“It was the grossest incompetence.”

The IRS takes more than two years to issue a refund check because of its own stupidity.

This paragraph best sums up the entire idiocy:

Dinesen [representing the citizen] immediately contacted the collection division. He was told they had no record of the return. The identity theft unit was handling it, and the collection division’s computers weren’t capable of interfacing with the identity theft unit’s computers. “I asked if he could just call the identity theft unit to confirm the return had been filed. He said he couldn’t. His explanation for why not boiled down to, ‘We don’t do that,’” Dinesen said.

The agent agreed to suspend collection actions against Boka Gonzalez while Dinesen tried to resolve the case. “He also asked me to give him a call if I got any information from the identity theft unit. It seemed ridiculous to me that one part of the IRS would ask an outside person to keep him informed of what another part of the IRS was doing, but that was the level of dysfunction we were dealing with,” Dinesen said.

Read the whole story. It is horrifying. And remember, this is a case where the IRS was simply incompetent. Imagine the harm they could do if they wanted to do harm, or were ordered to do so by our political leaders. Thank God such things never happen!

The IRS stonewalls a judge

Working for the Democratic Party: Required by a judge to explain in detail in 30 days the destruction of its emails, the IRS has instead provided nothing more than shallow platitudes.

The author of the article above is very confident that, based on his past history, the judge will come down very hard on the IRS for its stonewalling. I pray that he is right.

An Obamacare typo costs family $1.2 million

We’ve only just begun: Because of a typo in a family’s Obamacare healthplan, their insurance company is refusing to pay more than a million dollars in claims in connection with the premature birth of their daughter.

[T]he Review-Journal reports that the Anthem Blue Cross insurance they got through the Nevada Health Link — an ObamaCare exchange — is not paying claims. The payments are being denied, reportedly because the mother’s birth year is incorrectly listed on the insurance card. It should be 1979, but is listed as 1978. The newspaper reports the family is also struggling to get their baby daughter Kinsley added to the insurance. They are facing $1.2 million in medical bills.

They have been unable to get the bureaucracy to fix this simple little problem, which is typical of bureaucracies. Expect a lot more of this in the coming years as the government apparachiks who run Obamacare tighten their grip on our lives.

The count now more than 20

Corruption: More than twenty Obama officials have lost or destroyed emails after learning that Congress wanted to see them.

[I]n each case, the loss wasn’t disclosed to the National Archives or Congress for months or years, in violation of federal law,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-California) said of [the] lost e-mails. “It defies logic that so many senior Administration officials were found to have ignored federal record-keeping requirements only after Congress asked to see their e-mails.”

Actually, it doesn’t defy logic. It is perfectly logical. This administration is corrupt, has broken the law numerous times, and is now aggressively destroying evidence to cover-up its corruption.

An Obamacare official deleted her emails in violation of federal law

Ever get a feeling of deja-vu? The official in charge of the rollout of the failed Obamacare website regularly deleted her emails and will thus not be able to comply completely with House investigation subpoenas.

First, this is a lie. Just because she deleted them on her computer does not destroy the emails. Every IT guy in the world is probably laughing his head off at the blatant dishonesty being illustrated here. Second, isn’t it interesting how these Democratic Party politicos think it is their right to ignore the law. Third, isn’t this also typical of the Obama administration itself, the supposedly most transparent administration in history that has probably produced more scandals and coverups per man hour than any administration since Emperor Nero.

Christians flee Islamic jihadists in northern Iraq

The religion of peace strikes again! Hundreds of thousands of Christians flee northern Iraq as Islamic State take over the region and jihadists tear down churches and destroy Christian manuscripts.

This analysis of the situation now in northern Iraq asks some pointed questions of President Barack Obama, who withdraw American troops from that country far sooner than any military or local expert advised.

This analysis explains why President Barack Obama seems so unconcerned about the fate of these Christian refugees. To use his words, this kind of violence and terrorism and genocide is just an example of these groups acting with “extraordinarily irresponsibly”.

I ask: When are the American people going to finally get tired of electing children to office and have the courage to elect an adult?

The VA pattern of lies

Let me count the ways: VA officials have lied to Congress repeatedly in connection with multiple different investigations in a variety of different states and administrations.

The most egregious example for was the last item of the story above, where VA officials repeatedly told Congress that the employees who had falsified records to cover up long patient wait times had been fired, when in truth no one had been fired at all.

As I like to say, the VA is a perfect example of what government healthcare will be like. And it is coming soon to a hospital and doctor near you!

Obamacare poll numbers crash

Finding out what’s in it: New polls show that the more the public becomes familiar with Obamacare, the more they hate it.

