School's in Session: Bill is Ahead of the Class

While in Philadelphia on a November, 2012 afternoon, former President Bill Clinton struck a note of irony while attempting to criticize Mitt Romney’s campaign.

“You’re laughing, but who wants a president who will knowingly, repeatedly tell you something he knows is not true?” Clinton asked, after discounting a claim in a recent Romney ad that the Obama administration’s auto bailout hurt American workers.

“When I was a kid, if I got my hand caught in the cookie jar, where it wasn’t supposed to be, I turned red in my face, and I took my hand out of the cookie jar,” Clinton added.  Wow!  Bill certainly did not do that during the Monica Walensky scandal. He wet his cigar tip you know where, lit it and drew a puff off as he contemplated exactly what he would say during his 1998 grand jury testimony on the Monica Lewinsky affair. When questioned is any sex act involved during cross examinations, Bill said, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."  Then when asked if he was ever alone with Monica, Bill replied, "It depends on how you define alone…".  Parcing language, dicing up words and slicing sentences, is any good lawyer's stock in trade.  After all, Obama should know, he is a Harvard Law graduate who taught Constitutional law!

Now today in 2013 looking back, Bill Clinton should have asked then for the truth about the Benghazi attack on 9/11/12 from his wife, Secretary of State Hillary, and the President, Barak. But hey, they were all in a huge Presidential electioneering mode and could not be bothered, especially the electorate needn't be upset with the silly truth and then vote for the other guy.

As Hillary said at the senate Benghazi hearing, "What difference does it make?" Anyway, Hillary added, “It's hard to connect that. It was so long ago.”

I believe that since such a huge firestorm has erupted in trying to either get at the truth or hide it that senate hearings are the red meat that will be the only thing to satisfy the appetites of Washington politicians. Look out for finger pointing, heads to roll, jobs to be sacked, indictments to be filed, people to be fined and some jailed. Now that's an Obamagate size scandal!

So as the Obamagate scandals loom large ahead with the upcoming senate inquisition hearings, at least Bill's talent and experience will not go to waste. Bill can be coaching Hillary along with Barak, both seasoned lawyers. Will Obama get his "Get Out Of Jail Free Card" like Nixon too?

IRS - Too Little, Too Late, Too Bad

Obama & IRS Connections?

"Politics make strange bedfellows." meaning that politicians form peculiar associations so as to win more votes. It was said by Charles Dudley Warner (September 12, 1829 – October 20, 1900), who was an American essayist, novelist, newspaper editor and friend of Mark Twain. It certainly has not changed over the years either.

Anyone watching the Obama administration and the IRS mandate during the Obamacare implementation has observed the overtly obvious close symbiotic relationship between them.  After all, the IRS has picked up by presidential fiat a huge IRS deployment contingency, sixteen thousand special agents, to monitor, audit, assess and collect the federal taxes to increase the socialized benefits and largess being distributed to recipients to win more votes.

So during the 2012 election season, the pressing problem that the federal government faced was it had the massive collective will to tax and spend, but it identified a growing nuisance of fringe electorate groups that were the polar opposites of their tax and spend ilk in power. They saw them too as a  menacing threat that could upset political cronies running for office who supported their programs.  It was obvious that these growing organizations popping up around the country had to be dealt with quickly, but stealthily with little fanfare. It was done through the IRS agency and was secretly conducted, some audits were even singled out because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications.

Some conservative groups even complained in 2012 about their unfair treatment by the IRS. Publicly, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views.

However it was acknowledged in May, 2013 by the Obama administration, the IRS did in fact target conservative groups in the heat of last year's 2012 national election. The IRS has since apologized for their behavior and has given assurances that they will go forward to remedy the situation.  So what does the IRS mean?

"Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." was another great quote from Charles Dudley Warner that was, by the way, wrongly attributed to Mark Twain. That quote carries the burden of my argument to the questions that all great reporters ask, the four W's: Who, What, Where and Why. It now time to gather up those answers to understand how our Constitutional rights were infringed upon by our own government who exercised tyrannical, suppressive and punitive power to influence undue controls upon the election outcome and results - What are we going to do about it?

What happens next? ...OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!

Think about it!  The IRS has just admitted, quite unexpectedly, that it "goofed up" and apologizes for its actions! Did they do this with the highest regard to moral ethics? Doubt it. Turns out, I heard, that a report will be surfacing soon about this same fiasco, so a good defense is a better offense and the time to attack this dirty pile of laundry was now.

