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Casino Crony Kickback: Reid, Heller Slip Las Vegas Tourism Handout Into Immigration Bill

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) have inserted a provision that amounts to little more than a handout to Las Vegas casinos into the repackaged immigration reform bill, Breitbart News has learned. This provision, a brazen example of crony capitalism, was inserted into the immigration law enforcement section of the bill despite the fact that it has nothing whatsoever to do with “immigration” or “law enforcement.”

On page 66 of the repackaged bill, the following provision appears:

“CORPORATION FOR TRAVEL PROMOTION.—Sec- 9(d)(2)(B) of the Travel Promotion Act of 2009 (22 U.S.C. 2131(d)(2)(B)) is amended by striking ‘‘For each of fiscal years 2012 through 2015,’’ and inserting ‘‘For each fiscal year after 2012.”

The Travel Promotion Act (TPA) of 2009 allows the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury to spend up to $100 million on promoting travel to specific areas of the country. If the provision Reid and Heller inserted into the proposed immigration reform legislation becomes law, the benefits of the TPA would be extended indefinitely.

As the Heritage Foundation’s Jena McNeill wrote in June 2009, the Travel Promotion Act creates “a government-run public relations campaign funded by a tax on international visitors.” After the law was passed, the PR campaign touting Las Vegas casinos and other tourist destinations in the U.S. using that tax was rolled into a government-run corporation called “Brand USA.” In October 2012, Jim DeMint and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) released a report that “reveals a history of waste, abuse, patronage, and lax oversight” with the Brand USA program and the Department of Commerce that oversees it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Penny Pritzker: Obama’s Worst Insult to His Left-Wing Base

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Photo Credit: breitbart In a crowded field, Chicago billionaire, bundler, sub-prime banker and union buster Penny Pritzker is clearly the worst nominee that President Barack Obama has chosen for his second term cabinet.

Though the position for which she has been nominated, Secretary of Commerce, often goes to a presidential crony or political insider, Pritzker would exceed all her predecessors and peers with her shocking record of cronyism and failure.

Pritzker ran Superior Bank into the ground by dealing in sub-prime mortgages. As Breitbart News noted recently, the bank’s depositors lost $6000, on average, and the taxpayers got fleeced–but the investors got paid out first. Pritzker recently served on the board of the Chicago Public Schools during a period of abject educational failure, and earned a bad reputation with labor unions both there and at her family’s Hyatt hotel chain.

Read more from this story HERE.

Complaint of ‘Cronyism’ in Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department Goes Unanswered by Congress, DOJ

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photo credit: Jay TamboliA coalition of business executives and attorneys have been pressing unsuccessfully to get a Congressional review into whether Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department improperly quashed a criminal investigation related to a federal bankruptcy case.

Correspondence in March and May with the House Judiciary Committee, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section suggest that top Justice Department officials may have allowed cronyism to get in the way of an investigation related to the bankruptcy filing for the Yellowstone Club, a private resort in Montana.

So far, no action appears to have been taken to investigate the allegations. The Department of Justice, the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform did not respond to requests from TheBlaze Thursday regarding the status of the complaints.

The letters to the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, chaired by Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) respectively, state that a more than two-year investigation by FBI, IRS and Secret Service agents led to recommendations that criminal charges be filed.

“Days later, however, the Department of Justice abruptly terminated the investigation without explanation,” the letter to the Judiciary Committee states. “The mysterious and sudden change of heart raises serious questions about the impartiality of senior Justice Department officials.”

Read more from this story HERE.