Tuesday 12-08-15

Does this surprise anyone at all,

72 DHS Employees on Terrorist Watch List

At least 72 employees at the Department of Homeland Security are listed on the U.S. terrorist watch list, according to a Democratic lawmaker.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D., Mass.) disclosed that a congressional investigation recently found that at least 72 people working at DHS also “were on the terrorist watch list.”
“Back in August, we did an investigation—the inspector general did—of the Department of Homeland Security, and they had 72 individuals that were on the terrorist watch list that were actually working at the Department of Homeland Security,” Lynch told Boston Public Radio.
“The [former DHS] director had to resign because of that,” he said.
DHS continues to fail inspections aimed at determining the efficiency of its internal safety mechanisms, as well as its efforts to protect the nation.
Lynch referred to a recent report that found the Transportation Security Administration, which is overseen by DHS, failed to stop 95 percent of those who attempted to bring restricted items past airport security.
“We had staffers go into eight different airports to test the department of homeland security screening process at major airports. They had a 95 percent failure rate,” Lynch said. “We had folks—this was a testing exercise, so we had folks going in there with guns on their ankles, and other weapons on their persons, and there was a 95 percent failure rate.”
Lynch said he has “very low confidence” in DHS based on its many failures over the years. For this reason, he voted in favor of recent legislation that will tighten the vetting process for any Syrian refugees applying for asylum in the United States.
“I have very low confidence based on empirical data that we’ve got on the Department of Homeland Security. I think we desperately need another set of eyeballs looking at the vetting process,” he said. “That’s vetting that’s being done at major airports where we have a stationary person coming through a facility, and we’re failing 95 percent of the time.”
“I have even lower confidence that they can conduct the vetting process in places like Jordan, or Belize or on the Syrian border, or in Cairo, or Beirut in any better fashion, especially given the huge volume of applicants we’ve had seeking refugee status,” Lynch said.

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/72-dhs-employees-on-terrorist-watch-list/

Norway 'paying' asylum seekers to return home as refugee crisis continues

Norway is paying asylum seekers to return home as the refugee crisis continues.
Tens of thousands of kroner are being offered to each person who voluntarily leaves the country. They also have their flights paid for.
Katinka Hartmann, head of the immigration department’s return unit (UDI), said that many of the people arriving from Syria, Iraq, the Middle East and Africa expect to receive protection quickly and cannot wait the months or even years the process can take.
“They thought they would have the opportunity to work or take an education – and maybe even to get their family to Norway,” she told NRK television.

Norway has committed to housing thousands of Syrian refugees

“Many cannot wait (for the asylum process to run its course). They have family at home who expect them to be able to help.
“For a long time, Norway has not been able to forcibly return people to Somalia, but now that we can, I think that more Somalis with an obligation to leave will opt for assisted return. 
“It’s important to have more initiatives of this kind in the future.”

The UDI’s figures show that more than 900 people have applied to take financial support to leave Norway so far.
A couple with two children can receive upwards of 80,000 kroner (£6,200) in addition to having their flights paid for.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which processes the Voluntary Assisted Return Programme requests and offers advice and counselling, described it as “safe and dignified”. 
Spokesperson Joost van der Aalst said the number of asylum seekers taking up the offer was rocketing, particularly among people attempting to bring their families to Norway.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/norway-paying-asylum-seekers-to-return-home-as-refugee-crisis-continues-a6763496.html

Saturday 12-27-14

Why does this not surprise me at all.  You would think that wit the education they have they could say it simpler.   Or maybe it is on purpose?


EPA Regs Issued Under Obama Are 43 TIMES As Long As The Bible…

(CNSNews.com) -- Since President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued 3,120 new final regulations, equaling 27,854 pages in the Federal Register, totaling approximately 27,854,000 words.

Using the Regulations.gov website and data from the Federal Register, CNSNews.com found 3,120 final rules published by the EPA since January 2009 covering  greenhouse gases, air quality, emissions, and hazardous substances, to name a few. The Federal Register publishes documents, including proposed rules, notices, interim rules, corrections, drafts of final rules and final rules but the CNSNews.com tabulation included only the final rules from the EPA.
For comparison with those final rules, the Gutenberg Bible is 1,282 pages long and contains 646,128 words.This means that the new EPA regulations issued by the Obama Administration now contain 21 times as many pages as the Bible and 43 times as many words.
Also, the EPA regulations have 25 times as many words as the entire Harry Potter series, which includes seven books with 1,084,170 words.

One volume of the Gutenberg Bible, which was published as a two-volume set in 1455.

To get an approximate word count for each EPA rule in the Federal Register, CNSNews.com evaluated a few random rules from the 3,120 EPA regulations published since Obama took office, and calculated an approximate average of 1,000 words per page. From this, CNSNews.com calculated that the 3,120 final EPA rules that have been published in the Federal Register so far take up 27,854,000 words.
This is only an approximation because some pages in the Federal Register carry more words than others, and some regulations end in the beginning or middle of a page. For example, one of the regulations was five-pages long and totaled 5,586 words, an average of 1,117 words per page.
Another regulation was three-pages long and 3,150 words, which averaged to 1,050 words per page. Another rule was four-pages long and 4,426 words, or an average 1,106 words per page.

