Thread: Miraculously 'scandal-free'?

comments

Fast and Furious. Just what did the administration hope to accomplish by letting guns get into the hands of drug cartel operators without tracking those guns adequately. ~~ We all know the answer: They hoped to show that illegal guns were coming mostly from the U.S. (instead of where they were really coming from: Guatemala, Europe, South America, Asia, even Russia), thereby providing a fabricated excuse to take guns out of the hands of law-abiding Americans.

Kathleen Sebelius breaks federal law, keeps her job. ~~ “Mad Maxine” Waters does too, but we can correct these injustices on November 6.

Obama administration leaks sensitive national security information for political purposes. ~~ Has this administration taken any action whatsoever for anything other than political purposes? National security and the best interests of the people are secondary to this twisted administration.

Obama administration tells defense contractors to violate federal law. Bonus: Obama administration says it will use taxpayer dollars to pay any government fines incurred. ~~ Only problem is, some aren’t going along, i.e. Lockheed Martin. Obama did say he would have the most transparent administration in history, and the transparency of this is so obvious, most Americans will see right through it.

Libya. ~~ Romney should be saying in every speech he gives, “Do you really want your sons & daughters entering a military commanded by someone who won’t even watch their backs and calls deaths at U.S. embassies ‘a bump in the road’?”

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How on earth can one omit/forget Solyndra? Lightsquared? Fiskers? Bungling Bundlers ?

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In a normal universal, not a parallel one, Obama’s thuggish reign would come to a screeching halt, and land many of its participants/lawbreakers in jail.Chief among them, the Thief/Thug-in-Chief.

For EVERY reason, and so much more, cited in the embedded link, a jail cell is where Obama and surrogates belong, his Racialist AG as his cellmate!

http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/08/30/...dina-kutnicki/

IF there was any justice, this is what they would be facing, not the possibility (heaven forbid)of another four years of anti-American pillage and destruction!

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How do the following get left off? Maybe its time to expand to top ten.

Solyndra and all the corrupt green energy crony capitalisting lobbying? In fact, all the corrupt, vote-buying stuff that went on?

How about the abuse of regulatory powers in the case of Boeing, Gibson guitars Lacey act extortion, and every other industry to intimidate opponents on behalf of big labor? With Boeing, the administration denied the rights of actual workers before the Labor board … because the workers were on Boeing’s side, not Big Labor.

How about the Pigford settlement? $50,000 checks for 90,000 farmers, only 18,000 of whom actually farmed, as part of an election promise to buy votes in the Deep South in the 2008 primary.

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Romney was criticized and ridiculed by Obama and Biden for stating that(paraphrasing): “Spending millions and millions to find one man (Osama Bin Laden) isn’t productive. We must concentrate on the threat of terrorism.”

Narrative for Obama: I killed Bin Laden therefore the War on Terror is over and I ended it. Not so much.

GM lives: 27% of GM production is in the USA. They are exempt from paying Federal Corporate Taxes for 5 years and they still owe us money. Nothing to see here folks move along.

The end game for the debt is to run it up to 25 Trillion and then declare insolvency. Just like the GM Bondholders the Treasury Bondholders are all rich so screw them. Power to the people.

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And prior to Nov 6, the administration will tell the new black panthers to intimidate and assault conservative voters at the poll stations and if any of them are charged the administration will pardon them. And if any happen to get convicted, the administration will drag a white guy off the street to serve the time.

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This is not directly related to your list, but I believe the fight to prevent ID when voting is an attempt to increase voter fraud.

Recently I was in one of the most poverty-stricken areas of Orlando assisting someone. Trust me, this is an area that tourists would be advised to avoid. I have never in my life been asked to show picture ID so often at businesses. I don’t know how anyone could live in this area without some sort of picture ID. The reality is that the poorer you are the more necessary it becomes to have ID merely to conduct your daily business.

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What chance is there of the national media of following up on any of these scandals? For them Obama can do now wrong. Even the whole Libya fiasco is centered on Romneys comments,and other than Fox news it is barely mentioned. NBC news has become a constant harrangue on Romney, Ryan, and the Republican party. The comedians, the late night shows all add to the attacks on Conservatives by ridiculing anybody speaking out against Obama. If Obama wins I believe it will be payback time. He will then try to get rid of talk radio,Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News.

