Congress launching hearings on complaints businesses targeted by 'Operation Choke Point'

A controversial federal law enforcement program that critics say targeted businesses the Obama administration didn't like is about to face a new wave of congressional scrutiny, with Capitol Hill hearings set to begin Tuesday. 
Under the program, called Operation Choke Point, banks and other financial institutions were reportedly pressured to cut off accounts for targeted businesses. This included gun stores, casinos, tobacco distributors, short-term lenders and other businesses.
Critics claim the program -- overseen by the Justice Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and other agencies -- was used to squeeze legal companies that some politicians considered morally objectionable.
"Our concern is you have agencies in the Obama administration that are using government as a weapon and they going after industries and people that they don't like," said Republican Rep. Sean Duffy, who co-chairs the Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. "This is not the old Soviet Union or Venezuela or Cuba. I think it's important for all Americans to stand up and push back on policies that are an abuse of government."
The subcommittee hearings are expected to begin midday Tuesday. More may be scheduled in the future.
Brennan Appel, owner of Global Hookah Distributors, said he realized he was a victim of Operation Choke Point after he got a letter from Bank of America telling him that after 12 years of working together, it was closing all his business and personal accounts.
"I thought that it had to be a mistake," he said. "How could something like this happen when you've been with a bank since 2002 and you've had such a great relationship? With no explanation as to what you did wrong, you can only make assumptions. I'm running a legal business. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm following the laws so why are my accounts being closed like this for absolutely, in my opinion, no reason?" Appel said.
Appel said a few months later, his payment-processing company also dropped him. "I started this business when I was 18 years old, funded my way through college with it and have continued on growing the company into what it is today. And I feel like, why do you get punished when you are growing a company?"
Appel began recording his conversations with Alex Bacon, the president of EFT which was his payment processor. He wanted to prove he was the target of Operation Choke Point.
An excerpt from one conversation showed the program being specifically mentioned:

Bacon:  "Have you heard of a little thing, you know, called Chokepoint, you know the CFPB?" 

Appel : "Yes ... yes." 

Bacon : "They're taking aim at industries like you and others to eliminate you from business by choking off your payment processing."

Another conversation seems to underscore the fear among the financial industry (financial institutions reportedly were told they would face increased audits and scrutiny if they kept accounts for targeted businesses):

Bacon: "I'm an independent, third-party payment processor, and I, I, I act at the will and directive of my processing bank. If my processing bank says, 'no, you can't do this,' there's nothing I can do." 

Appel: "Yeah." 

Bacon: "There's literally nothing I can do." 

Appel: "And they're the one that's getting forced ..." 

Bacon: "Well, they're the ones that are on the front line, they're the ones that uh, that the Chokepoint people are going after." 

Appel: "Yeah, because they probably tell them, if you don't do this, we're going to make your life ..." 

Bacon: "We're going to make your life miserable. Instead of auditing you once a year, we're going to audit you four times a year, and then we're going to come in and look at all of this and then if we find anything negative, we're going to write it up and then you're going to incur increased costs, increased uh focus with your board of directors, and from other banking regulators. And they all run scared because they're all sheep." 

Appel turned the recordings over to the U.S. Consumer Coalition, which has taken on the Operation Choke Point issue. The coalition, which is not a government entity, began working with members of Congress on it.
Several members of Congress have openly called Operation Choke Point a blatant abuse of power, and an example of government bureaucrats appointing themselves morality police so they could operate around the law.
Duffy and other lawmakers plan to question FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg about Operation Choke Point and its intention.
In response to the controversy, the FDIC put out a statement which said in part: "It is the FDIC's policy that insured institutions that properly manage customer relationships are neither prohibited nor discouraged from providing services to any customer operating in compliance with applicable law ... the FDIC has a responsibility to cooperate with other government agencies and to ensure that the banks we supervise are adhering to laws, including those governing anti-money laundering and terrorist financing."
Initially, the FDIC put out a list of 30 high-risk businesses, but that list has since been rescinded.
The U.S. Consumer Coalition claimed taking down that list only removed a guideline, and without a specific list of businesses, the subjectivity of who gets targeted was increased.
Brian Wise, with the U.S. Consumer Coalition, points out the irony. "By shutting down the bank accounts of these legally operating businesses, what they're actually doing is forcing these businesses to deal solely in cash, which is completely opposite of what they have said their intention is," he said. "It's a whole lot easier to launder money with cash than having to go through a financial institution."
Wise said questioning the chairman of the FDIC is a good start, but the problem doesn't end there. "We know that it doesn't just stop with the FDIC. This is a program that includes the CFPB, FDIC, Department of Justice and may lead all the way up to the president," he said.
Appel has found a new bank to handle his businesses for now, but has opened several backup accounts in case his new bank drops him as well.  