Look out! - The political axes are going to start to swing because heads are going to roll along with their reputations and jobs!

The complete AP. Associated Press, story below on the IRS apologies for targeting conservative groups:

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER | Associated Press – Fri, May 10, 2013

The Tea Party Gets an Apology from the IRS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

Organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

"That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review," Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

"The IRS would like to apologize for that," she added.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice.

Agency officials found out about the practice last year and moved to correct it, the IRS said in a statement. The statement did not specify when officials found out.

About 75 groups were inappropriately targeted. None had their tax-exempt status revoked, Lerner said.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called on the White House to investigate.

"Today's acknowledgement by the Obama administration that the IRS did in fact target conservative groups in the heat of last year's national election is not enough," McConnell said. "I call on the White House to conduct a transparent, government-wide review aimed at assuring the American people that these thuggish practices are not under way at the IRS or elsewhere in the administration against anyone, regardless of their political views."

Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires.

The forms, which the groups made available at the time, sought information about group members' political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.

Certain tax-exempt charitable groups can conduct political activities but it cannot be their primary activity.

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views.

"There's absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people" who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.

Shulman was appointed by President George W. Bush. His 6-year term ended in November. President Barack Obama has yet to nominate a successor. The agency is now being run by acting Commissioner Steven Miller.

"The Ways and Means Committee has persistently pushed the IRS to explain why it appeared to be unfairly targeting some political groups over others — a charge they repeatedly denied," said Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., chairman of the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee.

"The IRS's 'too little too late' response is unacceptable, and I will continue to work to ensure there are protections in place so no American, regardless of political affiliation, has their right to free speech threatened by the IRS," Boustany said.

Tea Party groups were livid on Friday.

"I don't think there's any question we were unfairly targeted," said Tom Zawistowski, who until recently was president of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, an alliance of tea party groups in the state.

Zawistowski's group was among many conservative organizations that battled the IRS over what they saw as its discriminatory treatment of their effort to gain non-profit status. The group first applied for non-profit status in June 2009, and it was finally granted on Dec. 7, 2012, he said — one month after Election Day.

During the 2012 election, many tea party groups applied for tax-exempt status under section 501 (c) (4) of the federal tax code, which grants tax-exempt status to social welfare groups. Unlike other charitable groups, these organizations are allowed to participate in political activities but their primary activity must be social welfare.

That determination is up to the IRS.

Lerner said the number of groups filing for this tax-exempt status more than doubled from 2010 to 2012, to more than 3,400. To handle the influx, the IRS centralized its review of these applications in an office in Cincinnati.

Lerner said this was done to develop expertise among staffers and consistency in their reviews. As part of the review, staffers look for signs that groups are participating in political activity. If so, IRS agents take a closer look to make sure that politics isn't the group's primary activity, Lerner said.

As part of this process, agents in Cincinnati came up with a list of things to look for in an application. As part of the list, they included the words, "tea party" and "patriot," Lerner said.

"It's the line people that did it without talking to managers," Lerner. "They're IRS workers, they're revenue agents."

In all, about 300 groups were singled out for additional review, Lerner said. Of those, about a quarter were singled out because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications.

The IRS statement said that once applications were chosen for review, they all "received the same, even-handed treatment."

Lerner said 150 of the cases have been closed and no group had its tax-exempt status revoked, though some withdrew their applications.

"Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale," the IRS said in a statement. "We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system."

Marcus S. Owens, who spent a decade leading the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, said Friday that it made sense that the problem arose among workers in Cincinnati because the agency "really has delegated a lot of authority" to local offices to make decisions about handling their workload.

But Tea Party groups weren't buying the idea that the decision to target them was solely the responsibility of low-level IRS workers.

"It is suspicious that the activity of these 'low-level workers' was unknown to IRS leadership at the time it occurred," said Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, which describes itself as the nation's largest tea party organization. "President Obama must also apologize for his administration ignoring repeated complaints by these broad grassroots organizations of harassment by the IRS in 2012, and make concrete and transparent steps today to ensure this never happens again."

Obama's Game - Joker is Wild

Do you wonder why Obama has been uncharacteristically quiet and out of sight as the Boston bombing and police activities were going forward? 

