be raised.”

That’s backwards. When protectionist policies like the U.S. sugar program lead to offshoring, the response shouldn’t be to pass new laws to discourage such offshoring or to raise tariffs even higher. The response should be to eliminate government policies that encourage offshoring in the first place.

The loss of Oreo cookie jobs should reinforce a lesson on the job-destroying aspect of protectionist trade policies.

According to a 2006 report from the government’s International Trade Administration: “Chicago, one of the largest U.S. cities for confectionery manufacturing, has lost nearly one-third of its SCP manufacturing jobs over the last 13 years. These losses are attributed, in part, to high U.S. sugar prices.”

That lesson appears to be lost on unions that are supposed to represent the workers losing their jobs in Chicago.

For example, The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union consistently has opposed free trade agreements with sugar-producing countries like Australia, Brazil, and Mexico—the kind of trade deals that just might protect their members’ jobs.

So that’s how the cookie crumbles.

2014….the Comeback

The Oreo-buster is back.

Hydrox cookies, those Oreo-like chocolate sandwich cookies, could reappear on store shelves as early as September, says Ellia Kassoff, CEO of Leaf Brands, which recently acquired the rights to the unused Hydrox trademark.

“The cosmic difference between Hydrox and Oreo is that Hydrox is a little more crispy; a little less sugary and stands up better in milk,” says Kassoff, who will make the official announcement later this month at the Sweets & Snacks Expo in Chicago on May 20.

Even in a new world of nutritional consciousness, there is little evidence that America’s sweet tooth is fading. Sales of packaged cookies and baked goods are expected to top $17 billion by 2017 — up from $13 billion in 2012, reports Packaged Facts. While the return of Hydrox is expected to be a hit with Baby Boomers who may fondly remember the brand — formerly owned by Kellogg’s, Keebler and Millennials who are not very familiar with the cookie brand, which hasn’t been regularly sold on store shelves in almost a decade.

“We’ll use social media to reach out to Millennials,” says Kassoff. The 46-year-old CEO says that he likes to acquire old brands or trademarks that still have fans. “We recycle brands that get left on the side of the road.”

But the Hydrox brand has special meaning to him. As a young kid raised by parents who were Orthodox Jews, he was only permitted to eat Hydrox — not Oreos — because, he says, at the time, Oreos were not kosher but Hydrox were. Today, both are kosher.

The move by Leaf Brands — which also owns trademarks to Astro Pops, Wacky Wafers and Farts Candy — comes just two years after giant Oreo celebrated its 100th birthday. Little-known, however, is that Hydrox was the original creme-filled chocolate sandwich cookie when it debuted in 1908 — followed four years later by Oreo.

But executives at Mondelez, which owns the Oreo brand, are hardly showing any signs of concern. “Oreo is America’s favorite cookie,” says Laurie Guzzinati, a company spokeswoman. She declined to comment specifically on the return of Hydrox. Oreo sales, which exceed $2 billion globally and $1 billion in North America, have grown double-digits in the U.S. for the past two years.

Its been years since Oreo had a genuine rival on the shelf. Kellogg stopped making Hydrox in 2002. Then, in 2008, when Hydrox turned 100, Kellogg briefly resumed distribution, but only for a limited time.

Hydrox still has an online fan page, and a few months ago, Bill Burnett, of Salina, Okla., posted this wishful note about Hydrox: “My brother and I loved them. I never got a taste for the inferior “Oreo,” which was far less tasty as the wonderful Hydrox. I think I’ve only bought one package of them in 50 years! Bring Hydrox back again!”

In fact, says Kassoff, it’s fans like Burnett who convinced him to bring back the brand. “I hear from all of them,” he says. “I know millions of people are waiting for the product.”

But unlike the cookies giants, which typically must sell at least $100 million worth of a brand for it to be an even modest success, Burnett says he can sell a fraction of that and do just fine.

The pricing will be roughly where Hydrox was for years: less expensive than Oreos but more expensive than store brands. If a 14-ounce package of Oreos retails for about $4; Hydrox will be $3 and store brand sandwich cremes often cost about $2, he says.

But success won’t come simply. At least one brand guru says Hydrox has lots of work to do. “Oreo conveys round and is fun to say and hear. Hydrox sounds scientific and medicinal … not appetizing at all,” says Steven Addis, CEO of Addis. “Oreo has become part of the fabric of America. Like Coke. This makes it somewhat unassailable, even from a superior product.”