Seattle restaurant industry warns of fallout as $15 minimum wage nears

Seattle restaurants are warning that the looming hike in the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour could soon force them to cut back their staffs and raise prices. 
For an industry with a slim profit margin to start with, the wage hike could have a profound effect, even as supporters say it will benefit the economy in the long run.
The increase, up from $9.32 an hour, is set to be phased in starting April 1. The initial minimum wage will be $11 an hour. Employers with 500 or fewer workers must increase their pay to $15 an hour by January 2019. Larger employers, having 501 or more workers, have just two years to raise their worker compensation to $15.
Many owners are concerned over what the changes will mean for business.
“It will be difficult to staff the front of the house as well as we have before,” Brendan McGill, the chef and owner of the Hitchcock Restaurant Group, told FoxNews.com.
Although McGill supports the minimum wage increase, he noted that, “less people will be fighting over each other to fill up your water.”
The Seattle Restaurant Alliance worked with a mayoral task force from the beginning in an attempt to find a compromise benefiting both restaurants and workers, Anthony Anton, CEO of the Washington Restaurant Association, told FoxNews.com. However, his association did not support the final outcome and is now warning about the impact.
The looming wage hike ensures the model for how local restaurants operate is going to change. It used to be that 36 percent of profits go to labor, with 30 percent for food and 30 percent for any other expenses. This leaves about a 4 percent profit margin for most restaurants. With such a big wage hike, restaurant owners are looking for new ways to keep that profit. This means looking at raising prices, having fewer employees, using automated ordering systems, changing tipping models, and more, Anton said.
“It won’t be one thing. This is too big a change to have a silver bullet,” Anton said.
In a survey conducted in 2014 by the Washington Restaurant Association, the top four responses of what restaurants predict they would have to do were: raise prices, lay off employees, reduce employee hours or close their business entirely.
Anton predicts the Seattle restaurant industry may experiment heavily with the newer automated ordering systems as well, but it is still too early to tell what will ultimately work.
The 15Now movement, however, is in full support of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Ty Moore, the 15Now national organizer, told FoxNews.com that “15Now had a central role in initiating and organizing the grassroots pressure campaign in Seattle.”
The movement really took off in Seattle after the 2013 campaign and election of Kshama Sawant to the Seattle City Council as a “socialist alternative” candidate. 15Now’s prediction, according to Moore, is that any job losses that do happen will be more than compensated for by job gains because they are putting more wages in workers’ pockets. These sorts of changes were seen in San Francisco where they led the way in city-wide wage increases, according to Moore.
When asked if 15Now thinks the new increase could negatively affect small businesses, Moore pointed to the provision where smaller businesses have two extra years to increase their wage to $15 for each employee.
In September, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray proposed a new division of the Seattle Office of Civil Rights -- called the Office of Labor Standards – to focus on educating the community about new requirements including the minimum wage rules, paid sick leave and other worker policies. A senior policy analyst told FoxNews.com that the Seattle Office for Civil Rights has been receiving hundreds of calls from employers in the Seattle area who are eager to comply and learn more about the wage increase ordinance.

Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)

Iran Cartoon

McCain to Obama: 'Get over your temper tantrum, Mr. President' and focus on ISIS

Sen. John McCain said Sunday that President Obama is letting his personal issues with newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affect his decision-making and shared policy goals.
“It’s time that we work together with our Israeli friends and try to stem the tide of ISIS and Iranian movement throughout the region, which is threatening the very fabric of the region,” McCain, R-Ariz.,  said on CNN's “State of the Union.”
During the interview, McCain called out Obama and told him: “Get over your temper tantrum, Mr. President.”
McCain went on to admonish the administration’s Middle East policies and said Obama’s priorities are “so screwed up that it’s unbelievable.” He added that he was “convinced” Obama was letting his personal feelings get in the way.
McCain added that Israel is the only nation in the region “where there was a free and fair democratic election” and told and said “the least of your problems is what Bibi Netanyahu said during an election campaign.”
McCain added that “Bibi’s rhetoric concerning an election campaign pales in comparison to the direct threat to the United States of America of ISIS.
“But the point is, is the J.V., as the president described them, is just moving over into Yemen.  We see this horrible situation in Libya.  We see ISIS everywhere in the world,” he said.
Democratic Rep. Steve Israel, also a guest on the show, suggested everyone drop the drama and get back to the fundamentals.
“What counts is, are we providing Israel with the critical security equipment technology that they need? And on that, we are,” he said.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said Sunday that the new Israeli government will have to serve "all the citizens of Israel," and called for the country to begin a "healing process" after a stormy election campaign that highlighted deep internal divisions.
In a last-ditch attempt to spur his supporters to the polls last week, Netanyahu warned that Arab citizens were voting "in droves" and endangering years of rule by his right-wing Likud Party. The comments drew accusations of racism from Israeli Arabs and a White House rebuke.
Alluding to the uproar, Rivlin told Likud representatives that the emerging government will have to serve "all the citizens of Israel, Jews and Arabs."

Battle flag at center of Supreme Court free speech case

Texas commemorates the Confederacy in many ways, from an annual celebration of Confederate Heroes Day each January to monuments on the grounds of the state Capitol in Austin. Among the memorials is one that has stood for more than a century, bearing an image of the Confederate battle flag etched in marble.
But you're out of luck if you want to put that flag on your license plate. Texas says that would be offensive.
Now the Supreme Court will decide whether the state can refuse to issue a license plate featuring the battle flag without violating the free-speech rights of Texans who want one. The justices hear arguments Monday in a challenge brought by the Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The group sued over the state's decision not to authorize its proposed license plate with its logo bearing the battle flag, similar to plates issued by eight other states that were members of the Confederacy and Maryland.
The First Amendment dispute has brought together some unlikely allies, including the American Civil Liberties Union, anti-abortion groups, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, civil libertarian Nat Hentoff and conservative satirist P.J. O'Rourke.
"In a free society, offensive speech should not just be tolerated, its regular presence should be celebrated as a symbol of democratic health -- however odorous the products of a democracy may be," Hentoff, O'Rourke and others said in a brief backing the group.
Specialty plates are moneymakers for states, and Texas offers more than 350 varieties that took in $17.6 million last year, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. Nearly 877,000 vehicles among more than 19 million cars, pickup trucks and motorcycles registered in Texas carry a specialty plate, the department said.
They bear messages that include "Choose Life," "God Bless Texas" and "Fight Terrorism," as well as others in support of Dr. Pepper, burrito and burger chains, Boy Scouts, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, blood donations, professional sports teams and colleges.
A state motor vehicle board rejected the Sons of Confederate Veterans application because of concerns it would offend many Texans who believe the flag is a racially charged symbol of repression. On the same day, the board approved a plate honoring the nation's first black Army units, the Buffalo Soldiers, despite objections from Native Americans over the units' roles in fighting Indian tribes in the West in the late 1800s.
"There are a lot of competing racial and ethnic concerns, and Texas doesn't necessarily handle them any way but awkwardly sometimes," said Lynne Rambo, a professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law in Fort Worth.
A panel of federal appeals court judges ruled that the board's decision violated the group's First Amendment rights. "We understand that some members of the public find the Confederate flag offensive. But that fact does justify the board's decision," Judge Edward Prado of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans wrote.
Texas' main argument to the Supreme Court is that the license plate is not like a bumper sticker slapped on the car by its driver. Instead, the state said, license plates are government property, and so what appears on them is not private individuals' speech but the government's. The First Amendment applies when governments try to regulate the speech of others, but not when governments are doing the talking.
Even if the court disagrees that license plates are government speech, the state said its rejection of the Sons of Confederate Veterans license plate was not discriminatory. The motor vehicle board had not approved a plate denigrating the Confederacy or the battle flag so it could not be accused of giving voice to one viewpoint while suppressing another, the state said.
The ACLU suggested that the court view license plates as a mix of private and government speech. For example, drivers who seek a personal touch and buy the specialized plates know the government has approved their issuance.
Federal appeals courts around the country have come to differing conclusions on the issue, in part because there are few Supreme Court cases to guide them. In 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that people can't be compelled to display license plates that carry messages to which they object. The ruling in the Wooley v. Maynard case concerned New Hampshire residents who disagreed with the state's "Live Free or Die" motto.
New Hampshire is among 11 states that are supporting Texas because they fear that a ruling against the state would call into question license plates that promote national and state pride and specific positions on such controversial issues as abortion.
A decision in Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans, 14-144, is expected by late June.