Hey, what’s not to like? Obamacare gives you higher premiums, less availability of doctors, less insurance coverage, more bureaucracy, more paperwork, and — best of all! — increased government interference in your life.

The library that tried to ban conservative news researchers backs down.

Victory for free speech: The University of Arkansas has backed down from its attempt to ban a news research team because it was using that research to publish articles critical of Hillary Clinton.

The University of Arkansas library has backed down from its decision to block the Washington Free Beacon from accessing its special collections archives following a month-long public uproar. The library suspended the Free Beacon’s research privileges in June after the outlet published a story based on audiotapes from university archives that included Hillary Clinton discussing her 1975 defense of a child rapist.

The article clearly documents that the university was working on behalf of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, trying to impose the ban for political reasons.

Netanyahu tells off the Obama administration

In a phone conversation with the U.S. Israeli ambassador, Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly told the Obama administration to never “second-guess me again.”

The sources also say that Netanyahu said something quite similar to US Secretary of State John Kerry, who had tried and failed to broker a ceasefire that would have given Hamas everything it wanted.

See also this article, which notes how the Obama administration has not only antagonized Israel by its bumbling, it has also pissed off the moderate Arab world, which apparently does not support Hamas and has been backing Israel in its effort to neuter it.

Democratic Party law professor made a fool of at House IRS hearings today

A law professor brought before a House committee today by the Democrats to argue against appointing a special prosecutor in the IRS scandal was made to look ridiculous when he couldn’t answer the most basic legal questions in connection with the concept of conflict of interest.

The article describes Congressman Trey Gowdy’s (R-South Carolina) questioning quite well, but you should still watch the video below the fold. It reveals how blindly partisan today’s Democrats have become, willing to defend this IRS harassment of their political opponents under all circumstances, no matter how stupid and corrupt it makes them look.
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Obamacare continues force premiums to skyrocket.

Finding out what’s in it. Premiums continue to rise, and numerous insurance policies continue to be cancelled, all because of Obamacare.

Writing in Forbes, Manhattan Institute health-policy analyst and NRO contributor Avik Roy discovered that in 3,137 of America’s 3,144 counties, Obamacare has hiked 2014 individual-market premiums by an average of 49 percent. Women saw rates increase in 82 percent of U.S. counties, while they rose in 91 percent of counties for men. Although some have benefited from Obamacare’s subsidies, Roy writes, “Those who face higher premiums, higher taxes, or both, appear to outnumber those whom the law has made better off. That alone isn’t a test of the law’s virtue — but it is a measure of the law’s failed promise.”

The article also describes the cancellation of insurance policies in numerous states, despite Obama’s oft-repeated promise that “if you like your plan you can keep your plan. Period.”

CIA admits it hacked the Senate’s computers

These people should be fired, then imprisoned: The CIA today admitted that illegally hacked into the Senate’s computer system.

Oh wait, I have a better idea! Let’s put them in charge of our healthcare and patrolling the borders and our tax system and space exploration and climate research and any number of other important issues of the day in which we need honesty, ethics, reliability, and competence!

A Democrat speaks, and lies spew out

We never tried to impeach Bush, says Democratic lawmaker who co-sponsored Bush impeachment bill.

What really depresses me about this story is not that the Democrat lied so blatantly but that she did so because she knew that her supporters are so wedded to her and her party that they will accept what she says without question. She knows she can get away with it.

In related news: “Want to see what liberals are really like? Then read our uncensored hate mail from the last three weeks.”

Mangement failures in Obamacare

Finding out what’s not in it: A new GAO report cites epic management incompetence in the Obama administration that caused the disastrous Obamacare website failure.

Among the issues, investigators found that the administration kept changing the contractors’ marching orders for the HealthCare.gov website, creating widespread confusion and adding tens of millions of dollars in costs. Changes were ordered seemingly willy-nilly, including 40 times when government officials did not have the initial authority to incur additional costs.

As a result, the government has spent $840 million on Healthcare.gov and its supporting systems, according to the report.

As I’ve said repeatedly, when you ask the equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles to run one-sixth of the U.S. economy, you are guaranteeing this kind of failure. Worse, it is not as if this hasn’t happened before. We have had plenty of experience with failed and bungled government operations in the past four decades. Why do we then demand that we entrust more of our lives to their control?

As Albert Einstein wisely noted, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

New emails reveal Lois Lerner’s hatred of conservatives

Working for the Democratic Party: In newly revealed emails, Lois Lerner refers to Obama’s conservative opponents as “–holes” and “terRorists”.

In that Nov. 9, 2012 email, Lerner further suggests that conservatives will ruin the country: “So we don’t need to worry about alien teRrorists (sic). It’s our own crazies that will take us down,” she wrote.

