Diane Feinstein

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News/Politics 1-23-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. You’d think a “constitutional scholar” would know better.

From NationalReview  “Obama Administration: We Don’t Need Congress to Approve an Iran Treaty”

Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the White House doesn’t view an agreement with Iran as a treaty that requires Senate approval, but a matter of “executive prerogative.”

Article II, Section 2, clause 2, U.S. Constitution:

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur . . . “

“Not only do we have a president who just ignores the Constitution, we have an administration full of people who go along with it.”

The White House even went so far as to claim that Israel’s Mossad agreed with them. But in a rare public statement, Mossad says that’s not true.

From TheWeeklyStandard  “A rare statement released from the Mossad, which is meant to deny reports that say the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, favors not imposing additional sanctions on Iran:

Reaction of the Mossad Chairman to the new crisis with Washington: On 19 January 2015, Mossad Chairman Tamir Pardo met with a delegation of American Senators. The meeting took place at the Senators’ request, and with the Prime Minister’s approval.

Contrary to the report, the Mossad Chairman did not say that he opposes additional sanctions against Iran. In the meeting, the Mossad Chairman emphasized the unusual effectiveness of the sanctions imposed on Iran a number of years ago in bringing Iran to the negotiating table.”

“The Mossad Chairman explicitly pointed out that the agreement that is being reached with Iran is bad, and may lead to a regional arms race.”

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2. If the president is talking up your company, I’d be nervous about it. It just might be the kiss of death.

From TheFreeBeacon  “POLITICO reports that President Obama, during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, gave shout outs to a number of American companies in an effort to highlight the strength of the U.S. economy. Nearly all of those companies, it turns out, are big political spenders and have contributed heavily to Democrats.

One of those companies was eBay, which Obama cited as an example of how “millions of Americans [are working] in jobs that didn’t even exist 10 or 20 years ago.” That now seems like an unfortunate choice, because less than 24 hours after Obama’s speech, eBay announced it was cutting 2,400 jobs, or about 7 percent of its workforce. Investors welcomed the layoffs, and the company’s stock jumped more than 4 percent on the news.”

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3. But if your CEO is an Obama pal and bundler, and he’s feeding you govt. contracts, you should be fine. He loves rewarding failure.

From TheDailyCaller  “Seven months after federal officials fired CGI Federal for its botched work on Obamacare website Healthcare.gov, the IRS awarded the same company a $4.5 million IT contract for its new Obamacare tax program.

CGI is a $10.5 billion Montreal-based company that has forever been etched into the public’s mind as the company behind the bungled Obamacare main website.

 After facing a year of embarrassing failures, federal officials finally pulled the plug on the company and terminated CGI’s contract in January 2014.

Yet on Aug. 11, seven months later, IRS officials signed a new contract with CGI to provide “critical functions” and “management support” for its Obamacare tax program, according to the Federal Procurement Data System, a federal government procurement database.

The IRS contract is worth $4.46 million, according to the FPDS data. The contract expires Aug. 15, 2015.”

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4. Pass the popcorn, this is getting interesting….

From TheWashingtonTimes  “When Sen. Dianne Feinstein took to the Senate floor last March, she told a harrowing tale of spying, intrigue and possible law-breaking — all by the CIA.

And the targets were her own Democratic staff, whom the then-Intelligence Committee chairwoman portrayed as innocent victims of a band of intrusive agency officers who penetrated the aides’ computer hard drives.

Sounding grave, the California Democrat said the CIA searches “may have undermined the constitutional framework” and violated federal criminal law. She said she had not gotten a requested CIA apology or an admission of wrongdoing.

This month former Sen. Evan Bayh issued his report on the same unprecedented cyberspy game between two branches of government. Mr. Bayh came to nearly completely opposite conclusions, creating a remarkable public disagreement between two former Democratic colleagues on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

He was chairman of a CIA accountability board review that portrays the Feinstein staffers as the ones who first penetrated and snatched restricted CIA files. The staffers copied some and, as a committee Republican report said, they spirited material out of the CIA off-site in Northern Virginia — without authorization.”

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5. An underage sex scandal would ruin most political careers. But not this slime ball. The voters who re-elected him are getting exactly what they deserve.

From TheToledoBlade  “A Virginia lawmaker who was just re-elected despite being jailed for a sex scandal with a teenager has been indicted on new felony charges, according to a special prosecutor. The forgery and perjury indictment of Del. Joseph D. Morrissey was returned and sealed the day before the election, and announced today by Spotsylvania County Commonwealth’s Attorney William Neely.