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You forgot the following, which also would have been “-gate” level scandals for any Republican:

Obamaphone – millions of phones given for free (at regular customers’ expense) to low income voters from a site with prominent mention of President Obama being the source of the phone. If we had actual reporters in this country they might look to see which states benefited most from these free phones. I suspect they would find a close correlation between the highest phone distribution and battleground 2012 election states.

Regal Presidency – Obama has implemented more than an order of magnitude more executive orders than any previous President, many of which are blatantly illegal, and all of which are in service of his far left ideology.

Obamacare – Remember that? Remember the “Cornhusker kickback”? What about the “Louisiana Purchase?” Anybody notice how many of Obama’s campaign contributors have been given exemptions? This “law” was passed through blatantly improper means, violating not only House and Senate rules, but federal law itself.

IRS harassment – Several prominent Republican donors have been targeted by the IRS in ways that appear to be completely improper and politically biased.

Iran/Israel – “I’m too busy campaigning to deal with a potential nuclear threat to the Middle East. Call back after the election, if you’re still alive.”

I could go on but it’s too depressing.

National magazine preparing “blockbuster” scandal story on Obama campaign donations
posted at 9:27 pm on October 4, 2012 by Allahpundit

If the term “Doodad Pro” means anything to you, none of this will come as a surprise. http://washingtonexaminer.com/articl.../#.UG4p6xj2FNj

President Obama reelection campaign, rattled by his Wednesday night debate performance, could be in for even worse news. According to knowlegable sources, a national magazine and a national web site are preparing a blockbuster donor scandal story.

Sources told Secrets that the Obama campaign has been trying to block the story. But a key source said it plans to publish the story Friday or, more likely, Monday.

According to the sources, a taxpayer watchdog group conducted a nine-month investigation into presidential and congressional fundraising and has uncovered thousands of cases of credit card solicitations and donations to Obama and Capitol Hill, allegedly from unsecure accounts, and many from overseas. That might be a violation of federal election laws.

If the term “Doodad Pro” doesn’t mean anything to you, http://michellemalkin.com/2008/10/22...fraud-problem/ get up to speed so that you have the background needed to appreciate this new story if/when it drops. Start with Patrick Ruffini’s post from the end of the 2008 campaign explaining how lax security on Obama’s campaign donation website created an opportunity for fraudulent donations. http://www.thenextright.com/patrick-...ne-donor-fraud The Washington Post picked up the story a few days later, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...102803413.html reporting that the campaign not only was accepting money from untraceable prepaid credit cards but that it “had chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged.” Team O’s defense at the time was that they preferred to manually eliminate any bogus donations that flowed in by scrutinizing their books afterward and rejecting the ones that looked suspicious. Why they’d prefer a time-consuming process like that when they could screen donations before they were accepted with online security measures, as many other campaigns do, wasn’t clear.

Fast-forward four years, when the campaign once again had to decide which measures to take to prevent online donation fraud. Time to learn a lesson and institute front-end screening? Apparently not: A video posted to YouTube in April suggested that they’d disabled their donation security measures again. (The measures may since have been reinstated. http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/0...-phony-donors/ I’m not going to donate to find out.) No way to tell yet if this sort of thing is what the forthcoming scandal story is about, but the description in the excerpt sure sounds familiar. And if it is the same thing, then it’s essential to understand that people have been complaining about it for years. Team O is fully aware of the objections by now; if it’s still happening, it’s because they didn’t care enough to stop it. And if I’m wrong about all this and the story has to do with some entirely different donation scam, well, that’s even more interesting. To raise $150 million in a month, you need an awful lot of donors. And we know that when it comes to donors, Obama’s not picky.

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/0...ign-donations/

From 2008 : http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-inf...d-problem.html

10/8/2012
Report: Obama Campaign Opens Loophole for Illegal Foreign Campaign Donations

Patterico @ 9:36 am

Corruption? You betcha: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepa...money_loophole

A new report obtained by Townhall from the non-partisan Government Accountability Institute [GAI] shows the Obama campaign has potentially violated federal election law by failing to prevent the use of fraudulent or foreign credit card transactions on the official Obama for America [OFA] donation webpage.

. . . .

