Corrupt: Obama’s EPA Waived Fee Requests For Friendly Groups, Denied Conservative Groups

EPA Waives Fee Requests For Friendly Groups, Denies Conservative Groups – Washington Examiner

Conservative groups seeking information from the Environmental Protection Agency have been routinely hindered by fees normally waived for media and watchdog groups, while fees for more than 90 percent of requests from green groups were waived, according to requests reviewed by the Conservative Enterprise Institute.

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CEI reviewed Freedom of Information Act requests sent between January 2012 and this spring from several environmental groups friendly to the EPA’s mission, and several conservative groups, to see how equally the agency applies its fee waiver policy for media and watchdog groups. Government agencies are supposed to waive fees for groups disseminating information for public benefit.

“This is as clear an example of disparate treatment as the IRS’ hurdles selectively imposed upon groups with names ominously reflecting an interest in, say, a less intrusive or biased federal government,” said CEI fellow Chris Horner.

For 92 percent of requests from green groups, the EPA cooperated by waiving fees for the information. Those requests came from the Natural Resources Defense Council, EarthJustice, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, The Waterkeeper Alliance, Greenpeace, Southern Environmental Law Center and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Of the requests that were denied, the EPA said the group either didn’t respond to requests for justification of a waiver, or didn’t express intent to disseminate the information to the general public, according to documents obtained by The Washington Examiner. CEI, on the other hand, had its requests denied 93 percent of the time. One request was denied because CEI failed to express its intent to disseminate the information to the general public. The rest were denied because the agency said CEI “failed to demonstrate that the release of the information requested significantly increases the public understanding of government operations or activities.”

Similarly, requests from conservative groups Judicial Watch and National Center for Public Policy Research were approved half the time, and all requests from Franklin Center and the Institute for Energy Research were denied. “Their practice is to take care of their friends and impose ridiculous obstacles to deny problematic parties’ requests for information,” said Horner. Freedom of Information Act requests from CEI forced the EPA to release emails under the the “Richard Windsor” alias former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson used to conduct government business.

CEI has also filed FOIA requests for emails, text messages and instant messages from Jackson and EPA nominee Gina McCarthy. Horner said he believes the EPA has denied CEI’s requests because his think tank is the most active group seeking to hold the agency accountable. “This is a clear pattern of favoritism for allied groups and a concerted campaign to make life more difficult for those deemed unfriendly,” he said. “The left hand of big government reaches out to give a boost to its far-left hand at every turn. Argue against more of the same, however, and prepare to be treated as if you have fewer rights.” Update: An earlier version incorrectly called the Natural Resources Defense Council the “National Resources Defense Council.”

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Another Corrupt Democrat Politician Goes To Prison

Former City Councilman Larry Seabrook Sentenced To Five Years For Misappropriation Of Funds – New York Daily News

Former City councilman Larry Seabrook will spend five years in prison for misdirecting hundreds of thousands of dollars for community projects to his girlfriend and family members.

Seabrook, 61, was sentenced Tuesday. His surrender date is March 8.

“I will continue to fight in the service of people. I truly love the northeast Bronx,” the Bronx Democrat said during his sentencing.

He described himself as a “proud man” to Judge Deborah Batts, who acknowledged his many years in public service as she addressed him from the bench.

Batts said his many achievements had been irrevocably tarnished by his own “sense of entitlement and greed.”

Seabrook had “held himself above the law and betrayed the public trust by using his public office to enrich himself and others,” Batts said.

Seabrook was convicted of 9 of 12 counts in a trial last summer in Manhattan federal court. The conviction came a year after another jury deadlocked on fraud charges.

Before he was arrested, Seabrook also had served as a state assemblyman and a senator. He has continued to deny wrongdoing.

The government says Seabrook diverted money from 2002 through 2009.

It says he directed more than $2 million of funds to nonprofit organizations he controlled but were not doing legitimate work.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Seabrook “sacrificed the public trust on the altar of greed.”

He applauded the 5-year sentence, saying it vindicated the taxpayers that Seabrook had cheated.

“We remain committed to making those who are corrupted by power pay the price, and the public can expect more arrests of politicians who have not learned this lesson,” Bharara said.

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Corrupt Obama Justice Department Thinks Its Collaboration With Media Matters ‘Not A Big Deal’

Justice Department Thinks Its Collaboration With Media Matters ‘Not A Big Deal’ – Daily Caller

The Department of Justice continues to ignore requests for comment in response to the revelation its Office of Public Affairs director Tracy Schmaler has coordinated with left-wing advocacy group Media Matters for America, and is sending signals to at least one media organization that the cabinet agency doesn’t believe the collaboration has great significance.

