First Byron York writes in the Washington Examiner about how the Obama White House Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform refuses to answer direct questions from a Senate investigation on matter of the firing of IG Walpin.
What is the Obama administration hiding? My bet is that is the actual truth of the matter is the last thing Team Lightbringer wants to see the light of day.
Next is a Chicago Tribune story, by way of Hot Air, that points out that the Obama White House has a pattern of firing IG’s that don’t toe their strictly political line, instead of doing their job and protecting the taxpayers.
This IG, Neil Barofsky, pointed out that there were “insufficient safeguards on Porkulus spending.”
What is clear is that Barack Hussein Obama and his administration will not stand for anyone questioning their actions, especially government employees who’s job is to undercover fraud and waste and government spending. This is the “transparency” of Team Lightbringer.
The allegations of a politically motivated firing are getting all the attention, but being a Law Nerd, I wanted to focus briefly on, well, some of the nerdier aspects of the imbroglio. Some commentators have pointed to the bare statement of reasons in President Obama’s letter as (1) an indication that he is hiding something, as though he could not give good reasons for the firing; and (2) questioned whether that spare statement of reasons complied with the terms of the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008, which Senator Obama cosponsored.
During the brief time B. Hussein Obama was a senator, and actually showed up to work, he cosponsored a bill stating that a President could not fire an IG without valid cause. Which is pretty much exactly what he is doing now, in violation of the law he helped create.
Update: Ace notes that “Key Democratic Ally Claire McCaskill Admits Obama “Didn’t Follow Law” on Firing AmericaCorps IG.” Ace goes on to point out that McCaskill really isn’t bothered by our Dear Leader’s illegal actions, as long as he comes up with some flimsy fiction to cover his ass legally. Did you really expect any democrat to to hold B. Hussein Obama accountable for breaking the law he co-sponsored?
Update: Ms. Malkin is continuing to dig into this story. She points out that IG Walpin uncovered “the wasteful Teaching Fellows Program, run by the Research Foundation of the City University of New York, which is AmeriCorps’s largest and most expensive program.” The charges the corrupt Obama administration are bringing against inspector general Gerald Walpin are vapid and flimsy in the extreme. The only thing That IG Walpin was “confused” about was assuming that BHO administration wasn’t corrupt.
“That’s a total lie,” Walpin said of the latter charge. And he said the accusation that he was dazed and confused at one meeting out of many was not only false, but poor rationale for his ouster.
“It appears to suggest that I was removed because I was disabled — based on one occasion out of hundreds,” he said.
“I would never say President Obama doesn’t have the capacity to continue to serve because of his (statement) that there are 56 states,” Walpin said, adding that the same holds for Vice President Biden and his “many express confusions that have been highlighted by the media.” Obama mistakenly said once on the campaign trail that he had traveled to 57 states.
Walpin concluded that his firing stems from bad blood between him and the board, as well as with Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson — an Obama supporter whom he had investigated for alleged misuse of federal funds. He said his performance at the May meeting drew criticism because he issued two reports critical of the board. In one, he criticized the settlement reached in the Johnson case; in the other, he criticized the use of millions of dollars for a program at the City University of New York.
“The board at that meeting was clearly angry at my temerity,” he said.
Yup, that’s the bottom line here. Team Lightbringer is firing a government employee for actually doing his job. This is what you can expect for anyone who dares questions the reign of Barack I, MSM-proclaimed God Emperor of America.
The current head of of AmeriCorps is Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. An Obama supporter and former NBA basketball star appointed to the position by our Dear Leader.
Gateway Pundit notes that Obama signed legislation in April to vastly increase the size of Americorps from 70,000 to 250,000. in March the Senate voted to allow ACORN funding in this same bill.
How is that money being spent? Well, IG Gerald Walpin discovered that “millions of dollars in AmeriCorps funds that were wasted or misspent”, accord to the AP, and that Kevin Johnson was using AmeriCorps funds to have students work on “political activities, run personal errands for Johnson and even wash his car.”
The claim is that “Mr. Walpin’s allegations were meritless and clearly motivated by matters beyond an honest assessment of our program.” AmeriCorps does have repay over $400,000 it received in donations though. Whoops.
The AmeriCorps IG accuses prominent Obama supporter of misusing AmeriCorps grant money. Prominent Obama supporter has to pay back more than $400,000 of that grant money. Obama fires AmeriCorps IG.
It’s that simple. A clear case of political corruption by a loyal supporter of our Dear Leader, and Obama responds by firing the government employee doing their job by reporting the corruption. This is what passes for “transparency” in the reign of democrat Barack Hussein Obama.