The lawmaker now stands accused of forging a document he vouched for in court, and persuading the girl’s mother to swear to its authenticity as well. That woman, Deidre Warren, also was indicted on perjury and forgery charges. Morrissey faces up to 10 years on each count if convicted, Neely said.

Morrissey says the charges are false and he will fight them in court. “This is a very harmful and mean-spirited blow, but I’ll do what I’ve always done. I’ll prevail,” Morrissey told reporters after arriving at the Capitol today for the legislative session.

Morrissey is spending nights in jail for contributing to the delinquency of a minor but is allowed out on work release during the day. He accepted the misdemeanor conviction to avoid trial on charges of child pornography, soliciting a minor and taking “indecent liberties” with a 17-year-old — felonies punishable by decades in prison and the automatic loss of his legislative position.

After his conviction, the four-term Democrat resigned under pressure from his colleagues and then angered them by running as an independent in the special election to hold onto the seat, defeating a Republican and a Democrat last week on the eve of the start of the General Assembly session.”

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News/Politics 12-11-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. So what’s in that spending bill? Here’s a good summary.

From TheWashingtonPost  “The $1.01 trillion spending bill unveiled late Tuesday will keep most of the federal government funded through next September — and it’s packed with hundreds of policy instructions, known on Capitol Hill as “riders,” that will upset or excite Democrats, Republicans and various special interest groups.

So, what’s in the bill? We’ve sifted through the legislation, consulted supporting documents from Democratic and Republican aides, and called out some of the more notable and controversial elements below. (If you want to review detailed reports on all 12 parts of the spending bill, click here.)”

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2. The CIA is firing back.

From TheHill  “Current and former heads of U.S. spy agencies are criticizing a Senate report’s claim that the CIA tortured detainees and misled the public about its “enhanced interrogation” techniques.”

“George Tenet, who was CIA director through much of the Bush administration, said the report is “biased, inaccurate, and destructive” and said it “does damage to U.S. national security, to the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency, and most of all to the truth.” “It is indeed a dark day for congressional oversight,” Tenet added.”

“A number of former officials with “hundreds of years of combined service” launched a website to push back on the report, which they described as “marred by errors of facts and interpretation and is completely at odds with the reality that the leaders and officers of the Central Intelligence Agency lived through.”

“It represents the single worst example of congressional oversight in our many years of government service,” they said.”

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3. So she doesn’t like being spied on, huh? Now you know how the rest of us feel Diane.

From CNN  “The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the CIA of secretly removing classified documents from her staff’s computers in the middle of an oversight investigation, while another lawmaker said Congress should “declare war” on the spy agency if it’s true.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said CIA Director John Brennan told her in January that agency personnel searched the computers last year because they believed the panel’s investigators might have gained access to materials on an internal review they were not authorized to see.

“The CIA did not ask the committee or its staff if the committee had access to the internal review or how we obtained it,” Feinstein said in blistering remarks on the Senate floor. “Instead, the CIA just went and searched the committee’s computer.”

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4. More proof the Obama admin is targeting legal businesses it doesn’t like. Just imagine the outrage from Democrats if Republicans did this.

From TheDailySignal  “Senior officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation actively sought to crack down on legal businesses that the Obama administration – or the officials themselves – deemed morally objectionable, a new congressional report finds.

Released today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the 20-page investigative report details how the FDIC worked closely with the Justice Department to implement Operation Choke Point, a secretive program that seeks to cut off the financial lifeblood of payday lenders and other industries the administration doesn’t like.”

“Emails unearthed by investigators show regulatory officials scheming to influence banks’ decisions on who to do business with by labeling certain industries “reputational risks,” ensuring banks “get the message” about the businesses the regulators don’t like, and pressuring banks to cut credit or close those accounts, effectively driving enterprises out of business.”

“It’s appalling that our government is working around the law to vindictively attack businesses they find objectionable,” Issa, chairman of the Oversight Committee, said in a press release. Issa added:

Internal FDIC documents confirm that Operation Choke Point is an extraordinary abuse of government power. In the most egregious cases, federal bureaucrats injected personal moral judgments into the regulatory process. Such practices are totally inconsistent with basic principles of good government, transparency and the rule of law.”

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