The official Whitehouse press office said: "President Obama decided not to appear that he was micro-managing the investigation efforts and has remained on the down-low while it has been unfolding." (Paraphrased)

Obama's strategies are like a card game - and the Joker is wild: Its where they can be an extremely beneficial, or an extremely harmful card.  It's how you read it and how you play it that gives it the power to win or lose a hand or the whole game... and Obama is dealing all the cards in a stacked deck as he buries the Jokers in the bottom of the deck to keep them from being played to trump his hand.

This particular Joker below is an especially high stakes card since it could raise the political value of a hand from a simple single "lone wolf" scenario to a coordinated group "terrorist cell" which would be the winning hand to expose Obama's poor game-losing strategies. 

 Dzhokhar Tsarnaev - "Dzhohar" sounds like "Joker"

Obama after pushing for his gun control legislation was very angry it didn’t pass this week and yet continued to show little, if any, emotions about the al Queda gun violence shooting in Benghazi. Obama does not want to connect the 9/11 Benghazi embassy attack to al Queda; after all, Obama claimed "he defeated them and they were on the run" during his presidential bid. He first blamed Benghazi violence on a youtube video which has since been rebuked due to the preponderance of evidence to the contrary. The individuals or group still have not been identified or held accountable for the attack and embassy personnel have been forbidden to speak out about anything that happened. The Obama Whitehouse has obfuscated the truth while brushing under the rug four dead Americans that proudly served our nation who are forgotten, not important or politically useful anymore.  

A peculiar coincidental anomaly was repeated during this major terrorist event on U.S. soil.  In 2001, a white powder sent to media and politicians – anthrax by a "crazy white man", a disgruntled scientist who since died years later still denying it and post mortem finally declared as the anthrax source. In 2012, a white powder sent to politicians, such as Obama and two senators - ricin by a “crazy white man” who started a letter writing campaign 14 years ago about body parts being a black market and upset about a zero response. Now he’s being blamed without evidence or connection to any feasible way of getting or creating such a dangerous substance. It certainly heightened public awareness of "crazy whites" to mollify other "crazy ethnics" behavior during a Muslim terrorist attack to reduce or deflect American anger over Islamist extremists.

Obama is urgently pushing for negotiating middle-east peace talks as another item on his campaign promises list while bolstering the strength of the Caliphate in the region too. Not wanting to publicly admit his glaring intelligence failures after Janet Neapolitano said there was no indications of any imminent terrorism threats in the Boston Marathon, Obama did not blame or point fingers at anything Muslim for the Boston Bombing.  But why? Because, Saudi Arabia couldn't control or stop the Islamic terrorists from their country who flew into the World Trade Center which embarrassed the House of Saud, the ruling royal family. Reminiscent of President Bush flying all the Bin Ladens out of the United States immediately after the Twin Towers attack, an interesting plot twist has surfaced in the background noise of the Boston Bombings.

Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, a Saudi national, a student as connected to an important Saudi family, was admitted to a Boston Hospital after the bombing with shrapnel  wounds.  No one has mentioned why he was near the bomb explosion except that he coincidentally was in the spectator crowd; maybe not a spectator but instead a participant.

The FBI believes the Saudi student was tied to 2 to 3 more people, others like Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston bombers.  It looks like Obama was trying to make this a ‘lone wolf’ crime so the Saudi government would be spared embarrassment and the U.S. would avoid explaining how a terror cell was active when we had al Queda on the run. Reuters revealed President Barack Obama met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal at the White House on Wednesday, April 17.  They reportedly discussed the conflict in Syria. “The meeting was not on Obama’s public schedule,” the report adds.

Currently, a F.B.I. file contains Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi's deportation record and the reason he is being deported. According to ICE the reason is under section 212 3B — “Security and related grounds” — “Terrorist activities”. His visa has been revoked. The FBI said a file was started “just in case he was found to be connected to the crime,” however, the file shows he was scheduled to be deported. This was not a precaution, it was in “orders.”

The first police reports said there were more bombs found besides the two that exploded; apparently they were not detonated and had to be defused or exploded. Later in the afternoon, I watched the live broadcasts as the police restated that there were now only two bombs involved, no others found. At the time, it struck me as odd at the way the officer was seemingly in a hurried nervous frenzy to get his message out repeating it over and over again. I got his message the first time and the suggestion that no more terrorist bombers were involved since bombs placed in locations along the marathon route would have meant more terrorists involved in the plot. Politically, had a larger plot been uncovered after the initial disaster, it would have meant identifying more perpetrators. It would further indicate a larger massive plot on the scale of the Twin Towers if all of these bombs had gone off in all of those multiple sites along the marathon route killing potentially even more victims than 9/11/01 - imagine the big time Obama intelligence blunder exposed? 