“We have reached out to the Justice Department for some comment on this,” Fox News Channel anchor Jon Scott said on the air Tuesday morning. “Officially, they are not commenting about it – ‘no comment’ – although they are essentially saying, off the record, that it is not a big deal.”

Emails The Daily Caller obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and published Tuesday show Schmaler, Holder’s top press defender, and Media Matters staffers working together to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals.

Schmaler and the DOJ have ignored TheDC’s requests for comment on the matter since before the first piece was published. She has also ignored TheDC’s requests asking her to confirm that the DOJ doesn’t think her apparent partnership with Media Matters is a “big deal.”

Media Matters spokeswoman Jess Levin has also ignored requests for comment from TheDC about this story.

Fox News’ James Rosen reported Tuesday afternoon that “a spokesman for Media Matters told me the group would comment only if it was offered a chance to appear live on this network, which is a request this reporter was in no position to grant.”

Levin has ignored follow-up requests from TheDC, including requests to confirm Media Matters threatened that it would only comment live and on the air.

Schmaler may find herself under investigation as a result of these revelations. American Center for Law and Justice chief counsel Jay Sekulow said on Fox News that the DOJ’s internal Office of Professional Responsibility could probe whether she engaged in unethical behavior or misconduct.

“They [Media Matters workers] get the e-mail praising them for the piece – whether it’s information on a hit piece on a former DOJ employee,” Sekulow said. “They [DOJ] have an Office of Professional Responsibility, and I don’t know if Tracy’s a lawyer or not a lawyer, but I will tell you this, the Office of Professional Responsibility should be looking at this because the idea that the Department of Justice is using Media Matters as its proxy – as its front group or its outside, unpaid consultant – to do this is outrageous.”

“And when professional ethics are involved, which raises a serious issue here – and media journalism ethics: the idea that you’re planting stories with Media Matters or giving them information to go after former employees of DOJ, that is over the top and needs to be seriously investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility inside the DOJ.”

Sekulow suggested Holder also may have approved or encouraged Schmaler’s apparently improper behavior.

“Does it go to Eric Holder?” Sekulow asked. “I mean, who knows, you know?”

“I suspect between now and the election we probably don’t find out. But there are people looking at this now, and I think as long as we stay on it, we need to demand an answer to that. Why is it that Media Matters gets a special relationship with the United States Department of Justice? Somebody needs to be asking that question.”

Schmaler has also ignored TheDC’s requests for comment on whether the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility will be looking into her collaboration with Media Matters.

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Lying Racist, Eric Holder, Sues South Carolina Over Immigration Reform

Lying Racist, Eric Holder, Sues South Carolina Over Immigration Reform – Daily Caller

The corrupt Obama administration has boosted its efforts to bar state-level enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws by suing South Carolina over its new immigration reform law.

The Monday announcement by the corrupt Department of Justice follows the news that the corrupt Department of Homeland Security has quietly canceled long-standing checks of transportation hubs for illegal aliens.

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Corrupt administration officials defended the controversial lawsuit Monday, despite the nation’s unemployment rate of at least 9 percent.

“Today’s lawsuit makes clear once again that the Justice Department will not hesitate to challenge a state’s immigration law, as we have in Arizona, Alabama and South Carolina, if we find that the law interferes with the federal government’s enforcement of immigration,” read a statement from lying, racist, Attorney General Eric Holder.

But South Carolina officials pushed back. “If the feds were doing their job, we wouldn’t have had to address illegal immigration reform at the state level,” said Rob Godfrey, a spokesman for the Republican Gov. Nikki Haley. “Until they do, we’re going to keep fighting in South Carolina to be able to enforce our laws.”

In September, a coalition of leftist groups sued to stop the state’s reform, which is due to take effect in January. The coalition includes the racist Southern Poverty Law Center and the anti-Christian ACLU.

Under the South Carolina reform, police officers are required to summon federal immigration authorities if they suspect an arrested person is an illegal alien. The law also makes it a felony for people to use fake identification documents for illegals, and for people to transport them.

The law also allows state residents to sue state officials who do not enforce the law.

The corrupt Obama administration’s intensified efforts to avoid enforcing the law are likely intended to complement its efforts to spur turnout in 2012 by immigrant groups, including Hispanics, Asians and Arabs.

Groups claiming to represent immigrants, such as the racist National Council of La Raza, have repeatedly urged the administration to further loosen immigration enforcement, despite a national unemployment rate of more than 9 percent.

Corrupt Democrat officials have repeatedly stated that they expect to win a high proportion of immigrants’ votes in critical swing states, such as North Carolina, Virginia and Colorado.

