Clinton Files: Advisers pushed to 'humanize' Hillary, soften 'stern' image

Even in the early days of the Clinton White House, consultants and political advisers were scrambling to soften Hillary Clinton's hard-edged image, looking for ways to "humanize her" for the press and public.
In the latter years, as the media turned, the advice was far more blunt. "Be real," media consultant Mandy Grunwald told her in a 1999 memo. Grunwald told the first lady the public tends to see her only in "very stern situations," and warned her not to let the press see her "uncomfortable or testy."
The advice was contained in roughly 4,000 pages of previously confidential documents from the Clinton administration years, released Friday by the National Archives. The document dump is just the first batch of Clinton papers that will trickle into the public domain in the coming weeks.
The materials will be closely combed by political operatives on both sides of the aisle, as Hillary Clinton weighs a presidential bid in 2016. What the documents reveal about former President Bill Clinton may be less important, politically, than what they reveal about his wife.
The 1999 memo was a particularly frank example of advisers looking to style Clinton for the public. At the time, Grunwald was with the Grunwald Communications firm she founded and was trying to smooth relations between retiring New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Clinton -- who would later win Moynihan's seat. The memo referred to an upcoming "Moynihan event." Grunwald urged Clinton to stay "conversational" and not raise her voice.
Her advice was to stay "chatty, intimate, informal."
"Don't be defensive," she wrote. "Look like you want the questions: The press is obviously watching to see if they can make you uncomfortable or testy. Even on the annoying questions, give relaxed answers."
Touching on what could be called a trade secret, she also chided Clinton for often answering "just the question asked."
"That's good manners, but bad politics," Grunwald wrote. "Take every opportunity you can to shift your response to an area you want to talk about and then be really expansive on that part of the answer."
Another memo from her press secretary, Lisa Caputo, encouraged the Clintons to capitalize on their 20th wedding anniversary as "a wonderful opportunity for Hillary" and also suggested she spend more time doing White House events celebrating first ladies of the past.
Placing Clinton in a historical context "may help to round out her image and make what she is doing seem less extreme or different in the eyes of the media," Caputo wrote in a lengthy August 1995 memo about courting better press coverage as the president looked toward re-election.
Caputo also proposed the "wild idea" of having Clinton do a guest appearance on a popular sitcom of the day, "Home Improvement."
The memo urged the first lady to have a much bigger presence in "women's media," at one point advising that she should "own" it. The memo also stressed that the "Internet has become a very popular mode of communication," and Hillary Clinton could use it to reach young women.
"I think Hillary could have fun with this," she wrote.
Other documents offered a glimpse into the juggling of priorities early in Clinton's first term.
Friday's documents release included memos related to the former president's ill-fated health care reform proposal in 1993 and 1994, a plan that failed to win support in Congress and turned into a rallying cry for Republicans in the 1994 midterm elections. As first lady, Hillary Clinton chaired her husband's health care task force, largely meeting in secret to develop a plan to provide universal health insurance coverage.
White House aides expressed initial optimism about her ability to help craft and enact a major overhaul of U.S. health care.
"The first lady's months of meetings with the Congress has produced a significant amount of trust and confidence by the members in her ability to help produce a viable health reform legislative product with the president," said an undated and unsigned document, which was cataloged with others from April 1993. The document urged quick action, warning that enthusiasm for health reform "will fade over time."
But the documents also showed the growing concerns among Clinton's fellow Democrats in Congress. Lawmakers, it said, "going to their home districts for the August break are petrified about having difficult health care reform issues/questions thrown at them."
By September 1993, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged the obstacles in a Capitol Hill meeting with House and Senate Democratic leaders and committee chairs. "I think that, unfortunately, in the glare of the public political process, we may not have as much time as we need for that kind of thoughtful reflection and research," the first lady said, citing "this period of challenge."
The new documents offer only glimmers of Clinton's internal national security deliberations. The most detailed material, contained in files from then-national security speechwriter Paul Orzulak, show top Clinton officials wrestling with how to deal with China's emergence as a world financial power.
Notes from an undated meeting with National Security Adviser Samuel "Sandy" Berger show Berger pushing for China's membership in the World Trade Organization despite concerns about human rights abuses.
A series of emails pertaining to the 9/11 Commission's research into Clinton-era handling of Al Qaeda attacks were all apparently withheld by Archives officials, citing national security and confidential restrictions. The only memo released was a single July 1998 email about whether to send a high-ranking diplomat to Minnesota with a presidential message to greet ailing Jordanian King Hussein. "Sounds like too much crepe hanging," said a dismissive State Department official.

Court rules school can ban American flag shirts to avoid racial strife

Bailey Comment: "Hell, you mean California is now in Mexico. Why didn't someone tell me?"

