U.S. Joins Lawsuit Against Firm that Vetted Snowden

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters/Jonathan ErnstThe U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it had joined a lawsuit filed by a whistleblower against United States Investigations Services, the private firm that vetted Edward Snowden before he leaked documents about U.S. spying efforts.

While the lawsuit is not about the firm’s review of Snowden, it alleges that USIS failed to perform quality control reviews in connection with its background investigations. It was originally filed in Alabama more than two years ago.

The government’s decision to join the lawsuit adds to building public pressure on the firm, which is the U.S. government’s biggest contractor for investigations of potential employees. The firm also vetted Aaron Alexis, the technology contractor who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard last month.

A USIS spokeswoman said the firm was cooperating with the government’s investigation and had replaced its leadership and improved its controls since they first heard of the allegations last year.

The firm has had a contract since 1996 to vet individuals seeking employment with federal agencies. Such background checks include investigative fieldwork on each application.

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: Obama Approval at All-Time Low

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APPresident Barack Obama’s job approval has dropped to an all-time low, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey shows that a mere 42 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s job performance, down five points from a poll conducted in early October. The president’s disapproval rating stands at 51 percent, tying an all-time high for Obama.

In all, 41 percent of respondents say they have a less favorable opinion of the president since the 16 day government shutdown, compared to 21 percent who say they have a more favorable view since the shutdown.

The Affordable Care Act has made headlines since the flawed launch of HealthCare.gov on Oct. 1, and the poll shows that the website’s glitches might have raised concerns about the entire law’s tenability. Forty percent say they are less confident in the law based on what they have heard about it in the last several weeks, while 50 percent say the last few weeks have had no influence on their confidence in the law.

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Deficit Falls to $680 Billion

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Treasury The federal government’s latest annual deficit is the smallest it’s been since 2008, according to Treasury Department data released Wednesday.

At $680 billion, the fiscal 2013 deficit is 51% less than it was in 2009, when it hit a record high nominally of $1.4 trillion.

As a percent of the economy, it’s also considerably smaller than it’s been in the past five years, coming in at 4.1% of gross domestic product. By contrast, the annual deficit in 2009 topped 10% of GDP. And last year it was 6.8%.

Overall, Treasury said higher receipts accounted for 79% of the decline in the deficit from last year.

Several factors have contributed to the strong improvement in the nation’s near-term fiscal picture. They include an improving economy and a mix of fiscal restraint — primarily, the expiration of stimulus measures, the imposition of across-the-board budget cuts known as the sequester, and tax increases on high-income households during the 2013 fiscal year, which ended September 30.

Read more from this story HERE.

Romney Rejects White House Effort to Compare Mass. Health Law Rollout to ObamaCare

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APMitt Romney had an unmistakable message for President Obama on Wednesday: Don’t drag me into this.

The president was in Boston, giving a speech at historic Faneuil Hall and drew on comparisons between the Massachusetts law and the problem-plagued Affordable Care Act.

During his speech, Obama acknowledged the problems with ObamaCare and apologized for his clunky rollout.

“There’s no denying it, right now the website is too slow, too many people have gotten stuck and I’m not happy about it,” Obama said.

Obama, in accounting for the troubled launch of ObamaCare, cited the Massachusetts health care law’s slow start in an effort to keep expectations low. Romney, as governor, signed that law in 2006.

Read more from this story HERE.

FBI to Lavabit Founder: ‘Do You Really Think Users Trust You Over Us?’

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Daily Caller The FBI fined, threatened, and forced Ladar Levison to suspend the operation of his secure email service, Lavabit LLC, telling the entrepreneur that his users were more likely to trust the government than him.

This year, the government demanded that Levison turn over his private SSL (secure socket layer) so that the FBI could investigate a single user account allegedly belonging to NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

“By taking these keys from me they were able to unlock everything coming in and out…gaining access to email content, passwords, and credit card numbers,” Levison told The Daily Caller in an interview. The keys allowed the FBI to “masquerade” as Levison himself, giving the agency administrative access to his system.