Who is Crazy - Guns or People?

Do you feel like you are treading in dangerous waters by yourself?

 

Obama announced 23 executive actions on gun control, in addition to separately asking Congress to pass gun-control laws.

Obama asked Congress to pass laws that would:

• Require background checks on all gun sales.
• Restore a ban on "military-style assault weapons".
• Ban gun magazines with capacities of more than 10 rounds.
• Toughen penalties on people who sell guns to those who can't have them.

Question in Logic: What "crazy" buyer that fills out a background check form is "crazy" enough to put down he is "mentally crazy"?  ...Duh!

Obama's politically motivated "Quick-Fix" executive actions and gun laws absolutely do not address curbing gun violence. It is a "Mental Health" issues due to lax mental health laws, treatment programs and mental health hospitals.

In any year, millions of American adults have a serious mental illness-about five to seven percent of the adult US population, according to several nationally representative studies. The overlap in the populations that the corrections and mental health systems serve is significant: the US Department of Justice reported in 1999 that about 16 percent of the population in prison or jail has a serious mental illness. 

Note:  In 1955, state mental hospital populations peaked at a combined 559,000 people; in 1999, this number totaled fewer than 80,000. Liberal governmental policies have released too many mental patients back into the public sector putting the general population at growing risk and danger while making it nearly impossible to initially institutionalize them and commit them for treatment.

Frequently, the symptoms of mental illness contribute to individuals becoming involved with the criminal justice system in the first place and keep them incarcerated longer than other people. In addition, the stressful setting of a correctional facility can exacerbate mental illness and disrupt treatment.

Take a look at the "Gun Violence" done by "Pscho-Wackos":   

Jared L. Loughner - his parents had become so concerned about their son’s strange behavior in the previous months that they had taken away his shotgun, insisted he get psychological counseling and had even begun to disable his car so that he could not go out at night before Jared killed six people and wounded 13 others during a meet-and-greet event hosted by U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Tucson, AZ, in January, 2011.

James E. Holmes - told his psychiatrist he was having homicidal thoughts and she concluded James could pose a danger to the public about a month before his Aurora, Colorado movie theater rampage left 12 dead and at least 70 injured in July, 2012.

Adam Lanza - his mother was actively seeking mental-health treatment for him - including involuntary commitment which enraged Adam citing comments by neighbors and clergy as he also became obsessed with Internet sites of the Oslo, Norway massacre in July, 2011.  Adam subsequently first shot and killed his mother at their house and then went on to his Sandy Hook School massacre in Connecticut where he killed 26 people, including 20 first-graders and taking his own life as police surrounded him in December, 2012.

Here, according to the White House, are the 23 executive actions that Obama and his administration will do:

1. "Issue a presidential memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system."

2. "Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HIPAA, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system."

3. "Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system."

4. "Direct the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks."

5. "Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun."

6. "Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers."

Fact:  Under proposed Obama Gun Laws, when a retailer, and now a private seller, sells or trades a gun, they must conduct background checks which may include any relevant or current information of a buyer's background (ie., reasons for purchase, observations or comments).  The private gun owner has now assumed a "subcontractors" role in the sales transaction.  Read below how the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HIPAA affects and treats "subcontractor" individuals:

A subcontractor(s) who "creates, receives, maintains, or transmits Protected Health Information on behalf of a Business Associate, is a HIPAA Business Associate" and therefore "on the hook" for compliance with applicable rules (e.g. in general: Breach Notification Rule, HIPAA Security Rule, HIPAA Privacy Rule, etc.). Comment: the "downstream" impact of this modification is SO SIGNIFICANT that it warrants its own follow-up newsletter article.

Business Associates are now directly liable under the HIPAA rules: (1) for impermissible uses and disclosures; (2) for failure to provide breach notification to the Covered Entity; (3) for failure to provide access of Electronic Protected Health Information either to the individual or the Covered Entity; (4) for failure to disclose Protected Health Information to the Secretary of Health; (5) for failure to provide an accounting of disclosures; AND (6) for failure to comply with the requirements of the HIPAA Security Rule. Comment: Business Associates and Covered Entities should clearly recognize that we are definitely "not in Kansas anymore." The implications of these changes have yet to be fully realized by the healthcare industry (understatement).

