Lois Lerner Was Super Concerned Over Lost Private Documents

By William Teach June 27, 2014 – 9:02 am

Her official emails? Not so much

(Fox News) Computer experts and Republican lawmakers are poking holes in IRS claims that the agency did all it could to retrieve embattled ex-official Lois Lerner’s allegedly “lost” emails, which the agency blames on a 2011 hard-drive crash. (snip)

But Lerner’s communications with the agency’s IT team referred to her desire to retrieve “lost personal files” — not lost emails.

And that detail is “very suspicious,” according to David Kennedy, chief executive of information security firm TrustedSec. Kennedy said that when government computers crash, email recovery should be a priority. But in Lerner’s communication with the IT team, “There is no talk about the recovery of the emails,” Kennedy said, adding, “It didn’t seem like they really wanted to recover the data.”

It’s possible that the emails shared with lawmakers and attached to a June 13, 2014, letter to leaders of the Senate Finance Committee are just a snapshot of Lerner’s communications with the IT team. But they indicate Lerner’s acute level of concern for what she referred to as her personal files.

The first email, from June 13, 2011, is a brief notification from one of Lerner’s colleagues in the Exempt Organizations division to other IRS staff that Lerner’s hard drive had crashed, with information on how to reach her. The next set of emails starts on July 19, 2011, and shows Lerner reaching out to IT staffers for their help in retrieving “lost personal files.”

“There were some documents in the files that are irreplaceable,” she wrote.

One has to wonder why she was storing such irreplaceable personal documents on a Government computer, apparently not backing them up to her own personal computer. Then, lots of people do stupid things with the computer supplied by their employer. I know of a person who had the title of Vice President for a big, big corporation who was terminated from a job in which he/she was making at least a couple hundred grand yearly because he/she was accessing pornography sites with the company provided laptop. Not through the corporate servers when logged in, mind you, but, it is company property, and accessing certain materials using the property at any time was a fireable offense. You would think he/she could have afforded a personal laptop.

Anyhow, one has to wonder if Ms. Lerner was using the computer for personal benefit in accordance with IRS policy. Regardless, she didn’t seem particularly concerned with her official documents and correspondence. But, then, she was yet another Obama official who was using non-government email for official correspondence.

Meanwhile

Two Texas Republicans are proposing a $1 million reward to anyone who recover former IRS employee Lois Lerner’s lost emails.

Reps. Bill Flores and Louie Gohmert proposed the Identify and Recover Sent Emails Act, or the IRS Act. In addition to the big $1 million bounty, the bill would offer $500,000 to anyone with information that can be used to prosecute officials involved in destroying the emails.

Even better, the reward money would come out of the IRS budget.

Read: Lois Lerner Was Super Concerned Over Lost Private Documents »

Posted in Current Affairs | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Good News: Obama Kicks Of Summer Road Show

By William Teach June 27, 2014 – 8:40 am

Because he cares about average Americans and is totally in touch with what you care about, or something

(Politico) President Barack Obama headed out of Washington on Thursday to offer assurance to Americans that he hasn’t lost touch with the issues that guide their daily lives — or their complaints about the political system.

“Are there programs that the government does that are a waste of money, or aren’t working as well as they should be? Of course,” Obama said at a town hall in Minneapolis, on the first of several day-in-the-life trips the White House has planned for this summer that are aimed at getting him out of town, and out of his latest slump.

“But I tell ya, if you work in any big company in America, you’ll find some things that aren’t that efficient, either. Are there some federal workers who do some boneheaded things? Absolutely,” he said.

Of course, when Bad Things happen in a Big Company, they immediately work to fix the problem. People are held accountable. If a Big Company was responsible for a hundred deaths (ala Veterans Affairs), The Government would be all over them investigating, probably arresting and prosecuting those responsible. If a Big Company was illegally giving private company information to another company, they’d be getting the same treatment (ala IRS). The CEO and other high ranking officers might get called to testify in front of Congress.

Obama’s job, he said, is to work with Congress “to make sure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and efficiently” and “we shouldn’t be wasting a dime.” Where there are problems, as in the Veterans Affairs administration treatment queuing process, “we’ve gotta crack down and we’ve got to reform it.” But plenty of others at the VA — and across the federal and local governments — are doing good work.