“As FBI surveillance tapes have previously shown, foreign governments understand and are eager to exploit the weaknesses of American campaigns,” the report says. “This, combined with the Internet’s ability to disintermediate campaign contributions on a mass scale, as well as outmoded and lax Federal Election Commission rules, make U.S. elections vulnerable to foreign influence.”

The problem is the campaign’s lack of a CVV requirement — that three or four digit security code on your credit card that merchants always ask for . . . when they care whether your purchase is fraudulent:

OFA seems to be taking advantage of a “foreign donor loophole” by not using CVV on their campaign donation page. When you donate online to the Obama campaign using a credit card, the contribution webpage does not require donors to enter a secure CVV number (also known as CSC, CVV2 or CVN), the three-digit securing code on the back of credit cards. This code, although not 100 percent effective, is used to ensure a person making a purchase physically possesses the card. According to the report, 90 percent of e-commerce and 19 of the 20 largest charities in the United States use a CVV code, making its use standard industry practice in order to prevent fraud. Another anti-fraud security measure includes software, better known as an Address Verification System, to verify a donor’s address matches the address on file with the credit card company. The investigation could not determine whether OFA is using this type of software to prevent fraudulent or illegal donations.

Because of the lack of a CVV code requirement, the door is opened for OFA to accept robo-donations, or in other words, large numbers of small and automatic donations made online to evade FEC reporting requirements. Although it isn’t illegal to decline the use of a secure CVV credit card code for campaign donations, it is illegal to accept campaign donations from foreign sources. Campaigns are required under criminal code not to solicit, accept or receive foreign donations in any amount. The Federal Elections Commission doesn’t require campaigns to disclose the names of donors making contributions of less than $200 unless audited. In addition, FEC rules don’t require campaigns to keep records of those giving less than $50. These rules combined with the lack of a CVV numbers make it easy for campaigns to get away with taking foreign donations.

http://patterico.com/2012/10/08/repo...ign-donations/

Plant that received $150 million Dept. of Energy grant - and hasn’t produced a single battery - begins worker furloughs
By Doug Powers • October 8, 2012 10:47 PM

In Michigan (and everywhere else), Senator Debbie Stabenow has been pushing http://www.stabenow.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=109 to spend billions more on batteries http://michellemalkin.com/2011/07/08/stabenow-batterie/ for vehicles that so far not many people are buying. President Obama has of course shared that sentiment, as has a Department of Energy that rarely meets a poorly thought out “investment” http://michellemalkin.com/2012/10/08...n-in-colorado/ unworthy of risking taxpayer money on. Here’s an update on yet another one of their pet projects, Compact Power: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/08...ts-workers-on/

President Obama touted it in 2010 as evidence “manufacturing jobs are coming back to the United States,” http://whitehouse.gov/the-press-offi...g-clean-energy but two years later, a Michigan hybrid battery plant built with $150 million in taxpayer funds is putting workers on furlough before a single battery has been produced.

Workers at the Compact Power manufacturing facilities in Holland, Mich., run by LG Chem, have been placed on rotating furloughs, working only three weeks per month based on lack of demand for lithium-ion cells.

The facility, which was opened in July 2010 with a groundbreaking attended by Obama, has yet to produce a single battery for the Chevrolet Volt, the troubled electric car from General Motors. The plant’s batteries also were intended to be used in Ford’s electric Focus.
[...]
The 650,000-square-foot, $300 million facility was slated to produce 15,000 batteries per year, while creating hundreds of new jobs. But to date, only 200 workers are employed at the plant by the South Korean company. Batteries for the Chevy Volts that have been produced have been made by an LG plant in South Korea.

The groundbreaking ceremony was just over two years ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmCvI6BUDyA Maybe if the Obama administration started insisting on using shovels powered only by American-made lithium-ion cells for their “clean energy grant” ground breaking ceremonies they’d be able to at least create genuine artificial demand for the batteries.

**Written by Doug Powers http://michellemalkin.com/2012/10/08...rker-furlough/

comments

It torques my jaw that the $150 million was a grant, not a loan.

That buys a lot of tulips.

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Choomie, like many techno-geeks, thought he would get the same punch out of the green carp that we got out of the dot-com boom. All he would have to do is throw money at it. Wrong, yet again.