UN Envoy warns: Yemen is being pushed 'to the edge of civil war'

The U.N. special envoy for Yemen warned an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sunday that events appear to be leading the country "to the edge of civil war" and urged all parties to step back from the brink and resolve the conflict peacefully.
Jamal Benomar stressed repeatedly in a video briefing from Qatar that "peaceful dialogue is the only option we have."
That view was echoed by the Security Council in a presidential statement which reaffirmed the readiness of the U.N.'s most powerful body to take "further measures" against any party impeding the road to peace in Yemen. That could mean new sanctions, or possibly other actions.
Benomar said "it would be an illusion" to think that Houthi Shiite rebels — who control the capital Sanaa, much of the north, and are moving further south backed by some members of Yemen's armed forces — could succeed in taking control of the entire country. On Sunday, the Houthis seized Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city.
"It would be equally false," Benomar said, to think that embattled President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled earlier this month to the southern city of Aden — the country's economic hub — could assemble sufficient forces "to liberate the country from the Houthis."
He warned that any party that pushes the country in either direction "would be inviting a protracted conflict in the vein of an Iraq, Syria, Libya combined scenario."
Yemen's turmoil and political crisis has deepened since the Houthis seized Sanaa in September and put Hadi under house arrest and eventually dissolved the country's parliament. The country's al-Qaida branch, considered by the United States the terror network's most dangerous offshoot, has stepped up attacks against the Shiite rebels.
The Houthis newly announced move to take over the entire country follows the suicide bombings of a pair of mosques in Sanaa that killed 137 people which were claimed by the Islamic State group. It also followed clashes around Aden's airport and planes from Sanaa dropping bombs on the city's presidential palace which Benomar said fortunately did not injure Hadi, who is strongly supported by the Security Council.
"Following the suicide bombings and fighting," Benomar warned, "emotions are running extremely high, and unless a solution can be found in the coming days the country will slide into further violent conflict and fragmentation."
He said Yemenis believe the situation is "on a rapid downward spiral," and are concerned that the conflict "has taken on worrying sectarian tones and deepening north-south divisions."
"Fears exist that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula will exploit the current instability to cause further chaos," he said.
The deteriorating situation led U.S. troops to evacuate a southern air base crucial to the drone program targeting Al Qaeda militants.
Benomar said "extremists on many sides" are actively trying to undermine U.N.-brokered negotiations that he is leading aimed at putting Yemen back on track to complete its transition to democracy so it can finish work on a constitution, hold a referendum on it, and conduct elections.
He stressed that the political impasse can only be unblocked by negotiations that include both the Houthis and Hadi.
"I urge all sides at this time of rising tensions and rhetoric to de-escalate and exercise maximum restraint, and refrain from provocation," Benomar said.
READ THE FULL STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL
In the presidential statement approved by all 15 members, the Security Council echoed Benomar's call for all parties to stop fighting, engage in the U.N.-brokered negotiations and complete the peaceful transition.
In a statement released by the United States U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, "the Security Council spoke with one voice, reaffirming its support for President Hadi as Yemen's legitimate president, deploring the Houthis' failure to withdraw their forces from government institutions."
Despite talks, the U.N. Security Council has not yet drafted a resolution.