A federal court ruled Thursday that a northern California high school did not violate the constitutional rights of its students when school officials made them turn their American flag T-shirts inside out on Cinco de Mayo or be sent home due to fears of racial violence.
The three-judge panel unanimously decided the officials’ need to protect the safety of their students outweighed the students’ freedom of expression rights.
Administrators at Live Oak High School, in the San Jose suburb of Morgan Hill, feared the American-flag shirts would enflame Latino students celebrating the Mexican holiday, and ordered the students to either turn the shirts inside out or go home for the day.
The school had a history of problems between white and Latino students on that day, and also had a documented history of violence between gang members and between racial groups. The court said these past problems gave school officials sufficient and justifiable reasons for their actions and that schools have wide latitude in curbing certain civil rights to ensure campus safety.
"Our role is not to second-guess the decision to have a Cinco de Mayo celebration or the precautions put in place to avoid violence," Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the panel. The past events "made it reasonable for school officials to proceed as though the threat of a potentially violent disturbance was real," she wrote.
The San Jose Mercury News reports the parents of the students represented in the lawsuit claim their children’s First Amendment rights were violated. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based American Freedom Law Center, a politically conservative legal aid foundation, and other similar organizations took up the students' case and sued the high school and the school district.
"This is the United States of America," the mother of one of the students Kendall Jones told the San Jose Mercury News. "The idea that it's offensive to wear patriotic clothing ... regardless of what day it is, is unconscionable to me."
The parents have said in previous interviews with several publications that their children were only trying to be patriotic, not start a fight with Latino students.
William Becker, one of the lawyers representing the students, said he plans to ask a special 11-judge panel of the appeals court to rehear the case. Becker said he and the parents of the children are prepared to take the fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

Obamacare Victims Are ‘Liars,’ Says Top Democrat

Remember “I feel your pain” - Bill Clinton’s plaintive response to the woes of Middle America turned into a signature line for his administration, which became a cliché in American politics? 

Every politician wanted to connect to the pain of Americans, even in good economic times, and especially during and after the Great Recession. The biggest political attack against Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election related to the exposure of his remarks about the “47 percent” and how out of touch it made the wealthy Republican nominee to the plight of the struggling working classes. 

That was then … this is now. Instead of feeling your pain, Harry Reid stood on the Senate floor to tell millions of Americans impacted by skyrocketing premiums, incompetent administration, and policy cancellations from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act that they don’t really feel pain at all.  

Related: Consumers Hit with Surprise Tax in Obamacare Premium 

Democrats find themselves hammered by an avalanche of data and personal anecdotes that demonstrate the damage done by Obamacare. Instead of addressing those – which granted, would take most of the time between now and the midterm elections – the Senate Majority Leader angrily dismissed all such information as “untrue.” 

"Despite all that good news,” Reid said on the Senate floor Wednesday, “there's plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue, but they're being told all over America.” Reid specifically referred to an ad from Americans for Prosperity featuring the case of Julie Boonstra, a leukemia patient whose new plan disrupted her ability to budget for medications.    

Reid blamed the brothers who own Koch Industries and who are major contributors to AFP. He dismissed Boonstra and apparently every other horror story as just “stories made up from whole cloth, lies distorted by the Republicans to grab headlines or make political advertisements.”

Related: Ten Worst Places to Live for Obamacare

It’s true that Boonstra’s story turned into a dispute when others looked into her claims. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler gave the AFP ad two Pinocchios, noting that the premium decrease for Boonstra’s new plan (her existing plan, which she preferred, got canceled under Obamacare) added up to the out-of-pocket limit, negating her claims of extra expense. News media reported on that interpretation, and a Democratic incumbent filed a complaint with the FCC to force stations to stop airing the ad.

However, Boonstra disputes that interpretation, because while it might balance out by the end of a year, the immediate out-of-pocket expenses are much higher in the new plan – and there is no guarantee that the new plan will cover her current medication regime. In fact, they declined to do so when Boonstra tried to renew the prescription.
“I went in to have a prescription filled, thinking well it's never been a big deal,” Boonstra told The Dexter Leader. “I never gave it a thought, and now it's no longer covered.” That means she will pay the full price of the medication up front, and she can’t afford to do it – even if the insurance eventually covers the cost later in the year.
Related: Obama’s Health Care Mandate - My Whim Is My Command
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Harry Reid’s dismissal of Boonstra’s pain was entirely justified. What about the pain of Catherine Blackwood, who also lost her insurance due to Obamacare and lost coverage for her cancer medication as a result?

Her previous insurance covered Sandostatin as a treatment for her terminal carcinoid. But despite being repeatedly assured during the problem-plagued enrollment process that her new Obamacare-approved plan would cover the drug, she found out this month as she was going into surgery that her plan would not cover the drug. It costs $14,000 just since the beginning of the year, and now Blackwood will have to cover it all herself. 

What about the pain of Katherine Cadman? She signed up for coverage through Covered California, expecting to have access to doctors listed for her plan on the exchange. Instead, out of 41 doctors supposedly in her network and in her area, only four were taking new Covered California patients – and only one of those was board-certified. Julia Turner made a similar discovery after selecting her Covered California plan. The only doctors who will see the San Francisco resident are clinics in the high-crime East Oakland area.   

These are just the anecdotes from the last week.
Related: Obamacare Penalty - 4 Things You Don’t Know
The data looks even worse for the “don’t believe your own lying eyes” messaging strategy. When the initial rollout of Obamacare took place, the Obama administrations oft-repeated claim that the currently insured would be able to keep their plans went out the window, as insurers were forced to cancel insurance for five to six million people under now-forbidden coverage. To this day, the Obamacare exchanges have only had four million sign-ups, with as many as 20 percent of those failing to complete enrollments.
This week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that another 11 million people with coverage from small-business group plans will see their premiums rise as a result of the law – 65 percent of all those with such coverage.

That follows a rapid rise in small-business group plan premiums that coincides with the passage and implementation of Obamacare. The year before the bill passed (2009), the National Small Business Association found that the average cost for health insurance was $590 per employee. Four years later, that average more than doubled to $1,274 per employee – a far cry from the White House promise to “bend the cost curve downward” in health care.  