The dot-com boom and bust was a problem that worked itself out because all people needed to do was figure out how to monetize the interwebs.

Green energy is still not even feasible for widespread use, especially in mobile transportation like cars and trucks. It’s also not a Manhattan Project, in that these problems aren’t solvable in a few years just by throwing money and people at it.

Physics is a cruel task master.

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“genuine artificial demand”. I love that Doug, it reminds me of the Country Squire / Ranch models of the EarthShip station wagons the big three used to make. They looked nice till you got close; then you realized it`s not wood, it`s genuine simulated imitation woodgrain vinyl !

I saw a couple days ago at Fox Nation that a study on EV cars and trucks shows them to produce more polution than gas powered models. Interesting !

I already knew that ethanol exhaust water vapor combines with other gases and dust in the air to make more smog that straight gasoline burning engines do.

But we gotta use alternative fuels so we won`t burn so much fossil fuels …. which BTW isn`t fossil fuel anyway ! It`s a fascinating time were`re living in !

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I saw a couple days ago at Fox Nation that a study on EV cars and trucks shows them to produce more polution than gas powered models. Interesting

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Yup, that’s the fact. And while we’re ruminating on those magical Li-Ion batteries for Chevy Dolts – a reality reminder:

* It takes 16 KW of power to charge a typical hybrid battery system.
* More than half the the US power grid is coal generated.
* It takes about a pound of coal to generate 1 KW of power.
* 4 tons of carbon burned / year to run your green machine.

Not to mention the Li-Ion batteries have a nasty tendency to explode into white hot flames.

Stupid on steroids methinks.

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Department Of Energy Grant Form

Part 1: Financial Assurance Screen
1. Have you Donated to Obama?
2. Has the President ever called you “buddy”

Part 2: Green and Sustainable Fund
1. Does your company intend to donate to Obama in the future?
2. Can we sign you up for a donation now?

Part 3: Where to send the checks.
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
District of Columbia 20500

Another CEO: If Obama Is Re-Elected, You May Lose Your Jobs
Posted on October 15, 2012 by John Hawkins

The CEO of Westgate Resorts made news last week by telling his employees the truth — that he may have to fire them if Obama is re-elected. http://tpnn.com/the-ceo-of-westgate-...is-re-elected/ If liberals understood that corporations are in business to make money, not to act as government piggy banks, that wouldn’t have shocked them at all. Of course, if fish had wings, they’d be birds. Well, unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that it won’t be just one business laying people off if Obama is reelected. http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.com/_n...ney-doesnt-win

Up w/ Chris Hayes has exclusively obtained an email sent by the CEO of a Florida-based software firm, ASG Software Solutions, to his over 1,000 employees asking them to vote for Romney for president and suggesting that their jobs may be at stake if Romney doesn’t win. The subject line of the email, sent by ASG President and CEO Arthur Allen on Sept. 30, asks: “Will the US Presidential election directly impact your future jobs at ASG? Please read below.”

Subject: Will the US Presidential election directly impact your future jobs at ASG? Please read below.

To all ASG employees,

We have been stuck in an extremely sick global economy, but as we should all know by now, the global economy largely depends on the US economy. This sick global economy has been negatively influencing ASG since December 2008. No one could have ever have dreamed that the US economy would still be sick 4 years later, but it is. We have a chance, as individuals, to help turn the sick US economy into a healthy economy, and positively influence the global economy as well. This chance comes on November 6th, when we elect a new President and administration.

…Many of you have been with ASG for over 5, 10, 15, and even 20 years. As you know, together, we have been able to keep ASG an independent company while still growing our revenues and customers. But I can tell you, if the US re-elects President Obama, our chances of staying independent are slim to none. I am already heavily involved in considering options that make our independence go away, and with that all of our lives would change forever. I believe that a new President and administration would give US citizens and the world the renewed confidence and optimism we all need to get the global economies started again, and give ASG a chance to stay independent. If we fail as a nation to make the right choice on November 6th, and we lose our independence as a company, I don’t want to hear any complaints regarding the fallout that will most likely come. Remember, in the world of business, companies are consolidators or they get consolidated; so far ASG has been a consolidator, completing over 60 acquisitions in our 26 year history. When we buy a company, we eliminate about 60 percent of the salaries of the employees of that company. If we lose our independence and get consolidated, the same thing would happen to ASG’s employees.