Fact: Under current HIPAA Laws: There are now three instances where an Authorization is required from an individual: (1) most uses and disclosures of psychotherapy notes; (2) uses and disclosures for marketing purposes; and (3) uses and disclosures that involve the sale of Protected Health Information.

The Obama Gun Laws will burden private gun owners with eligibility rules to conduct background checks on an individual seller's ability to purchase firearms. It further assumes that the seller must intimately become a part of the process as the middleman since alone the seller will serve notification of rejection the buyer. As many law-abiding people know, cars can kill.  Legal remedies have evolved so that many establishments and individuals are liable for drunk customers since they knowingly sold or provided them liquor. So now, how does the gun seller deem himself a trained healthcare diagnostician? How do victims legally hold a gun seller liable for buyers who appears to be normal? After all, 63% of the gun violent criminals in prison have mental health and alcohol problems. Or, what expected training does the seller have to handle reactions of buyers rejected based on their HIPAA psychotherapy records, especially if they are pschologically unbalanced?  

7. "Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign."

8. "Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission)."

9. "Issue a presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations."

10. "Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement."

11. "Nominate an ATF director."  Obama really wants to appoint a permanent director himself, not nominate one that's accountable to a Congressional hearing process subject to their approval. Politically, Obama wants to ram through his own gun rights agenda bypassing any congressional oversight. This is the same federal bureau, under Clinton's Attorney General Janet Reno, after the 1993 fatal siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, that left 80 dead and conducted, under Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder, the failed Mexican gun-trafficking investigation that killed a U.S. border agent known as "Operation Fast and Furious.'' And Obama wants his own permanently appointed ATF Director? Hmm...

12. "Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations."

13. "Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime."

14. "Issue a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence."

15. "Direct the attorney general to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies."

16. Obamacare: "Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes."

17. HIPAA Laws: "Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities."

18. "Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers."

19. "Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education."

20. "Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover."

21. "Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges."

22. "Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations."

23. "Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health."

mother was seeking mental-health treatment for him – perhaps including involuntary commitment. Experts say seeking treatment against someone's will is fraught with difficulties.

Let's Play with Obamopoly Money

Financial collapses may have different immediate triggers, but they all originate from the same cause: an explosion of credit.

Make no mistake; the United States is drowning in debt and there are only two viable options – a global economic depression or very high inflation. Today Obama and our policymakers have chosen the latter option and we will experience the trauma of severe inflation given that the ability of the Federal Reserve printing presses to create confetti money Inflation whichObama, Biden & Bernake printing more Monopoly money. would make America’s debt more manageable, but it would also dilute the purchasing power of the dollar - forget about selling more U.S. treasury bonds to China as their burgeoning national debt problems are curbing their appetite to consume more U.S. debt. The net effect is that America has run out of choices since the Federal Reserve will not be able to print enough money to inflate away this mountain of debt, the biggest sovereign default in world history is guaranteed.

Monopoly Treasury NotesThe next potential impending risk for another historical financial tsunami is greatest in China's shadow banking system.  Because of very low-yield for savings by Chinese banks (since deposit rates are regulated) and competition among banks for deposits and new fee-generating businesses, a complex, unregulated shadow banking system has emerged and grown significantly in China in the last few years. Typically, the shadow banking system pushes something called "wealth management products," which are short-term financial productsMr. Monoply - empty pockets & dirt poor. yielding a much higher rate than bank deposits for investors. To evade regulatory oversight, these products do not appear on a bank's balance sheet.

The shadow banking system also has another major function: channeling funds to borrowers or activities explicitly banned by government regulation.  In the last two years, the Chinese State Council has tried to deflate the real estate bubble by limiting bank loans to real estate developers.  But banks can skirt such restrictions by ostensibly lending to each other, with the funds ultimately going to financially stretched real estate developers.

One thing is evident here:  Either we should not believe our "lying eyes" or Obama and the Chinese banks are trying to hide the mother of all debt bombs ready to explode!

"Low Yield Bonds & High Yield Bombs"

Doesn't anyone get it? Community Organizers really do not!