Related: Finally Doing Real Math on Obamacare Policies 

When costs increase again, as the CBO predicts, many of those small-business employers will simply opt to dump health-insurance coverage for their employees. The workers will have to fend for themselves in the individual markets that are inflicting pain on millions of Americans already. Since most small businesses won’t be required to provide coverage, the financial incentives will all be in favor of cutting their losses. 

That doesn’t take into account the tens of millions who will lose their current group insurance plans when the employer mandates come into full force, a development predicted not by Obamacare critics but by the HHS itself – nearly four years ago. “The department’s mid-range estimate is that 66 percent of small employer plans and 45 percent of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfather status by the end of 2013” – meaning those plans will be cancelled. 

Given the rapidly escalating costs for providing insurance, even the penalties for opting out of coverage for employees will not stop many from bailing out of group coverage. If so, many more will end up experiencing the same pain as Boonstra, Blackwood, Cadman, and Taylor. 

Harry Reid and the Democrats can keep ignoring that pain at their own electoral peril. It’s amazing how quickly they have gone from feeling our pain to causing it, and then trying to convince us that pain doesn’t actually hurt anyone. Not even Bill Clinton can sell that nonsense.

Reid hammered by GOP after claiming all ObamaCare 'horror stories' untrue

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is being hammered by Republican lawmakers after he claimed on the Senate floor that all the ObamaCare "horror stories" being circulated are untrue.
Reid tried to clarify his remarks late Wednesday by saying he was only referring to the “vast majority” of stories featured in ads funded by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group, and not the complaints of everyday Americans. However, he added fuel to the fire by continuing to slam the group’s backers, the Koch brothers, calling them “un-American.”
Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips, in response, said Reid had effectively "attacked the character and integrity of every American who had the courage to share how they're being hurt by the president's health care law."
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., called Reid's original remarks "astounding and offensive."
Reid said Wednesday morning on the Senate floor that he believes Americans for Prosperity hires actors in their ads to tell fake stories about canceled policies, higher premiums and ruined lives under ObamaCare.
“There’s plenty of horror stories being told,” Reid said. “All of them are untrue. But they’re being told all over America.”
It was an apparent reference to, among other instances, an AFP ad that featured a woman with cancer who claimed her health care became unaffordable under the law. Her story was called into question by critics, but she and AFP are standing by the ad.
The outcry over Reid's comments from Republican lawmakers was swift. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said he is demanding Reid apologize to those who have felt ill effects from ObamaCare.
“The majority leader, and any Democrat who agrees with him, owes an apology to all Americans who are suffering under this disastrous law and whose personal stories he has dismissed as ‘untrue,’” he said.
The communications director for Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., noted in a press release Blunt has taken it upon himself numerous times to read personal stories of ObamaCare’s negative impact on the Senate floor.
“A fair question for the Majority Leader’s office today: Does Harry Reid believe Missourians are making this up?” spokeswoman Amber Marchand said.
Reid in his speech urged Americans to focus on what he says are the true stories: stories of Americans whom the law has helped.

Employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs destroyed veterans’ medical files

Employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) destroyed veterans’ medical files in a systematic attempt to eliminate backlogged veteran medical exam requests, a former VA employee told The Daily Caller.
Audio of an internal VA meeting obtained by TheDC confirms that VA officials in Los Angeles intentionally canceled backlogged patient exam requests.
“The committee was called System Redesign and the purpose of the meeting was to figure out ways to correct the department’s efficiency. And one of the issues at the time was the backlog,” Oliver Mitchell, a Marine veteran and former patient services assistant in the VA Greater Los Angeles Medical Center, told TheDC.
“We just didn’t have the resources to conduct all of those exams. Basically we would get about 3,000 requests a month for [medical] exams, but in a 30-day period we only had the resources to do about 800. That rolls over to the next month and creates a backlog,” Mitchell said. ”It’s a numbers thing. The waiting list counts against the hospitals efficiency. The longer the veteran waits for an exam that counts against the hospital as far as productivity is concerned.”
By 2008, some patients were “waiting six to nine months for an exam” and VA “didn’t know how to address the issue,” Mitchell said.
VA Greater Los Angeles Radiology department chief Dr. Suzie El-Saden initiated an “ongoing discussion in the department” to cancel exam requests and destroy veterans’ medical files so that no record of the exam requests would exist, thus reducing the backlog, Mitchell said.
Audio from a November 2008 meeting obtained by TheDC depicts VA Greater Los Angeles officials plotting to cancel backlogged exam requests.
“I’m still canceling orders from 2001,” said a male official in the meeting.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/24/va-employees-destroyed-veterans-medical-records-to-cancel-backlogged-exam-requests-audio/#ixzz2uQL6IqsY

Holder gives nod to state AGs to drop defense of gay marriage bans amid court challenges