Corrupt Democrat governors or legislators have blocked immigration-related reforms in several states, including North Carolina and Virginia.

Corrupt Federal officials have already sued to block enforcement of immigration reforms passed in Arizona and Alabama, Also, corrupt federal agency officials have adopted new rules that slow the deportation of illegals, prompted the release of many illegals being processed for deportation and curbed long-standing efforts to find illegal aliens.

This weekend, border patrol agents revealed that they had been quietly ordered to stop seeking illegal aliens passing through bus stations and other transportation hubs.

“Orders have been sent out from Border Patrol headquarters in Washington, D.C., to Border Patrol sectors nationwide that checks of transportation hubs and systems located away from the southwest border of the United States will only be conducted if there is intelligence indicating a threat,” such as terrorism, said a Oct. 27 statement from the National Border Patrol Council.

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Democrat Senator McCaskill Failed To Pay $287,000 In Taxes On Aircraft

Democrat Senator McCaskill Failed To Pay $287,000 In Taxes On Aircraft – Politico

Sen. Claire McCaskill is selling the personal plane that has caused her turbulence in recent weeks after POLITICO revealed she used taxpayer money to cover the cost of political travel.

The first-term Democrat said she was very happy she was able to convince her husband to “sell the damn plane.”

In a conference call Monday afternoon, McCaskill revealed that after her own review of the plane’s records, she had not paid personal property taxes on the aircraft over the past four years.

“I have discovered that the personal property taxes on the plane have not been paid. There should have been a reporting to the county of the existence of this plane. There are people I could blame for this, but I know better. I take full responsibility,” McCaskill said to reporters, after revealing she had conducted her own audit of all 89 flights she had taken.

“This was a mistake, It should have been reported in Missouri. It will be paid in Missouri today,” she said.

McCaskill said she would be sending a check for $287,273 to St. Louis County Monday for the back taxes she owed between 2007 and 2010. She also said she had campaign lawyers looking into the flights to determine if any more in-kind contributions needed to be reported to be in compliance.

Asked if this would hurt her reelection bid, McCaskill replied, “I don’t know, I’ve tried to handle this like I handle anything else,” citing her advocacy for transparency and accountability in Congress.

McCaskill expressed remorse and contrition throughout the half hour conference call and said the entire episode has made her “sick to her stomach.”

But she stressed that she was not trying to evade taxes and that the failure to register the plane in Missouri was a “mistake.”

UPDATED @ 3:17 PM: The National Republican Senatorial Committee just revealed a new video capitalizing on McCaskill’s past statement where she said, “If my walk doesn’t match my talk, shame on me and don’t ever vote for me again.”

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Obama Administration Ignores Planned Parenthood Sex Trafficking Videos

Obama Administration Ignores Planned Parenthood Sex Trafficking Videos – LifeNews

Lila Rose, the head of the Live Action organization that released videos showing Planned Parenthood centers helping undercover investigators posting as sex traffickers, says the Obama administration is ignoring the potential crimes.

The videos showed Planned Parenthood abortion centers in three states and the District of Columbia assisting alleged sex traffickers in arranging abortions and STD testing for underage girls victimized by the sex trade. One staffer has already been fired in New Jersey over her actions logged on camera and the House of Representatives approved an amendment de-funding the national abortion business.

But the Obama administration is taking a different approach.

The FBI launched an investigation after Planned Parenthood tipped off the federal government before the release of the videos in an action that Rose says was an attempt to cover itself before the national controversy began over the actions of its employees.

Yet Attorney General Eric Holder said the Obama administration would not prosecute anyone involved in assisting the alleged sex traffickers.

“It is my understanding that the FBI actually has looked at that matter” and “prosecution was declined in that matter,” Holder said, according to the TPM web site, during a House subcommittee hearing.

Speaking about sex trafficking in general, Holder added, “As I said, this is something that is a priority of the department, it’s a priority of mine. If you look at the fact that Craigslist has dropped their adult ads — that’s a significant thing. And that happened as a result of meetings that occurred in my office and some work that some organizations who we met with did, and we’ve had other meetings about other publications that have continued to do this.”

“This is not something that we’ve done very loudly or sought attention about, we’ve only sought results,” he added.

But TPM indicates Rose has responded and said she is disappointed the Obama administration is ignoring the evidence her group presented.

“An untold number of women, and possibly underage girls, are being exploited and likely in danger and the Justice Department is looking the other way,” Rose said in a statement.

