Department of Defense Reports False Data to Conceal Billions in Waste and Fraud

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/TIM SHAFFERLinda Woodford spent the last 15 years of her career inserting phony numbers in the U.S. Department of Defense’s accounts.

Every month until she retired in 2011, she says, the day came when the Navy would start dumping numbers on the Cleveland, Ohio, office of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the Pentagon’s main accounting agency. Using the data they received, Woodford and her fellow DFAS accountants there set about preparing monthly reports to square the Navy’s books with the U.S. Treasury’s – a balancing-the-checkbook maneuver required of all the military services and other Pentagon agencies.

And every month, they encountered the same problem. Numbers were missing. Numbers were clearly wrong. Numbers came with no explanation of how the money had been spent or which congressional appropriation it came from. “A lot of times there were issues of numbers being inaccurate,” Woodford says. “We didn’t have the detail … for a lot of it.”

The data flooded in just two days before deadline. As the clock ticked down, Woodford says, staff were able to resolve a lot of the false entries through hurried calls and emails to Navy personnel, but many mystery numbers remained. For those, Woodford and her colleagues were told by superiors to take “unsubstantiated change actions” – in other words, enter false numbers, commonly called “plugs,” to make the Navy’s totals match the Treasury’s.

Jeff Yokel, who spent 17 years in senior positions in DFAS’s Cleveland office before retiring in 2009, says supervisors were required to approve every “plug” – thousands a month. “If the amounts didn’t balance, Treasury would hit it back to you,” he says.

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Emails: IRS Official said Lerner Threw Cincinnati Office Under the Bus

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstAn IRS official blasted Lois Lerner for her attempt to blame the agency’s targeting scandal on low-level employees in Cincinnati, according to newly released emails.

“Cincinnati wasn’t publicly ‘thrown under the bus’ (but) instead was hit by a convoy of Mack trucks,” wrote Cindy Thomas, former director of the IRS exempt organizations office in Cincinnati, in a May 10, 2013 email to Lerner obtained by the House Ways and Means Committee.

Thomas wrote the email on the very day that the IRS targeting scandal broke when Lerner, a senior agency official based in Washington, D.C., admitted that her exempt organizations division engaged in improper targeting of conservative groups.

Lerner initially claimed that the agency’s Cincinatti office was solely responsible for the practice. The New York Times went to bat for the administration, characterizing the Cincinatti office as a “backwater” filled with “low-level employees.”

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Judge Won’t Allow Holder Appeal Now in Contempt Case

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Photo Credit: ReutersA federal judge has refused Attorney General Eric Holder’s request that he be allowed to proceed now with an appeal in a case where the House of Representatives is seeking to enforce subpoenas for documents related to the controversial Operation Fast and Furious gun investigation.

In a ruling Monday afternoon, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said her September 30 ruling rejecting Holder’s request to dismiss the lawsuit was not such a close call that it deserved immediate review from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

“While the Court agrees with defendant’s characterization of the matter as significant, that is not the test,” Jackson wrote in her new four-page decision (posted here). ”

Jackson’s latest ruling means it is likely the Justice Department will have to produce a detailed log of what was withheld from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and why. Rounds of protracted litigation over the legitimacy of the withholdings seem all but certain, unless the sides come to an agreement which has heretofore eluded them.

“The Court is not of the opinion that its denial of the motion to dismiss involves a controlling question of law as to which there is a substantial ground for difference of opinion,” she wrote in her Monday order, issued just one business day after Holder’s lawyers asked for the immediate appeal. “The ruling was based upon Supreme Court precedent and Circuit precedent, and it was decided in accordance with an opinion issued by another judge of this court in a substantially similar matter…. Defendant has not pointed to any precedent that would supply the grounds for a difference of opinion.”

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Another ObamaCare Cost: Feds Gave $4.4B to States for Exchange Websites

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Photo Credit: Fox News By Fox News.

The Obama administration gave states roughly $4.4 billion in taxpayer dollars to set up their own ObamaCare websites, according to a new analysis, in the latest revelation about the faucet of federal spending switched on by the 2010 passage of the health care law.

Some of the states even took federal money, then decided to let the federal site handle enrollment.

While the steep cost of HealthCare.gov — which is the federally run site — has come under fire, the money granted to the states has so far generated little attention. And while the 14 state-run sites have operated more smoothly than the problem-plagued federal site and have accounted for the lion’s share of signups, the federal money spent on tech support, advertising and other startup costs have hardly yielded the level of customer enthusiasm and participation the administration projected.

Just 106,000 Americans have enrolled since the Oct. 1 rollout — far short of the 500,000 the administration hoped would sign up in the first month. The state-run sites handled 75 percent of the transactions.

The study on state-site spending by the conservative-leaning Americans for Tax Reform group shows the money was distributed through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services grants and argues “federal taxpayer funds were shoveled to states for a variety of vague purposes.”

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Photo Credit: ReutersObamacare: So, what could go wrong next?

By David Nather.

Busted website, canceled policies, lousy early enrollment numbers. And that could be just the warmup.

Because the lesson of the last six weeks is that when it comes to the Obamacare rollout, if it can go wrong, it probably will.

The stumble-filled debut of President Barack Obama’s health care law is drawing new attention to the other risks that have been on the radar screen of health care wonks for months. Think health insurance plans sinking under the weight of sick customers, newly insured people being stunned that they still have to spend on health care, and possibly another wave of canceled policies — right before the 2014 elections.

They’re mostly worst-case scenarios, and an Obamacare recovery in the next few months could still prevent some of the biggest ones from ever happening. But health care experts are taking all of them a lot more seriously now — because at this point, why wouldn’t they?