Since when has Obama done anything regarding waste of taxpayer money? One of his first acts was to sign the Stimulus, which essentially pissed away over a trillion dollars, once interest is factored in. He had a conniption of the Shutdown, even deploying Barrycades. Heck, he’s pissing away taxpayers dollars on this summer road show, since official events are being used to allow him to travel to fundraisers and partisan events without having to reimburse The People  for use of Air Force 1.

The news that’s reported on TV is often important, he said, but there are plenty of stories that are “just Washington fights.” They’re “phony scandals,” preparing politicians for the “next election or ginning up a base.”

All that, he said, “is not on the level.”

What is on the level, Obama said, are his intentions. “You’re who I’m thinking about every single day. Just because it’s not reported in the news doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of you,” he said.

Essentially, he’s saying he’s thinking of you, but then tells you that serious issues that concern citizens are phony, ginned up. Yet, nothing that he does or says actually fix the problems. The economy is still a mess, despite his boondoggle of a stimulus. He’s yammering about “climate change”. He’s refusing to engage in serious issues like the VA, IRS, Benghazi, and his utterly failed foreign policy. Scrolling through White House Dossier, we see that he is attending fundraisers, often with big wig 1% donors after most official events, as well as making partisan speeches.

At it’s most basic core, this is Obama’s version of governance and leadership: make a speech, which often always includes attacking political opponents, ie, other American citizens, but refusing to actually speak to the very lawmakers he needs to get things done. He barely speaks to lawmakers in his own Party, much less Republicans. For Obama, the speech is the important part, because, in his world, everyone is supposed to simply jump when he says the word. Doing the hard work to make it happen is beyond him.

What we can expect is several months of whining from Obama as he travels around, and lots of fundraisers. Oh, and golf. Can’t forget that.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Good News: Obama Kicks Of Summer Road Show »

Posted in Barry Obama | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Can Residential Solar Be Competitive Next Year?

By William Teach June 26, 2014 – 9:03 pm

One CEO thinks so

(Green Car Reports) Solar power for your home has been around a long time, but for many homeowners, it’s required subsidies, special financing arrangements, and still delivered long payback periods.

That’s changing fast, according to the CEO of a major Texas electric utility.

David Crane, who runs NRG Energy, says that in fully half the states of the union, electricity from residential solar panels will be cost-competitive with that delivered by local electric utilities by next year.

Crane was quoted two weeks ago in a blog post by Navigant Research, which focused on his company’s aggressive efforts to migrate to solar power for a growing portion of its portfolio.

That would be quite exciting if it could be competitive. Long time readers know that one of the things I’ve advocated for a long time is alternatives like solar and wind on a small scale, particularly for small buildings, like homes. There are multiple reasons, such as the ability to store captured energy in batteries within the domicile. I am not a fan of putting panels on homes which feed back into the grid. Quite frankly, I think it is a rip off, with the consumer getting hosed, and little in return. But, to have affordable panels feeding power into buildings, even without storage capacity, would be a boon, particularly if time of cost return is short, would be excellent.

Just to be clear, my support has nothing to do with “climate change”, but saving on natural resources and saving personal money. Eventually, things like this could a) reduce our reliance on coal and fossil fuels, and b) help out with reducing the load and issues around the power grid.

Read: Can Residential Solar Be Competitive Next Year? »

Posted in Energy | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

Paper Blames “Pause” On Natural Variability

By William Teach June 26, 2014 – 4:47 pm

And says it’s “not so unusual”

(The Hockey Schtick) Shaun Lovejoy has published a new paper which cites his prior claim of 99.9% confidence that one of the two temperature graphs below is your fault, and the other due to natural variability. (snip-check the graphs at the link)

In Lovejoy’s new paper, he acknowledges a ‘pause’ in global warming since 1998, says it’s “not so unusual” and concludes “the pause is no more than natural variability.” Indeed, the pause is due to natural variability that has not been accounted for by climate models, and thus invalidates attribution claims that the past 50 years of temperature variations are necessarily due to man-made CO2. Furthermore, prior work by NOAA and others has found ‘pauses’ of 15 or more years are indeed unusual and would suggest the climate models are overly sensitive to CO2. According to RSS satellite data, the ‘pause’ has lasted almost 18 years.