The 7 volumes of the Harry Potter book series. (AP)

“The broader question of whether the Obama Administration’s EPA is ‘overreaching’ in its regulatory effects has not gone away. Critics both in Congress and outside of it regularly accuse the agency of overkill,” states a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, EPA Regulations: Too Much, Too Little, or On Track?
“EPA’s actions, both individually and in sum, have generated controversy,” the CRS report states. “Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have expressed concerns, through bipartisan letters commenting on proposed regulations and through introduced legislation that would delay, limit, or prevent certain EPA actions.”
Yet, EPA proponents are fighting for more rules. “Environmental groups and other supporters of the agency disagree that EPA has overreached,” said CRS. “Many of them believe that the agency is, in fact, moving in the right direction, including taking action on significant issues that had been long delayed or ignored in the past. In several cases, environmental advocates would like the regulatory actions to be stronger.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/new-epa-regs-issued-under-obama-are-43-times-long-bible

Friday 01-02-15

I really don't expect much to change, this year either

5 most egregious examples of government waste this year

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5 Most Egregious Examples of Government Waste This Year

 

Every year the federal government loses tens of billions of dollars to waste, fraud and abuse. Unfortunately, 2014 was no exception.

Federal auditors issued plenty of scathing reports this year flagging programs and projects that were inefficient or wasteful. They also identified numerous costly instances of wrongdoing by federal employees. 
Drawing on much of our reporting throughout the year, The Fiscal Times identified 5 of the most egregious examples of government waste in 2014. 
Related: Auditors Say Feds Needlessly Wasted $43 Billion 
Afghanistan Reconstruction: It’s basically been standard operating procedure for John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), to warn Congress about the failing $104 billion reconstruction effort in that country. Numerous projects have gone well over budget and been left finished, while millions of dollars have vanished and likely ended up in the wrong hands. In 2010, auditors said they could only account for about 10 percent of the total money spent repairing the war-torn country. Read more about the vast amounts squandered in Afghanistan here. 
$100 Billion in Improper Payments

Entitlement Programs: Government agencies in charge of major federal programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security have doled out about $100 million in improper payments each year for the last five years. The payments include everything from outright fraud to errors made by the agencies or errors made by people claiming the payments. Between 2002 and 2012, federal agencies gave out about $688 billion to the wrong people.
Agencies are required to estimate the payment error rate of their programs. For example, Medicare’s Fee for Service program had an error rate of 10.1 percent in 2013 –about $33.2 billion of the program’s total payments were improper. Read more about it here.
$3.1 Billion in Administrative Leave for Federal Workers

Rewarded for Bad Behavior:
The Government Accountability Office revealed this year that the federal government paid $3.1 billion to federal workers on administrative leave over the last three years. Of this amount, $775 million went to 57,000 employees who were off work for a month or longer.
Though not all of this money can be considered waste, lawmakers have questioned federal agencies’ use of administrative leave – especially when the departments place those employees accused of wrongdoing on leave for extended periods of time while they collect government salaries. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) had referred to these instances as “taxpayer-funded vacations.” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said in an interview earlier this year, “Instead of firing misbehaving employees, Washington rewards those who have broken the law or engaged in misconduct by paying them to do nothing – sometimes for many years.”
In one example, Veterans Affairs executives at a Phoenix, Virginia health care center – caught covering up hidden wait lists – were put on administrative leave in May and continue to receive their annual government salaries of $85,000. Read more here.
$550 Million for the FBI’s Faulty IT System

I.T. Failures Cost Taxpayers a Fortune:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s new case filing system, “Sentinel,” is just the latest chapter in federal IT flops. The system, ridden with problems, has spiraled $100 million over budget – and it still barely works. Auditors say the system, which is supposed to make it easier to search case files, is so flawed it actually makes the process more time consuming and difficult. Read more here. 
$240 Million FEMA Disaster Management System
FEMA Fumbles Funding and Fails:
FEMA spent $240 million building a high-tech system to help deliver supplies and coordinate the multi-agency response to national disasters. But a review by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General found the Logistics Supply Chain Management System so riddled with errors that it can’t “interface” with other agencies – making it nearly impossible to locate and deliver emergency supplies.

The IG also said that even if the system worked, agency employees have not been trained properly to use it. Overall, auditors concluded, “Despite spending about $247 million over nine years, FEMA cannot be certain its supply chain management system will be effective during a catastrophic disaster.”

This is a huge problem: FEMA is notorious for botching its delivery of disaster relief.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-most-egregious-examples-government-110000550.html

Wednesday 06-19-13

After an Easy Hearing, the NSA and FBI are Ready for a Drink

If you were wondering how the NSA and FBI felt about the very friendly hearing the House Intelligence Committee invited them to today, a hot mic has your answer. "Tell your boss," NSA Director Keith Alexander told the FBI deputy director, "I owe him another friggin' beer."
Ben Doernberg caught the exchange, which we've clipped below. Alexander, being photographed at bottom center, is speaking with FBI deputy director Sean Joyce, to his left.
Throughout the hearing the two worked together, with Alexander frequently setting up topics upon which Joyce expounded. When Alexander said that the government's surveillance tools had stopped over 50 terror attacks, Joyce described four of them. And so on. Over the course of three hours, the two faced little in the way of critique.
Nonetheless, they were ready for a brew. Their more informal exchange came after Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan banged the gavel.

Alexander: Thank you, Sean.

Joyce: Good to see you.

Alexander: Tell your boss … tell your boss I owe him another friggin' beer.

Joyce: Him?

Alexander: Yeah.

Joyce: Tell him to give it to me.

Alexander: (laughs) You want him to give it to you?

Joyce: Alright?

After today's performance, we're pretty sure that either Rogers — or Obama — would be happy to buy a round for all three.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/06/nsa-friggin-beer-video/66360/