I am asking you to give us one more chance to stay independent by voting in a new President and administration on November 6th. Even then, we still might not be able to remain independent, but it will at least give us a chance. If we don’t, that chance goes away.

Democrats ask you to believe that we can have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, raise taxes on the rich, demonize businesses, create loads of new red tape, and add huge new financial burdens on companies via Obamacare without paying a price for it. As you can see from this letter, that’s simply not true.

http://dustinstockton.com/2012/10/an...ose-your-jobs/

High-flying Holder: Report shows AG, FBI director used luxury jets for personal travel
By Barnini Chakraborty - Published February 28, 2013 - FoxNews.com

WASHINGTON – Two high-tech luxury jets that the FBI convinced Congress were needed for the fight against global terrorism have instead been used to ferry around Attorney General Eric Holder and his predecessors, as well as FBI Director Robert Mueller, according to a government report released Thursday http://www.grassley.senate.gov/judic...port-final.pdf

Those officials -- which included Holder and Mueller, as well as former Attorneys General Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales -- racked up nearly 700 "nonmission" trips between 2007 and 2011, at a cost of $11.4 million, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Those officials are required to use government aircraft, and in some cases reimbursed the government for a portion of the expenses. But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said given the cost they should either not use the expensive Gulfstream V jets or cut back on their miles.

“These luxury jets were supposedly needed for counterterrorism, but it turns out that they were used almost two-thirds of the time for jet-setting executive travel,” he said. “Nobody disputes that the Attorney General and the FBI Director should have access to the secure communications, but, for instance, there’s no reason they can’t take a less expensive mode of transportation, or cut their personal travel."

FBI spokesman Christopher Allen tells FoxNews.com that counterterrorism and weapons of mass destruction operations are the "first priority for all FBI aircraft," and adds,"The GAO report confirms that the Department of Justice always adheres to these priorities in scheduling use of its aircraft."

The cost attributed to attorney general travel was $5.8 million; the FBI director's travel cost nearly as much. Roughly 70 percent of the AG flights were for business, and 28 percent were for personal reasons.

The findings in the report come amid a highly publicized fight over spending cuts set to take effect Friday.

The Obama administration has repeatedly painted a dismal picture of what could happen if across-the-board spending cuts are allowed to take place under the process known as sequestration. The $85 billion in cuts are scheduled to go into effect on March 1 unless Congress can reach a compromise, which is unlikely.

“I’m really interested in how the Attorney General can claim that federal law enforcement agents will be cut, knowing that over the last five years the Department has allowed for millions of dollars to be spent on personal travel. It’s ludicrous,” Grassley said.

According to the report, from 2007 through 2011, 61 percent of the flights were aboard one of the two Gulfstream V aircrafts, and 25 percent of the flights were aboard the FBI’s Citation (CE-750). The remaining 14 percent of flights were aboard another FBI aircraft.

FBI officials told investigators that the Gulfstream Vs and the Citation were used because they have “secure communications, larger passenger capacity and the long-distance range that is necessary for their required use travel.”

The report also points out that the government should be reimbursed for any personal travel at the full coach fare between cities. The reimbursement amount, or equivalent commercial fare, usually ends up being less than the cost of operating a government aircraft.

In November 2010, a personal trip taken by the attorney general to New York on the Gulfstream V had an estimated flight cost of $15,894, but the reimbursement at the equivalent commercial fare was $420.80.

The report said that for 88 of the trips, the attorney general reimbursed for a total amount of $47,000. The FBI director reimbursed roughly $4,500 for a total of 10 trips.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...-for-personal/

IRS harassment – Several prominent Republican donors have been targeted by the IRS in ways that appear to be completely improper and politically biased.

A year ago, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress that his agency wasn't targeting tax-exempt organizations for their political views.

Except it did.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/irs-...a-party-groups

The IRS Vendetta Against Conservative Groups: The New Enemies List
Posted 05.10.13 by Todd Cefaratti, Editor of TPNN

The IRS has admitted what so many of us have known for quite some time. The United States government has engaged in a direct targeting of political groups with whom this current administration disagrees.