You remember William “Cold Cash” Jefferson, the Louisiana democrat congressman whom the FBI found $90,000, in cash, in his freezer. This is after a an informant told the FBI that he had given Jefferson $100,000, in cash, as a bribe. That was four years ago. Jefferson kept his office, with the support of Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the congressional democrat “leadership”, until he was finally voted out of office by the good people of Louisiana.
According the New Orleans Metro News, “Cold Cash” Jefferson is finally going to face trial, “facing 16 federal bribery and public corruption charges.” If convicted, the former democrat congressman could face up to 20 years in prison.
President Obama says, “The Tea Party protesters were right!”
That is the headline the MSM won’t run. The only part of it that isn’t true, is that our Dear Leader didn’t have the testicular fortitude to come out and say it. What he did say is exactly what the tea party protesters were complaining about:
President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.
“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”
Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”
What a joke. Obama sends our deficit and debt levels into the stratosphere, and he has the nerve to actually lecture us about how dangerous that is. That is what the tea parties were all about. Hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets on April 15 to protest the outrageous spending the government has been doing under his watch, and what was his reaction? He ridiculed them. Then a few weeks later he goes to New Mexico and delivers a lecture about how irresponsible it is to spend money we don’t have. The gall.
Now that he has put us into the untenable position of having to borrow so much from China, he turns around and says we have to shore up health care. That means the government will spend even more money we don’t have to meddle in our lives.
That’s right kids, the Community Organizer in Chief is going to use this as an excuse to nationalize a large chunk of the National Economy. The same inefficient government hacks who run the Post Office
are going to be telling you what you can have for health care.
America elected a man with absolutely no executive experience what so ever and had never held a real job in his life. If you are surprised by his behavior, you haven’t been paying attention.
Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke came to Denver on Wednesday to meet with the group charged with raising public awareness about the upcoming census and closed the session to the public and media.
I can see why he doesn’t want any more news about the far left extremist group ACORN, already charged with massive voter fraud, being hired to “count” citizens for the census.
…buried in the budget documents released by the White House today is a 9 percent cut in the unit of the Department of Labor that is in charge of regulating unions.
Under the leadership of Elaine Chao during the Bush administration, the Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards took its job of policing unions seriously. Its actions led to 929 convictions of corrupt union officials and to the recovery of more than $93 million on behalf of union members. Yet the Obama administration has proposed slashing its budget from $45 million in 2009 to $41 million in 2010, citing an insufficient “workload” for the office.
Instead of using the money to make sure unions play by the rules, the Obama administration proposes shifting resources to the department’s Wage and Hour Division, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — all areas of the agency focused on regulating businesses.
What’s clear here is that this is another political payback for massive campaign donations to the democrat party and BHO.
Given more tax payer money for “regulation” of business by the federal government is just another anti-economy bonus for Team Lightbringer.
The 58-year-old Hsu (CHOO’) was indicted in 2007 on charges of cheating investors of at least $20 million in what prosecutors say was a huge Ponzi scheme. He had been scheduled to go on trial Monday.
The government also says he made illegal donations to politicians including Hillary Clinton. Her Senate campaign later returned money linked to him.
Two shining examples of the democrats Culture of Corruption for your reading pleasure.
First, former Senator John Edwards. You remember Edwards, served less than one term in the Senate before he quit going to work (but he still collected his taxpayer funded paycheck) to mount a failed run for the President’s office. That resulted in him being picked by the admitted war criminal, Senator John Kerry, as his VP running mate. After helping Kerry lose that election, Edwards ran for President again. He lost early and by wide margins that time as well.
During that second run, Edwards, who often ran with with Cancer Stricken wife Elizabeth by his side, also picked up a mistressand a kid.
Now his marriage and his mistress really isn’t much of a political story. After Billy Jeff Clinton and Jesse Jackson, a mistress or two is almost required for a serious democrat. Not a corruption story, but one of moral failing.
Where the corruption comes in is if Edwards spent campaign money to Rielle Hunter to keep her quiet about their relationship. Well, the feds are now investigating the matter.
Culture of Corruption, Part 2, involves democrat congressman John Murtha. Yes, Murtha of Pork Spending fame. According the the Washington Post, a company owned by Murtha’s nephew received “$4 million in Pentagon work, all of it without competition…” Isn’t that just special.
19,000 fraudulent voter registration forms submitted by ACORN in Nevada alone. How many more didn’t get detected? Remember that this is the same group that the White House wants counting heads in the census. Do you really want a far left extremist group known for widespread voter fraud determining the number of congressional seats and electoral college votes a state will receive?