The evidence also shows that Lerner used her private email account to conduct official IRS business, while also clearly favoring liberal organizations.

I wonder what we would find if those lost emails could turn up?

Congress restores most VA bonuses

After the House voted 421-0 in June to eliminate all bonuses at the Veterans Administration in response to the scandals there, a compromise bill with the Senate has restored most of those bonuses.

The compromise bill announced Monday by the chairmen of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees says VA bonuses will be capped at $360 million annually for the next ten years. But that cap is just 10 percent below the $400 million in bonuses the VA has distributed in recent fiscal years, and will allow up to $3.6 billion in bonuses to be awarded over the next decade.

“In each of fiscal years 2015 through 2024, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall ensure that the aggregate amount of awards and bonuses paid by the Secretary in a fiscal year… does not exceed $360,000,000,” the bill says. A description of the bill adds that members expect the VA to implement this cap in a way that does not “disproportionately impact lower-wage employees,” although the legislation itself does not include any restriction on how to award the money.

More evidence that our elected officials don’t represent us, but the employees of the government instead.

More destroyed evidence at the IRS

Working for the Democratic Party: The IRS now reports that as many as 20 individuals under investigation for the agency’s harassment of Obama’s political opponents have had computer crashes, losing their emails.

IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane said in transcribed congressional testimony that more IRS officials experienced computer crashes, bringing the total number of crash victims to “less than 20,” and also said that the agency does not know if the lost emails are still backed up somewhere.

The new round of computer crash victims includes David Fish, who routinely corresponded with Lois Lerner, as well as Lerner subordinate Andy Megosh, Lerner’s technical adviser Justin Lowe, and Cincinnati-based agent Kimberly Kitchens.

But hey, Lois Lerner says she did nothing wrong!

More harrassment of opponents by the Obama administration

How the Obama Justice Department strong-arms banks to harass legal businesses it doesn’t like.

A Justice Department fraud prevention program came under fire Thursday for allegedly morphing into actively pressuring banks to deny financial services to businesses for political reasons.

Operation Choke Point functions as a partnership between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and various other federal agencies which deal with bank regulations, specifically the Treasury and the SEC. The objective of the project is to choke-off fraudulent businesses from accessing financial services, in an effort to protect consumers.

The controversy, however, is over allegations that the DOJ is pressuring financial institutions to decline doing business with so-called “high risk” industries which line up squarely against the political leanings of the current administration. These businesses include ammunition sales, payday loans, pornography, fireworks companies, and others—24 industries in total, as listed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Much of the news today and yesterday has been about the Malaysian plane shot down over the Ukraine. Though Obama’s response was pitiful, I find this story above much more significant as it illustrates bluntly this administration’s strong misuse of power for political ends.

More forgotten vials of deadly diseases discovered

FDA officials now admit that when they discovered six undocumented vials of smallpox in a facility in Maryland they also found 327 additional vials that contained dengue, influenza and rickettsia.

FDA scientists said they have not yet confirmed whether the newly disclosed vials actually contained the pathogens listed on their labels. The agency is conducting a nationwide search of all cold storage units for any other missing samples.

Investigators destroyed 32 vials containing tissue samples and a non-contagious virus related to smallpox. Several unlabeled vials were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing and the remaining 279 samples were shipped to the Department of Homeland Security for safekeeping.

The FDA’s deputy director is quoted with what might be the understatement of the year. “The reasons why these samples went unnoticed for this long is something we’re actively trying to understand.” You think so, eh?

Let’s just make a quick list of the alphabet soup of federal agencies that we have discovered in the last few months to be either corrupt, incredibly incompetent, or spendthrifts: FDA, CDC, IRS, VA, HHS, NIH, GAO, DHS, TSA. We can add the State Department for its wonderful work in Benghazi, as well as the Border Patrol for their stellar effort in securing the border. I also know that the management at NASA leaves much to be desired.

We can also be sure that this is a partial list. It suggests something that any reasonably intelligent person should quickly see: The federal government is a corrupt mess, and should be overhauled so aggressively that when we are done we shouldn’t recognize it anymore. Certainly its size should be slashed by half, if only to cut off the excess funds that are being funneled to an uncountable number of corrupt practices.

House slashes budget of National Security Council

Pushback: The House has approved a one third cut to the budget of the National Security Council in response to its mandate that agencies withhold information from Congress.

As I said yesterday, when an agency of the federal government decides to defy Congress, elected by the people, than the best and most effective action for Congress to take is to use the power of the purse to reduce or eliminate that agency’s funding. Without money their power disappears, and Congress takes control.

It has been decades since Congress used its power in this way. The more it does this now, however, the more it is going to realize how powerful it really is.

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