“We are extremely alarmed by today’s statement by the Justice Department regarding Planned Parenthood,” Rose said. “We alerted the Justice Department, in writing, several weeks ago that Live Action conducted no activities in Indiana as reported by Planned Parenthood to the FBI. Therefore, unless there was another sting operation that we are unaware of, there likely was an actual sex trafficker in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Indiana, asking for their assistance.”

“The Justice Department has completely dropped the ball,” she added.

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Daily Benefactor News – 18 Former ACORN Workers Have Been Convicted Or Admitted Guilt In Election Fraud

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18 Former ACORN Workers Have Been Convicted Or Admitted Guilt In Election Fraud – Fox News

The scandal-plagued ACORN may no longer exist, but its tarnished legacy lives on in court, as the activist group and its former employees face criminal punishment.

So far this year, at least 18 former workers have admitted guilt or been convicted on varying charges of election fraud. The punishment has ranged from probation to several months of prison time.

ACORN, once a powerful advocate for low-income and minority voters, shuttered its operations amid plummeting revenues in March, six months after conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute caught on video some of the group’s employees offering them tax advice.

But the group is still facing charges in Nevada on conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters.The trial, originally scheduled to begin Monday, has been postponed likely until next year.

Former workers across the country already are being punished for their criminal activities.

In Miami, seven former ACORN voter registration canvassers were convicted of “false swearing-in an election,” and sentenced to probation and community service and banned from participating in future political campaigns, according to court documents.

In Pennsylvania, six of seven former ACORN workers who were charged in an investigation were convicted of unsworn falsification and interference with election officials. Four have reached a plea agreement on reduced charges and will serve two years of probation. Cases against two others who entered pleas to reduced charges are pending.

Charges against the seventh, Eric Jordan, are not being prosecuted because Jordan has pleaded guilty to much more serious charges, including aggravated assault, resisting arrest and carrying firearms without a license.

In Milwaukee, three former ACORN workers have been convicted of election fraud.

Last week, Kevin Clancy was sentenced to 10 months in prison for his role in submitting falsified voter registration forms before the 2008 election. Clancy will start his sentence once he finishes another sentence he is currently serving for armed robbery.

Clancy’s co-worker, Maria Miles, who pleaded guilty to election fraud in August, will be sentenced on Dec. 6.

In September, Frank Walton pleaded guilty to submitting 54 fake voter registrations during the 2008 presidential campaign. He faces up to 42 months in prison and a $10,000 fine when he’s sentenced Dec. 6.

In Washington state, Kendra Lynn Thill was convicted in March of voter registration fraud in the 2006 midterm election. In Nevada, a former ACORN supervisor pleaded the equivalent of a no-contest in a case alleging that canvassers were illegally paid to register voters during the 2008 campaign. But while Amy Busefink’s plea acknowledges the state had evidence for a conviction at trial, her lawyer said she still plans to challenge the constitutionality of the state law prohibiting paying canvassers based on the number of voter registration forms they turn in.

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More Enron-Like Scandals By Obama Administration Officials Come To Light – The Examiner

Earlier, the Washington Post reported on how the Obama administration pressured Freddie Mac not to disclose to investors and the SEC the $30 billion in losses it was incurring as a result of Obama’s mortgage bailouts for undeserving (including high-income) borrowers.

Now, Bloomberg News reports that then-Federal Reserve Bank head (and now Treasury Secretary) “Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis,” and to hide them from the SEC in its SEC filings. Such conduct is not too surprising coming from Geithner, a sanctimonious and hypocritical tax cheat. Geithner also used the government’s bailout of AIG to pay billions of dollars to the wealthy Wall Street investment firm of Goldman Sachs, money that it neither needed to stay afloat, nor was legally entitled to.

Earlier this year, Freddie Mac’s CFO killed himself amidst a sea of red ink, as the administration forced Freddie to run up losses on mortgage bailouts, even though economists and real estate experts have criticized those bailouts as harmful to the economy. Now, the Obama administration is making Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae deliberately run up losses on bailouts and buying up risky loans, even though the government took over Fannie and Freddie in 2008 in the name of ending their risky practices. It is rewarding their executives for carrying out such terrible policies by showering them with multimillion dollar pay.

The mortgage crisis was caused partly by the reckless government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and partly by the affordable-housing mandates imposed on them.

But Obama’s proposed financial rules overhaul does absolutely nothing about the risky practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, admits Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, even though he admits that “Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system.”

Instead, it pressures banks to make even more risky loans. The House has approved Obama’s proposal to create a politically-correct entity called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. “The agency would be in charge of enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act, a law that prods banks to make loans in low-income communities.” The Community Reinvestment Act was a key contributor to the financial crisis. But the administration’s proposal would direct the new agency to enforce the Community Reinvestment Act without regard for banks’ financial safety and soundness.