Attorney General Eric Holder has given the nod to his state counterparts that they do not have to defend laws against constitutional court challenges if they consider them discriminatory -- effectively giving the green light for states to stop defending bans on gay marriage.
Holder addressed the issue during a gathering of state attorneys general on Tuesday, after detailing his position in a New York Times interview.
Speaking to the National Association of Attorneys General, Holder said that any decision not to defend individual laws in court must be "exceedingly rare" and reserved for "exceptional circumstances." He indicated that legal challenges to gay marriage bans would qualify as such a circumstance.
"In general, I believe that we must be suspicious of legal classifications based solely on sexual orientation," he said.
His remarks, while already generating backlash from conservatives, could fuel a wave of legal challenges at the state level. In the wake of the federal Defense of Marriage Act being struck down by the Supreme Court last year, several Democratic state attorneys general have taken the unusual step of abandoning their defense of state gay marriage bans.
Among the most recent is Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, who stood by as a U.S. District Court ruled against his state's prohibition on same-sex marriage. However, his office said Monday that it would appeal that ruling -- in the interest of expediting the appeals process.
The U.S. attorney general's comments could encourage other state officials to follow in Herring's footsteps.
Members of the Republican Attorneys General Association blasted Holder's remarks in a statement Tuesday afternoon.  
"A state attorney general has a solemn duty to the state and its people to defend state laws and constitutional provisions against challenge under federal law. To refuse to do so because of personal policy preferences or political pressure erodes the rule of law on which all of our freedoms are founded. A government that does not enforce the law equally will lead our society to disrespect the rule of law," Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange said.
Holder, in the Times interview, reportedly said that attorneys general should apply a high level of scrutiny on whether to defend a state law when constitutional issues are at stake.
"Engaging in that process and making that determination is something that's appropriate for an attorney general to do," Holder said.
He added, in reference to the Brown v. Board of Education case challenging school segregation: "If I were attorney general in Kansas in 1953, I would not have defended a Kansas statute that put in place separate-but-equal facilities."
A half-dozen Democratic state attorneys general have abandoned their defense of same-sex marriage bans.
But some Republican officials and gay marriage foes have sharply criticized this approach.
After Oregon's attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum, decided not to defend such a marriage amendment, National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown called the move shameful.
"She swore an oath of office that she would enforce all the laws, not just those she personally agrees with. The people are entitled to a vigorous defense of the laws they enact, and the marriage amendment is no exception to that solemn obligation," he said in a statement.
As for Holder's comments, Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, disputed Holder's guidance and said in a statement following the speech that "state attorneys general are obligated to defend state marriage laws."
He added: "It's unfortunate and outrageous that Attorney General Holder doesn't understand that, but it's hardly surprising."
In Virginia, the federal court case could have major implications for similar laws throughout the southeast.
Adam Umhoefer, executive director of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, urged the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the lower-court decision.
"Loving gay and lesbian couples and their families should not have to live one more day as second-class citizens under unjust laws," he said in a statement.

Labor unions upset with Obama's plan for 1 percent federal worker pay hike

Federal labor unions are crying foul over President Obama's proposal to raise federal employee pay by 1 percent next year, arguing the increase is inadequate.
David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the nation's largest federal employee union, said Monday that the 1 percent increase is "pitiful" and fails to compensate for sacrifice by government workers.
“Federal employees have endured years of pay freezes and cuts in retirement benefits,” Cox said in a statement. “Federal employees deserve a meaningful pay raise, not a token increase that will be more than eaten up by rising living costs, including higher retirement and healthcare costs.”
The increase would mark the second year in a row that civilian federal workers would get a 1 percent hike after three straight years of pay freezes. Pay went up in January. The Pentagon said military pay would go up by 1 percent as well.
Obama actually sets the pay increase by presidential order but his budget, which comes out on March 4, sets aside the money for it.
Union leaders argue the planned increase is not enough to compensate for recent hardships endured by federal workers, who will see an estimated $120 billion in lower wages and benefits during the next decade due to the pay freezes, according to the American Federation of Government Employees.
"A 1 percent pay raise for federal employees who have seen more austerity than anyone else is pitiful. It’s time for the country to invest in all its workers, including the dedicated federal employees who protect and serve the American people,” Cox said.
Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said a 3.3 percent increase is "fair and reasonable," and said union members would make their case before Congress this week, The Washington Post reported.
“I strongly believe that federal employees deserve more, and this amount is inadequate,” Kelley told the newspaper. "There is no question in my mind that inadequate raises will have consequences on recruitment and retention.”
An Obama administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Post the budget would include "other measures important to ensuring that federal employees are fairly compensated and have the training and tools needed to succeed."
The official said the increase for federal workers "reflects the tight budget constraints we continue to face" and "recognizes the sacrifices they have already made through prior pay freezes, reductions in awards and furloughs due to sequestration last year."
Obama recently signed an executive action increasing the hourly minimum wage for federal contractors from $7.25 per to $10.10 in an effort to spur Congress to take up a bill to raise the federal minimum wage by the same amount, over two years.

Proposed budget will reportedly shrink Army to pre-WWII numbers

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will reportedly propose a Pentagon budget that will shrink the U.S. Army to its smallest number since 1940 and eliminate an entire class of Air Force attack jets. 
The New York Times reported late Sunday that Hagel's proposal, which will be released to lawmakers and the public on Monday, will call for a reduction in size of the military that will leave it capable of waging war, but unable to carry out protracted occupations of foreign territory, as in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Under Hagel's plan, the number of troops in the Army will drop to between 440,000 and 450,000, a reduction of at least 120,000 soldiers from its post-Sept.11 peak.
Officials told the Times that Hagel's plan has been endorsed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and protects funding for Special Operations forces and cyberwarfare. It also calls for the Navy to maintain all eleven of its aircraft carriers currently in operation. However, the budget proposal mandates the elimination of the entire fleet of Air Force A-10 attack aircraft, as well as the retiring of the U-2 spy plane, a stalwart of Cold War operations.
The budget plan does keep money for the F-35 warplane, a project which has been beset by delays and criticism over design flaws.
Other characteristics of the budget will likely draw further ire from veterans groups and members of Congress. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Hagel would recommend a limit on military pay raises, higher fees for health-care benefits, less generous housing allowances, and a one-year freeze on raises for top military brass.
"Personnel costs reflect some 50% of the Pentagon budget and cannot be exempted in the context of the significant cuts the department is facing," Defense Department spokesman Adm. John Kirby told the Journal. "Secretary Hagel has been clear that, while we do not want to, we ultimately must slow the growth of military pay and compensation."
"This is a real uphill battle with Congress," Mieke Eoyang, director of the National Security Program at Third Way, a centrist think tank in Washington, told the Journal
"God bless [Hagel] for trying to get a handle on these costs," she said. "But in this political environment, in an election year, it's going to be hard for members of Congress to accept anything that's viewed as taking benefits away from troops."