We all know the nature of the IRS: The taxman is a feared entity in our society. Everybody looks for deductions and nobody likes to pay taxes, but we do it because (despite what Harry Reid might say) we believe in government. We believe in paying taxes to fund a small, administratively-minded government run by and for the people.

What makes this development so troubling is not that the IRS is vehemently investigating claims by nonprofits; what makes this so troubling is that the government is using the tax-collecting department to victimize those who pose a threat to the current administration.

This kind of governmental vendetta is not without a precedent. In 1971, the notoriously-cagey and vengeful Richard Nixon created an “enemies list.” The purpose of the list was to victimize the political opponents on it by subjecting them to tax audits and working within the government to influence grants, funding, and various other creative ways to punish the dissenters.

It was an outrage. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.

This vendetta against conservatism cannot be washed away with a simple apology. This scandal speaks to the true nature of our government today. When simple discussion won’t do, the government is quick, to resort to coercion.

Think about the sheer number of scandals we have seen in four years. Think of all the abuses of power we have witnessed.

We have seen the Attorney General dismiss charges at the sentencing phase of Black Panther radicals who stood outside voting stations, intimidating voters with billy clubs.

We have seen guns pumped to Mexican drug cartels while the Obama Administration blamed American gun dealers.

We have seen our government leave Americans to die in Benghazi, cover it up and then act as if we are being unreasonable by asking what happened.

We have seen billions upon billions of dollars go to government-friendly firms that simply took the money and ran while government officials meagerly proclaim, “Oh, well.”

We have seen illegal alien criminals released and the White House shuttered as punishment for cutting spending.

We have seen this administration exclude, threaten and punish members of the media who do not offer a favorable narrative.

And now, we are seeing our government admit to the use of the IRS to target conservative political groups and they hope to wash it away with a simple, “I’m sorry; it wasn’t political”?

No; we reject these old-school Chicago tactics of intimidation and force. We deserve a government that works for us, not a government that maintains power through coercion and intimidation.

http://www.tpnn.com/the-irs-vendetta...-enemies-list/

Obama's DOJ obtained phone records for the Associated Press
By MARK SHERMAN— May. 13 7:50 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.

The government would not say why it sought the records. Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP's source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an "unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information."

Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual.

In the letter notifying the AP, which was received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt's letter and attorneys for the AP. The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.

Among those whose phone numbers were obtained were five reporters and an editor who were involved in the May 7, 2012, story.

The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of classified information to the media and has brought six cases against people suspected of providing classified information, more than under all previous presidents combined.

The White House on Monday said that other than press reports it had no knowledge of Justice Department attempts to seek AP phone records.

"We are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations, as those matters are handled independently by the Justice Department," spokesman Jay Carney said.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the investigative House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said on CNN, "They had an obligation to look for every other way to get it before they intruded on the freedom of the press."

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an emailed statement: "The burden is always on the government when they go after private information, especially information regarding the press or its confidential sources. ... On the face of it, I am concerned that the government may not have met that burden. I am very troubled by these allegations and want to hear the government's explanation."

The American Civil Liberties Union said the use of subpoenas for a broad swath of records has a chilling effect both on journalists and whistleblowers who want to reveal government wrongdoing. "The attorney general must explain the Justice Department's actions to the public so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again," said Laura Murphy, the director of ACLU's Washington legislative office.

Rules published by the Justice Department require that subpoenas of records of news organizations must be personally approved by the attorney general, but it was not known if that happened in this case. The letter notifying AP that its phone records had been obtained through subpoenas was sent Friday by Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington.

William Miller, a spokesman for Machen, said Monday that in general the U.S. attorney follows "all applicable laws, federal regulations and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations." But he would not address questions about the specifics of the AP records. "We do not comment on ongoing criminal investigations," Miller said in an email.

The Justice Department lays out strict rules for efforts to get phone records from news organizations. A subpoena can be considered only after "all reasonable attempts" have been made to get the same information from other sources, the rules say. It was unclear what other steps, in total, the Justice Department might have taken to get information in the case.

A subpoena to the media must be "as narrowly drawn as possible" and "should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period," according to the rules.

The reason for these constraints, the department says, is to avoid actions that "might impair the news gathering function" because the government recognizes that "freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news."