“They were completely unwilling to provide any kind of transparency back to me to assure me that the only information they were collecting was the information on this one specific user,” said Levison. “Users trusted me to protect their private information and I was essentially opening up the doors wide for the feds to come in and take whatever they wanted.”

Levison said he was willing to provide the FBI limited access to what they wanted, but the bureau told him that was not sufficient, insisting on full access.

Read more from this story HERE.

Business, GOP Establishment: Tea Party is Over

/16 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP/Paul SancyaBy Donna Cassata.

A slice of corporate America thinks tea partyers have overstayed their welcome in Washington and should be shown the door in next year’s congressional elections.

In what could be a sign of challenges to come across the country, two U.S. House races in Michigan mark a turnabout from several years of widely heralded contests in which right-flank candidates have tried — sometimes successfully — to unseat Republican incumbents they perceive as not being conservative enough.

In the Michigan races, longtime Republican businessmen are taking on two House incumbents — hardline conservative Reps. Justin Amash and Kerry Bentivolio — in GOP primaries. The 16-day partial government shutdown and the threatened national default are bringing to a head a lot of pent-up frustration over GOP insurgents roughing up the business community’s agenda.

Democrats hope to use this rift within the GOP to their advantage. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House committee to elect Democrats, insists there’s been “buyer’s remorse with House Republicans who have been willing to put the economy at risk,” and that it is opening the political map for Democrats in 2014.

That’s what the Democrats would be expected to say. But there’s also Defending Main Street, a new GOP-leaning group that’s halfway to its goal of raising $8 million. It plans to spend that money on center-right Republicans who face a triumvirate of deep-pocketed conservative groups — Heritage Action, Club for Growth and Freedom Works — and their preferred, typically tea party candidates.

Read more from this story HERE.

__________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: AP/Alex BrandonBig Business Declares War on Tea Party: Pledge to Support GOP Establishment

By Patrice Hill.

The recent fiscal crisis has opened a major rift between the tea party wing of the Republican Party and business groups that traditionally have backed Republicans, with many business leaders now vowing to get involved more in GOP primaries to try to counter insurgent candidates.

Tea party leaders are defiant, saying they will not change course despite criticism from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and other top business groups.

But business leaders argue that the scorched-earth tactics used by tea party Republicans during the 16-day shutdown and debate over raising the federal government’s borrowing limit marked the fourth time since the GOP took control of the House in 2011 that tea party adherents precipitated a governmental crisis that zapped consumer and business confidence, raised uncertainty and exerted a major drag on economic growth.

Besides encouraging more business-friendly candidates in primary contests, business groups are rallying behind establishment Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who is being targeted by tea party activists for brokering a deal to temporarily raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government, while launching a negotiation with Democrats over budget cuts and proposed tax and entitlement reforms.

Business executives agree with many tea party goals such as cutting the deficit and reforming entitlement spending, but they argue that conservative lawmakers have erred in their tactics and wounded the economy by driving the government with increasing frequency into states of crisis and dysfunction — this time for the ultimately unsuccessful cause of trying to force President Obama to cancel his health care law.

Read more from this story HERE.
____________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: APWar on Tea Party: GOP Establishment, Big Business Gearing Up for Battle

By Tony Lee.

On November 5, Defending Main Street, one of the most prominent Republican establishment groups formed with the intent of destroying the Tea Party, will meet with wealthy Wall Street donors to begin building up its war chest before the 2014 midterm elections.

As the Associated Press notes, these Republicans believe the Tea Party has “overstayed their welcome in Washington and should be shown the door in next year’s congressional elections.” Now they are taking action to start raising the money they think will be needed to make that a reality.

“Hopefully we’ll go into eight to 10 races and beat the snot out of them,” former Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH), who is running the group aiming “to raise $8 million to fend off tea party challenges,” recently told National Journal. “We’re going to be very aggressive and we’re going to get in their faces.”