Rice acknowledges some of her Benghazi info was incorrect but has no regrets

National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Sunday she has no regrets over what she told the American public about the 2012 Benghazi terror attacks in the immediate aftermath of the deadly strikes.
Rice did a round of Sunday TV interviews a few days after the attacks, in which some of the information she gave was later proven incorrect.
“What I said to you that morning, and what I did every day since, was to share the best information that we had at the time,” Rice told NBC's “Meet the Press” moderator David Gregory on Sunday. “The information I provided … was what we had at the moment.”
Rice said “No,” when Gregory asked whether she had any regrets about her statements.
She also said nobody in the administration intended to mislead the public but acknowledged some of her information was inaccurate.
“That information turned out, in some respects, not to be 100 percent correct," Rice said. "But the notion that somehow I or anybody else in the administration misled the American people is patently false. And I think that that's been amply demonstrated."
She was, at the time, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a top candidate to become secretary of state.
However, Rice withdrew herself from consideration in the wake of the attacks on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, after the firestorm of criticism she received for her response.
Rice said Sunday she didn’t know whether her responses killed her chances of getting the top U.S. diplomatic post.
“I don’t know,” she said. “What I do know is that I [now] have a great job.”
Four Americans were killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The other three killed were State Department information management officer Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
Rice said the Benghazi attacks appeared to be a "spontaneous reaction” to an anti-Islamic video on the Internet.
The administration later said the attacks appeared pre-planned, but exactly who and what started them remains unclear, despite several investigations.

Kerry sees Russia, China agreeing on UN resolution on Syria as possible turning point

Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday hailed the U.N. Security Council uniting for the first time on a resolution regarding Syria's humanitarian crisis, calling it a potential “hinge-point” in ending that country’s deadly, 3-year-long civil war.
The agreement calls for Syrian President Bashar Assad's government and opposition forces to provide immediate access across the country to humanitarian aid for all Syrians.
“This could be a hinge-point in the tortured three years of a Syria crisis bereft of hope,” Kerry said. “After three years of slaughter and savagery, people rightfully will question whether progress is possible, but this resolution holds the promise of something real.”
Still, Kerry warned that such an agreement is only the first steps toward ending the international crisis in which hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions forced from Syria and into refugee camps.
“The test is whether the words of the Security Council are matched with the life-saving actions the Syrian people so desperately and urgently need,” he said.
The breakthrough this weekend came when Russia, Syria's closest ally, and China, another supporter, agreed with the Western and Arab-backed resolution.
After two weeks of negotiations and a watering-down of the original text, the two countries decided to join the rest of the 15-member council in sending a strong message, especially to the Assad government, that food, medicine and other essentials must not be blocked to civilians caught in the conflict.
Strong evidence suggests Assad troops killed hundreds Aug. 21 in a chemical weapons attack on rebels in suburb Damascus.
According to the United Nations, 9.3 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance and 6.8 million have fled their homes but remain in the country.
The resolution does not threaten sanctions -- Russia insisted that this reference be dropped from the original text. Instead, it asks U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to report to the council every 30 days on implementation and expresses the council's intention to take "further steps" if the resolution's demands aren't fulfilled.
All Security Council resolutions are legally binding, but what remains to be seen is whether this resolution has an impact on the ground, especially since it doesn't have real "teeth."
The resolution demands that all parties, especially the Syrian government, "promptly allow rapid, safe and unhindered access ... across conflict lines and across borders" for humanitarian aid, and it calls on both sides "to immediately lift the sieges of populated areas."
It demands that all parties "cease depriving civilians of food and medicine indispensable to their survival." It also demands a halt to all attacks against civilians, including indiscriminate shelling and aerial attacks using barrel bombs in populated areas.
Russia and China had vetoed three previous resolutions backed by Western nations that would have pressured Assad to end the conflict, which according to activists has killed more than 136,000 people.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Moscow supported the humanitarian resolution because "many Russian considerations were borne in mind, and as a result the document took on a balanced nature."
He accused the resolution's sponsors -- Australia, Luxembourg and Jordan -- and its supporters of raising the humanitarian crisis in the council "only after it became clear that attempts to use a deterioration of this humanitarian situation in order to carry out a regime change was unsuccessful."
China's U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi strongly urged all parties to implement the resolution "in good faith."
"China is gravely concerned at the worsening humanitarian situation in Syria," he said. "We deeply sympathize with people and we hope to see an early and prompt amelioration of the situation in Syria."
Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari Syria told the council that since the beginning of the crisis "the Syrian government was keen to improve the humanitarian situation of the people" and "it has continued to work day and night in order to perform all the humanitarian needs of its citizens."
Ja'afari added that the Syrian government is providing 75 percent of the humanitarian assistance in the country while the U.N. and other organizations have supplied only 25 percent. He accused some unnamed countries of politicizing the delivery of humanitarian aid, misleading international public opinion, and refusing to provide ambulances and wheelchairs for people with special needs.
The main Western-backed Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, welcomed the resolution saying the international community should guarantee "full implementation."
The Security Council came together in October to approve a weaker presidential statement on the worsening humanitarian crisis.
The resolution also focuses on strongly condemns the increased terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda and its affiliates and other terrorist groups, calls on the government and opposition to defeat the terrorists, and "demands that all foreign fighters immediately withdraw from Syria."
Churkin said Russia will ask the council to quickly move to discuss a draft document on combating terrorism in Syria.
The resolution also demands that the government and opposition work toward "a genuine political transition that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people and enables them independently and democratically to determine their own future."