A complete list of possibilities could be overwhelming, but here are the main ones to watch…

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Proof of Obamacare’s Intentional Deception

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Photo Credit: WND A group that has been the driving force in branding Obamacare has recommended a series of phrases, some deceptive, that the White House and Democrats have used to sell the health-care law to the public, WND has found.

The little-known Herndon Alliance has been behind the marketing of Obamacare since the inception of the legislation.

It was the group that crafted President Obama’s false claim that Americans can maintain their “choice” of doctors and insurance plans.

Along with advising the Obama administration, Herndon has been providing strategy to Enroll America, the main organization pushing for the uninsured to sign up for Obamacare. Enroll America’s executive director, Ron Pollack, was a founding member of Herndon.

The Herndon Alliance is “the most influential group in the health arena that the public has never heard of,” reported Politico in 2009.

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Health-care Law has Changed Game for Democrats Looking to Retake the House in 2014

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Photo Credit: APFew places may better explain how the bungled launch of President Obama’s health-care law has scrambled the political landscape for Democrats than this hamlet north of Philadelphia.

Democrats have been hoping to capitalize on the political fallout for the GOP from the recent government shutdown. If they can do so anywhere, it should be in the suburbs north and west of the city where three adjoining congressional districts represent a confluence of Democratic Party ambitions for the 2014 midterm elections.

The 13th District is represented by Allyson Y. Schwartz, a popular five-term Democrat who is the leading candidate for governor against a Republican incumbent widely regarded as the most vulnerable in the country.

The two other districts are held by moderate Republicans: Rep. Patrick Meehan in the 7th and Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick in the 8th. Obama won both in 2008 and lost both by less than one percentage point in 2012. If Democrats are going to get anywhere near the 18 seats they need to take control of the House in 2014, these two are must-wins, and a few weeks ago, with the GOP suffering in public opinion polls, everything seemed possible for Democrats.

The Affordable Care Act may have changed that.

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DC Mayor Fires Insurance Commissioner Following Critical Remarks of President’s Proposed ObamaCare Fix

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Photo Credit: Fox News The District of Columbia’s insurance commissioner says he was fired after questioning President Obama’s plan to fix ObamaCare and saying the city might not follow his suggestions.

Commissioner William White told The Washington Post on Saturday that he was called into Mayor Vincent Gray’s office the prior day and told the Democratic mayor “wants to go in a different direction.”

The president said Thursday that the millions of insurance plans scheduled to be canceled next year to comply with ObamaCare regulations could be extended for a year, after he told Americans prior to the law’s passage that they could keep their existing plans.

However, White and other insurance commissioners across the country have questioned the president’s proposed solution because it could create a mess in the marketplace.

Some of the top reasons for the commissioners’ objections are: policy prices are already locked in to comply with changes in ObamaCare; an extension could conflict with state-level laws to comply with the law and younger Americans needed to join the federal exchange to keep down costs will wait to enroll.

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Establishment Targets Tea Party Rep. Justin Amash Because “He Cannot be Controlled”

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Photo Credit: Mlive.com File PhotoMemo to establishment Republicans: Good luck getting Justin Amash.

Seven big Michigan donors have said they’re dedicated to ousting the two-term Western Michigan congressman, who’s facing a 2014 GOP primary from businessman Brian Ellis. J.C. Huizenga and Mike Jandernoa are among those raising money for the cause.

The Republican heavy-hitters signed a letter obtained by The Hill claiming that Amash “and others have effectively nullified the Republican majority in the U.S. House.”

The libertarian-leaning Amash has inflamed the GOP leadership and some business leaders because he can’t be controlled.

He’s refused to toe the party line on civil liberties issues. He’s not afraid to blast warrantless wiretapping (something many Democrats won’t do) or vote present on Planned Parenthood funding, despite being pro-life.

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U.S. War Readiness in Jeopardy as Pilots Flee (+video)

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Photo Credit: WND As if to dramatically illustrate repeated claims top generals have made to WND of a purge of senior officers and a degradation of military readiness under President Obama’s leadership, stunning testimony at a recent Senate committee hearing shows America may soon be unable to fight and win a war.

The Air Force is having problems retaining its pilots, even though they are being offered big bonuses to remain, senators learned at the Nov. 7 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

The problem appears to be partly from sequestration, which has imposed budget limitations on pilots’ ability to get in both the requisite flying time and the training needed to fly the next generation of aircraft, according to Air Force Secretary Eric Fanning.

He expressed grave concern about the trend toward budget cutbacks.

Likewise, at a recent Defense One Summit in Washington, Fanning warned that “we’re going to have flying hour issues for the foreseeable future,” a reference to the reality that pilots must fly a certain number of hours to maintain their ratings on various aircraft.

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Will this Court Case Destroy Obamacare?

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Photo Credit: WND

The Obama administration may be alarmed over the dismal number of people signing up for Obamacare, the rising health-care costs for Americans, the legal challenges to the religious discrimination embedded in the law and other problems.

But all of that would be of no consequence if a lawsuit in federal court in Washington succeeds. It alleges senators overstepped their authority in creating the Affordable Care Act and the law, therefore, is null and void.

The case argues that since the U.S. Constitution requires that revenue-raising measures originate in the U.S. House and Obamacare was created in the Senate, the law is unconstitutional. The case is headed toward the Supreme Court.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has been leading the Obamacare charge since its inception, took a House-passed bill, deleted its contents and then substituted the Senate’s 2,000-page bill.

Now dozens of members of the U.S. House of Representatives are signing onto the battle, claiming the Senate didn’t have the authority to pass the bill.

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