Sen. Ted Cruz announces presidential bid with Twitter post, video

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz announced that he will run for president in 2016 via a Twitter post early Monday.
The 30-second video accompanying the tweet featured Cruz speaking over a montage of farm fields, city skylines and American landmarks and symbols, calling on "a new generation of courageous conservatives to help make America great again."
"I'm ready to stand with you to lead the fight," Cruz says as the video concludes. Shortly after midnight Monday, the campaign had launched its website.
Cruz, the first major candidate to enter the 2016 White House race, had been expected to make the announcement later Monday during a speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. He is expected to start his campaign immediately rather than launch an exploratory committee, which many do as a precursor to a campaign.
Amy Kremer, the former head of the Tea Party Express, told the Associated Press Sunday that the Republican pool of candidates "will take a quantum leap forward" with Cruz's announcement, adding that it "will excite the base in a way we haven't seen in years."
Other candidates who have been rumored to run for the GOP nomination include former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
Following his speech at Liberty, Cruz is scheduled to speak with Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an exclusive interview.
Cruz, 44, a favorite of the Tea Party movement who has made headlines for his conservative stance on immigration, has gone after other Republicans for their more moderate views.
In December, Cruz defied party leaders to force a vote on opposing Obama's executive actions on immigration. The strategy failed, and led several of his Republican colleagues to call Cruz out. "You should have an end goal in sight if you're going to do these types of things and I don't see an end goal other than irritating a lot of people," Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch said at the time.
"Cruz is going to make it tough for all of the candidates who are fighting to emerge as the champion of the anti-establishment wing of the party," GOP strategist Kevin Madden told AP. "That is starting to look like quite a scrum where lots of candidates will be throwing some sharp elbows."
"He's awfully good at making promises that he knows the GOP can't keep and pushing for unachievable goals, but he seems very popular with right wing," added veteran Republican strategist John Feehery. "Cruz is a lot smarter than the typical darling of the right, and that makes him more dangerous to guys like Scott Walker and Rand Paul."
In recent weeks, Cruz has already come under fire over his own citizenship. Two former Justice Department lawyers said last week there is no doubt the Canadian-born senator is eligible to run for the White House.
"There is no question that Senator Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a 'natural born Citizen' within the meaning of the Constitution," Neal Katyal, acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, and Paul Clemente, solicitor general in the President George W. Bush administration, wrote in a joint article.
Anti-Cruz "birthers" challenged his citizenship status because he was born in Canada. However, two years ago, Cruz released his birth certificate showing his mother was a U.S. citizen born in Delaware, presumably satisfying the requirements for presidential eligibility as a "natural born citizen."
Last month, Cruz addressed the citizenship issue during a question-and-answer session with moderator Hannity at the Conservative Political Action Conference.  “I was born in Calgary. My mother was an American citizen by birth,” Cruz said.  “Under federal law, that made me an American citizen by birth. The Constitution requires that you be a natural-born citizen.”
With a little more than a year and half to go before the 2016 election, speculation is heating up that several presidential contenders will soon officially throw their hats into the ring. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who enjoys a wide lead among potential Democratic candidates despite the recent uproar over her use of a personal email account while leading the State Department, is expected to announce her candidacy next month.