More IRS trouble as agency complains about resources

The latest trouble for the Internal Revenue Service has emerged from a Treasury Inspector General report, which reveals some senior IRS executives should have paid taxes on expenses they ran up for out-of- town travel.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is furious.
"Here were the top people doing what no other citizen can do,” Jordan told Fox. “You underreport income, you don't pay your taxes, you can't get away with it. And yet the very people who run the IRS were doing just that."
The IRS issued a statement saying, "Cutting costs is a top priority, and the IRS has put in place a number of steps to reduce expenses involving executive travel. The IRS agreed with (the Inspector General report’s) recommendations and has put in place new steps to prevent future issues in this area."
Meanwhile, the IRS has been complaining about a lack of resources.
The Obama administration sought $13 billion for the 2014 IRS budget, but Congress slashed it to $11.3 billion.
The number of audits, which generate revenue, has dropped, with less than 1% now facing extra scrutiny.
New IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told lawmakers earlier this month the lack of funding is having an impact on service to the taxpayers.
"I can guarantee you, that we would answer more calls, if we had more people. I can guarantee you we don't have the people because we don't have the funding," Koskinen told members of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight.
And now the agency is working on implementing ObamaCare.
"Those are very significant duties for the service, and in an era of tightened resources, frankly, everything else gets squeezed,” former IRS Commissioner Mark Everson told Fox.
"That's going to be a very daunting moment for them, let alone the enforcement mechanisms, so that's going to be… navigating that is going to be very delicate for the service. Particularly of the fact that this law is so, well, it's so controversial," said Everson.
"Now they're going to have a greater role in ObamaCare?” Jordan asked. “With a website that's not secure and all the problems we've already seen with this, with this legislation? Certainly doesn't instill a lot of confidence in the minds of taxpayers and citizens across the country."

'Windfalls of war': Companies with spotty records making billions off Afghanistan