News organizations normally are notified in advance that the government wants phone records and then they enter into negotiations over the desired information. In this case, however, the government, in its letter to the AP, cited an exemption to those rules that holds that prior notification can be waived if such notice, in the exemption's wording, might "pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation."

It is unknown whether a judge or a grand jury signed off on the subpoenas.

The May 7, 2012, AP story that disclosed details of the CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot occurred around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.

The plot was significant both because of its seriousness and also because the White House previously had told the public it had "no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the (May 2) anniversary of bin Laden's death."

The AP delayed reporting the story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security. Once officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP disclosed the plot, though the Obama administration continued to request that the story be held until the administration could make an official announcement.

The May 7 story was written by reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman with contributions from reporters Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Alan Fram. They and their editor, Ted Bridis, were among the journalists whose April-May 2012 phone records were seized by the government.

Brennan talked about the AP story and investigation in written testimony to the Senate. "The irresponsible and damaging leak of classified information was made ... when someone informed The Associated Press that the U.S. government had intercepted an IED (improvised explosive device) that was supposed to be used in an attack and that the U.S. government currently had that IED in its possession and was analyzing it," he wrote.

He also defended the White House decision to discuss the plot afterward. "Once someone leaked information about interdiction of the IED and that the IED was actually in our possession, it was imperative to inform the American people consistent with government policy that there was never any danger to the American people associated with this al-Qaida plot," Brennan told senators.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/govt-...-records-probe

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Well, anyone going to start squawking about the First Amendment? I don't want to hear it from the lamestream media that has been working to destroy the Second Amendment! Reap what you sow!

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The AP has been on the wrong side of history, sucking up to, and carrying water for, the @#$%* in the White House. See how they repaid you? Lie down with dogs and wake up with fleas.

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We made the mistake of electing a black president. Now the press will never criticize him for fear of being labeled 'racist', and losing some of their readers/viewers.

Ratings trumps the truth.

Does Obama’s White House twitter account flaunt an America in distress?
https://twitter.com/whitehouse



Note the fallen Eagle (it is upside down). Is this proof of the administration’s contempt for this nation? They’ll likely claim “There’s No There There” but was this really an accident? http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013...ns-wtf-moment/

Hat Tip to Jawa: http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/215989.php




Islam often makes use of symbolism to flaunt the destruction of non-believers.


Now, Obama does too.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013...#disqus_thread

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Every thing they do is calculated. Nothing is accidental.

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Well I'd be the first to say that conspiracy theory is a bridge too far except one has to wonder, of all the photos they could use, why THAT one from THAT angle? Unless you believe that the tops of the drapes are important to the photo, clearly the focal point of the image IS the fallen eagle. There is really NOTHING else to look at in the photo.

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Try zooming out and you'll find that the photo is actually the following:



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Quite significant, this fallen eagle, of the growing tyranny and wholesale corruption of the regime and its intended destruction of this constitutional republic.

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So they didn't want to take the photo from an angle when the American icon eagle was right-side up because why? Was there a photo of Stalin on the wall from that angle that they didn't want us to see ? - the bust of mao which replaced the bust of Churchill ?

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All you liberals must have forgotten about the presidential seal that Obama had where the eagle is in retreat dropping the arrows and sash with the flag falling to the ground. It was on his campaign website, I have the screenshot somewhere on my computer, but Atlas Shrugged has it.



All you liberals must have forgotten Michelle Obama and her "all of this for a damn flag" comment. Confirmed by a friend of mine I worked with last year who is a deaf mute. I asked him, "what is she saying?" He said "damn flag."

As has been pointed out by many other posters here, this photo of the Oval office is not a good photo of anything. Do you think it was a mistaken shot? Maybe somebody had the camera pointed at the wrong angle. Did they decide to use it where it appears the eagle is upside down? Yes, that's exactly what happened. I can see it right now and that's what it is. Could you liberals describe the photo for us and explain what it is that you see?

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Professionals vet their photos carefully, so that accidental oddities do not get into them. I remember an enormous brouhaha over a photo of a small boy in knit pants because, well, there were these shadows on the crotch.....Some people said it was intended to look innocent, like if mommy took the pictures, and others said, "Nah. Done by pros. They know better."

Some people below think that the upside down national logo is an accident. The original picture may have been an accident. The final product was not.