Defending Main Street “plans to spend that money on center-right Republicans who face a triumvirate of deep-pocketed conservative groups–Heritage Action, Club for Growth and Freedom Works.”

LaTourette expressed his frustrations to the Associated Press, saying that “40, 42 House members have effectively denied the Republican Party the power of the majority” that it won in the 2010 election. He did not acknowledge that Republicans only won that majority on the strength of Tea Party voters who have now accused some of those elected officials of abandoning the intrests of those who elected them.

Read more from this story HERE.

Millions Lose Health Coverage, White House Blames Insurance Companies

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstOn Tuesday, the White House finally came up with a strategy to explain why millions of Americans are losing their health insurance plans — blame the insurance companies.

White House spokesman Jay Carney rewrote President Barack Obama’s much-repeated “you can keep it” promise Tuesday afternoon, and began blaming health insurance companies for canceling millions of individuals’ insurance plans.

“If you had a plan… and you liked it, and you’ve kept it, you can keep if forever as long as your insurer offers it,” Carney told reporters during the daily press briefing.

In the last few weeks, insurance companies have already canceled more than 2 million individual plans, as a direct result of Obamacare. The canceled plans were bought by individuals directly, rather than via employers or associations, and do not include coverage demanded by Obama and his deputies.

The two millions cancellations — so far — contradict Obama’s repeated public promises that Americans could keep their insurance plans after Obamacare is enacted.

Read more from this story HERE.

Media Knew Obama ‘Keep Your Plan’ Promise Was Phony

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: ReutersNBC News on Monday claimed to have uncovered evidence that President Obama knew all along that his promise that “you can keep your health plan” under ObamaCare wasn’t true. The story came out just as millions across the country are getting cancellation notices from their insurance companies.

“Buried in ObamaCare regulations from July 2010,” NBC said, is an estimate that shows “the administration knew that more than 40% to 67% of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.”

Although ObamaCare included a provision meant to grandfather health plans sold before 2010, regulators defined what “grandfathered” meant so narrowly that most plans wouldn’t qualify.

Yet Obama went on repeating this promise, saying, as he did in June 2012, that “if you’re one of the 250 million Americans who already (has) health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”

That the administration knew this wasn’t true is troubling.

Read more from this story HERE.

Lawmakers, Coal Industry Slam EPA Regs at Capitol Hill Rally

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Graeme Jennings/ExaminerThousands of coal miners swarmed the Capitol’s west lawn Tuesday to protest forthcoming Environmental Protection Agency regulations that they say will kill jobs in coal communities.

The estimated crowd of 3,000 at the industry-sponsored event railed against greenhouse gas emission rules floated by President Obama’s EPA. Attendees, as well as lawmakers who spoke at the event, contended the agency is putting their livelihoods in jeopardy.

“We’re going to push back against these people in every chance we can. We are going to stop this war on coal,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said at the event. “[Obama] has created a depression in eastern Kentucky.”

The EPA’s carbon rule for new power plants is due by June, and the one for existing plants is scheduled for June 2015.

Republicans, centrist Democrats and industry officials say those impending rules, which are the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s plan to address climate change, will drive energy prices higher, stunt the economy and create ghost towns out of coal communities.

Read more from this story HERE.

McCain: We’ll Try to Pass Immigration Changes After GOP Primaries

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AFPSen. John McCain (R-AZ) gave the clearest indication that proponents of comprehensive immigration reform may make their final–and strongest–push to get legislation passed next year after House Republicans make it through their primaries.

“I think conventional wisdom is that time is not on our side,” McCain told reporters on Monday after an event in Chicago. “But there are a number of members of Congress who have primaries and when those primaries are done, they may be more inclined to address the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.”

President Barack Obama has urged Congress to pass immigration reform legislation this year. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is reportedly going to bring legislation to the floor within the next month and other House Republican leaders have indicated support for piecemeal pieces of legislation that can make it to conference with the Senate, where proponents and opponents of immigration reform had said a pathway to citizenship will prevail.

Read more from this story HERE.