The United States government has paid a company based in Switzerland more than $5 billion to feed the troops in Afghanistan, and thanks to a succession of no-bid contract extensions, the company, Supreme Foodservice, overcharged American taxpayers as much as $757 million, officials say.
The U.S. has appropriated more than $100 billion for Afghan reconstruction, which includes not only building and development, but training and arming the Afghan security forces -- and the dispute over the massive payments to this single company is just one example of how, more than 12 years into the war, America is struggling to account for how its money has been spent.
So who's getting rich off the war?
A review conducted by FoxNews.com shows several companies with questionable track records have been able to snag a sizable piece of the pie.
While Supreme Foodservice, a foreign firm, has profited immensely, several American companies have also made out like kings despite delays, accusations of shoddy construction and prolonged contract disputes over the last dozen years.
The biggest American benefactors of contracts in Afghanistan in recent years have been DynCorp International, KBR and Fluor Corporation -- though Fluor has not faced complaints like the other two.
Critics say no-bid contracts -- which grant companies a monopoly on huge deals without having to compete for them -- and a lack of oversight on those contracts once they've been awarded have contributed not only to the enormous sums spent, but to waste, fraud and abuse, as well.
"This is the byproduct of what has been an explosive growth in federal contracting over the last decade or so," said Neil Gordon, an investigator for the Washington, D.C.-based Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and the manager of the watchdog's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database.
"Contracting has grown at an incredible pace -- especially after 9/11. The terror attacks really touched it off, especially in national security, and unfortunately, government oversight of that contracting hasn't kept pace. That's why we are seeing all of these problems of fraud and waste and other abuses."
The Center for Public Integrity has called the billions of dollars poured into the reconstruction of Afghanistan "windfalls of war" for contractors. Lawmakers have referred to the myriad reports that point to the billions of dollars in missing and misappropriated American funds as the failure and shame of a broken system.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing last April in the case of Supreme Foodservice, whose initial 2005 contract, reportedly worth about $725 million, called for supplying food and water to troops. The Defense Logistics Agency accused the company of overbilling by $757 million, and later recouped some of the money by reducing other payments. But lawmakers complained that the agency, which is in charge of overseeing the contracts, allowed the company to get no-bid extensions worth billions before it questioned the alleged overcharges.
Amid the dispute, the U.S. government in 2012 awarded new contracts worth roughly $8 billion to a competitor, Dubai-based Anham FZCO. But even as Supreme Foodservice challenged the decision, the Pentagon reportedly struck a $1.5 billion deal with the Swiss company to continue its work during the transition.
Supreme Foodservice, for its part, says it is still owed another billion dollars. Michael Schuster, a managing director at Supreme Foodservice, testified, "despite operating in the most isolating and dangerous area of the world, we have achieved consistently outstanding performance, exceeding contractual requirements."
"This has to be the prime poster child for government contracts spun out of control," Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., said at the April 17 hearing.
As for DynCorp, KBR and Fluor, all three American companies were named prime contractors in LOGCAP IV (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program), the umbrella contract through which all military funding for Afghan reconstruction (except Afghan security training) flows. According to the contract announcement in 2009, "each of the three contracts has a maximum value of up to $5 billion per year." Since then, however, KBR has not continued to receive Afghanistan contracts under the agreement, reportedly because of its checkered oversight and performance in prior LOGCAP contracts.
Meanwhile, DynCorp and Fluor currently hold multibillion-dollar contracts in and out of LOGCAP IV, ranging from Afghan security training to delivering food and services to the troops.
John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), has spent several years tracking where taxpayer money is going, whether projects are followed through, and how contractors and individuals are allegedly trying to cheat the system. The results aren't pretty, as the now-defunct congressional Commission on Wartime Contracting learned. It noted that in 2011, $31 billion had already been lost to "contract waste and fraud" in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
FoxNews.com, in a review of recent SIGAR investigations, found several examples, including:
DynCorp accused of shoddy construction, overbilling for food
DynCorp is a big target, because, as POGO points out, it's been around since the war in Bosnia and has left a trail of criminal complaints and other contract-related charges along the way. In October 2012 SIGAR filed a report charging that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had paid DynCorp $73 million for building a police garrison in Afghanistan's Kunduz province that turned out to have "severe settling and site grading issues," as well as "inadequate construction quality and noncompliance with contract specifications."
The result was a safety nightmare, with parts of the building already cracking and falling into sinkholes. According to SIGAR, DynCorp was not held accountable for the problems or for the repairs that needed to be made. It got the money, and the contract was closed out.
Meanwhile, SIGAR calculated that DynCorp might have overcharged the government nearly $1 million for food at just one base between 2010 and 2011. And the company's longtime security training of Afghan police was called into question after a scathing 2010 military report found a gross lack of oversight in the State Department-directed program, citing unaccounted-for funds, potential overcharging and missing weapons inventories.
While the report did not criticize DynCorp directly, Pratap Chatterjee, an investigator for the research group CorpWatch, noted at the time that DynCorp was the primary police trainer in Afghanistan since the early days of the war. In fact, DynCorp won another contract with the military after police training shifted from the State Department to the Pentagon.
"If the measures that are used to track the capabilities of the Afghan police are any guide, the contract has not been a resounding success," Chatterjee wrote.
DynCorp has continued to get police and military training contracts worth millions.
When contacted for comment, DynCorp spokeswoman Ashley Burke said the company billed the government for food "consistent with its proposal" and the IG report on the matter was not "factual." She also disputed the Kunduz garrison charges, saying the report was based on conditions at the facility after the contractor had turned it over to the Afghans who were responsible for its maintenance.
"The Company did everything possible -- including providing work at no cost to the government -- to deliver in challenging and unusual circumstances," she said in an email.
Meanwhile, KBR continues to hold contracts with the U.S. government for projects in Iraq and elsewhere. But spokesman Mark Lowes noted that the Army's review of its work gave the company far better ratings than did inspector general reports.
"So I think there's a little bit of disconnect between the Army in the field and civilians reviewers a decade later," he said. Lowes added: "If you were able to talk to people on the round (in Iraq) and ask them about the quality of what we did I believe you will get nothing but stellar reviews."
Unsafe hospitals and schools 
Many of SIGAR's recent audits involve international contractors. The stories are generally the same -- millions in taxpayer money is appropriated and all it seems to buy is shoddy, unfinished, unsanitary and unsafe construction. Record-keeping is horrendous and oversight is scarce. Many of the projects are expected to rot where they stand if there isn't money for adequate repairs or the ability to maintain them.
This includes four border police stations that were found to have serious structural and utility flaws and remain essentially unoccupied after four years, according to a SIGAR report issued in July 2012. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $19 million contract to Afghan-based Road & Roof Construction Company in 2008, and according to the inspection report, a lack of quality control has led to construction deficiencies at the four bases. One is said to be close to "uninhabitable."
Meanwhile, the Shafi Hakimi Construction Company, an Afghan outfit, was paid $600,000 to build a 20-bed hospital in Parwan province. When it was finished, SIGAR said, it had so many utility and structural issues that it was a health hazard to patients, including newborn babies who were being washed with dirty water.
Similarly, a multi-building education center in Balkh commissioned by the USAID office is still unfinished after five years, and is plagued with health and safety problems.
According to an inspector general review, Mercury Development, an Iraq-based company, was awarded $2.9 million to build centers in three cities. The company was cited for numerous problems and was eventually dropped from the project. Afghan contractors were brought in to finish the job, but the structural deficiencies persisted.
Despite that, some classes are being taught at Balkh, leading Sopko to say ominously in his report last month, "USAID lacks adequate assurance that these structures will not collapse at some point in time."
Taxpayers bought multimillion-dollar 'scrap' 
In 2009, the U.S. military gave $5.4 million to Denver-based International Home Finance & Development, LCC, to build and operate two massive trash incinerators on one of its forward operating bases in Afghanistan.
But the machines remained inoperable after nearly three years because of construction and safety deficiencies and poor contractor performance, according to a report two months ago. After Camp Sharana was closed last year due to the impending U.S. troop withdrawal, no one really knows what happened to the incinerators, though one official guessed in a recent report, "they have already been deconstructed by the Afghans, presumably for scrap."
More than taxpayer money was at stake here. The incinerators were supposed to replace the massive open-air burn pits that many returning troops have blamed for chronic health problems. In his sharply worded report Sopko said that because the incinerators never ran, "base personnel faced continued exposure to potentially hazardous emissions, and $5.4 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars could have been put to better use."
International Home Finance & Development, LCC, was paid in full. When asked for comment, Rafaat Ludin, the company's president and CEO, disputed that the incinerators were never in working order and claimed the delays were not his company's fault.
"At the time of [the] hand over, the incinerators were working very well and there were no additional issues," Ludin said in a statement. "What happened to the incinerators after we left is outside our control."

Biden

Judge strikes down Nebraska law that allowed Keystone pipeline to proceed through state

A Nebraska judge on Wednesday struck down a law that allowed the Keystone XL pipeline to proceed through the state, a setback for the project that would carry oil from Canada to Texas refineries.
Lancaster County Judge Stephanie Stacy issued a ruling that invalidated Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman's approval of the route. Stacy agreed with opponents' arguments that a law passed in 2011 improperly allowed Heineman to give TransCanada eminent domain powers within the state. Stacy said the decision should have been made by the Nebraska Public Service Commission, which regulates pipelines and other utilities.
Heineman said Wednesday that state Attorney General Jon Bruning is appealing the ruling.
The ruling could cause more delays in finishing the pipeline. State officials who defended the law are likely to appeal to the Nebraska Supreme Court. Nebraska lawmakers may have to pass a new pipeline-sitting law to allow the Public Service Commission to act.
If they do, it's not yet clear how long the five-member PSC might take on the issue or whether it would approve the pipeline. Staff members were still reviewing the ruling Wednesday, said Angela Melton, the commission's attorney.
A spokesman for pipeline developer TransCanada said company officials were disappointed and disagreed with the decision, which came in a lawsuit filed by three Nebraska landowners who oppose the pipeline. The company planned to review the ruling before deciding how to proceed.
"TransCanada continues to believe strongly in Keystone XL and the benefits it would provide to Americans — thousands of jobs and a secure supply of crude oil from a trusted neighbor in Canada," said spokesman Shawn Howard.
Dave Domina, the landowners' attorney, said in a statement that the ruling means TransCanada has "no approved route in Nebraska."
"TransCanada is not authorized to condemn the property against Nebraska landowners. The pipeline project is at standstill in this state," he said.
The Keystone XL would carry 830,000 barrels of oil daily from Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries. In its latest environmental analysis, the U.S. State Department raised no major environmental objections to the $7 billion pipeline. Opponents disagree, saying the pipeline threatens ground- and surface water and would disrupt soil in the Nebraska Sandhills, a region of grass-covered dunes used as ranchland.
The Nebraska Legislature in 2011 gave Heineman the ability to approve the route after landowners complained that the pipeline posed a threat to the Sandhills. Heineman approved a new route that went around an area designated as the Sandhills, although opponents insist it still traverses the delicate soil.
Domina said the ruling means that the governor's office has no role to play in the pipeline, and decisions within the state must be made by the Public Service Commission. The commission was created in 1890s to prevent governors from granting political favors to railroad executives who wanted to expand through private property.
The decision on a federal permit still rests with President Obama.
Pipeline opponents called Wednesday's ruling a victory for landowners.
"TransCanada learned a hard lesson today: Never underestimate the power of family farmers and ranchers protecting their land and water," said Jane Kleeb, executive director of the anti-pipeline group Bold Nebraska.

House Republicans sign on to measure to stop presidential overreach

As President Obama's critics grow increasingly concerned about his use of executive power, they're also examining their options. 
In the House, more than 100 Republican members have signed on to the Stop This Overreaching President (STOP) Resolution. In it, Rep. Tom Rice, R-SC, lays out the ways in which he believes the president has violated his Article 2, Section 3 constitutional duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."
Rice points to the president's unilateral modifications to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), welfare-to-work requirements and immigration laws. 
If a majority of House members support the STOP resolution, it would authorize a civil lawsuit against Obama.  In the past, members have had a tough time launching lawsuits against a sitting president. 
Former Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio tried to sue both President George W. Bush and Obama. Both times, a federal judge turned away his lawsuits.
Georgetown University law professor Nicholas Rosenkranz has doubts that the current effort will be successful, but grasps the motivation.  "I quite understand their frustration," he says, adding, "The president has taken a lot of actions that seem a bit more like writing law or rewriting law - rather than taking care that it be faithfully executed." 
Rosenkranz says another tool could be more effective for Congress: the power of the purse. He notes that it gives members a great deal of leverage when they're united.
It's a tactic Sen.Mike Lee, R-Utah, is publicly floating. "James Madison talked about this and said when the president abuses his power, the best thing Congress can do is withhold funding for the president, so the president can't continue to hurt the American people," he said.
There is yet another option which few are willing to publicly discuss. "A check on executive lawlessness is impeachment," Rosenkranz said in a House hearing last December. Kucinich says the maneuver should be reserved for only "the most extraordinary circumstances," but admits "it's in the Constitution as a check against the abuse of power."
Even some of Obama's own one-time supporters say he would be wise to remember his words from the 2008 campaign trail.  On March 31, 2008, then-Senator Obama told a crowd at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, "I take the Constitution very seriously." 
He went on to say that one of the country's biggest problems was the use of executive power by then-President Bush, adding, "That's what I intend to reverse when I'm president of the United States of America."

Report: Hawaii ranks worst for ObamaCare signups

Hawaii has the lowest number in the nation of enrollments through its ObamaCare exchange, Hawaii Health Connector, according to a Feb. 12 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report.
“That’s horrible,” said state Rep. Bob McDermott.
Just 3,614 people enrolled in the state’s exchange, but the report does not disclose how many of those who registered also paid for their health care policies.
McDermott, who serves on the House Consumer Protection Committee, is one of several state lawmakers considering at least seven bills to “reform” the exchange, and launch a state government take over the nonprofit at a cost of $15 million a year.
The Puunui Republican said he sees are “dollar signs spinning in his head.”