An approach complementary to General Circulation Models (GCM’s), using the anthropogenic CO2 radiative forcing as a linear surrogate for all anthropogenic forcings [Lovejoy, 2014], was recently developed for quantifying human impacts. Using pre-industrial multiproxy series and scaling arguments, the probabilities of natural fluctuations at time lags up to 125 years were determined. The hypothesis that the industrial epoch warming was a giant natural fluctuation was rejected with 99.9% confidence. In this paper, this method is extended to the determination of event return times. Over the period 1880-2013, the largest 32 year event is expected to be 0.47 K, effectively explaining the postwar cooling (amplitude 0.42 – 0.47 K). Similarly, the “pause” since 1998 (0.28 – 0.37 K) has a return period of 20-50 years (not so unusual). It is nearly cancelled by the pre-pause warming event (1992-1998, return period 30-40 years); the pause is no more than natural variability.

Now, is this excuse #14, or simply an extension of the overall Excuse-making in order to keep the cult of warming going?

Read: Paper Blames “Pause” On Natural Variability »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | Comments Off on Paper Blames “Pause” On Natural Variability | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach June 26, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is a kitchen that could contain an evil refrigerator, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Jammie Wearing Fools, with a post on Obama’s economic delusions.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | Comments Off on If All You See… | Trackback URL

Bummer: Cows, Not Coal, Is The Real “Climate Change” Danger

By William Teach June 26, 2014 – 12:10 pm

So this whole anti-coal campaign has been a waste of time?

Cows — Not Coal — Are the Real Climate Change Culprits

President Obama recently likened denying climate change to believing the moon is made of cheese. As it turns out, ignoring this particular food’s role in climate change is just as irresponsible. Getting serious about climate change would mean finally addressing the gorilla – or, more appropriately, the cow — in the room. If you really care about the environment, you’d leave the cheese — and all meat and dairy products for that matter — off your plate.

By some estimates, the meat and dairy industry is responsible for up to half of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions — contributing more to climate change than even coal-fired power plants. Trying to regulate climate change without touching the meat industry is like trying to curb the obesity crisis without confronting, well, the meat industry.

Interesting. Have I not noted many, many, many times that agriculture is one of Man’s biggest contributions to the release of greenhouse gases, mostly due to methane? It can also cause land use issues. The methane would be global, land use localized.

So as weather patterns become more and more chaotic, blame the burgers, steaks, ribs, sausage, and other products of the massively overpopulated cows across the globe. Sure, cracking down on coal may be part of the fix. But there is a long-term solution to climate change that everyone can do right now: get the animals off our plates.

So, doom, eh?  Dr. Neal Barnard must have a solution, right?

So, that’s the bad news. The good news is that when people eat grains, beans, and other plant foods directly, instead of feeding them to animals, we need much less acreage and less energy, and we end up with a dramatically cleaner–and cooler–environment. Instead of turning corn and beans into chickens, pigs, and cows, we can make corn into corn bread, tortillas, stews, soups, or polenta and turn beans into chili, burritos, veggie burgers, or soymilk. We can turn grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes into a spaghetti dinner, an Asian stir-fry, or ten thousand other meals. And we can toast our environmental stewardship, as the Earth breathes easier.

But, he won’t come right out and say “kill all the cows (and other farm animals), do not raise any more”. He just dips around the edges. Nor will I say that, because, at the end of the day, agriculture is just a small addition when it comes to global warming, most of which is natural, rather than due to the works of Mankind.

Read: Bummer: Cows, Not Coal, Is The Real “Climate Change” Danger »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Surprise: EPA Also “Lost” Emails

By William Teach June 26, 2014 – 6:57 am

I mentioned a Mark Stein article in the previous post. Something else he wrote

It’s worse when the supposedly impartial civil service uses those powers in the service of the ruling party: The merger of party and state is the very definition of “banana republic”. And it’s worst of all when they get away with it – because it means they’ll do it again.

That was in terms of the IRS knowing they can get away with it, and do it again. Apparently, the EPA feels they can get away with it, as well

(Politico) Move over, IRS — now the EPA is having its own problems with missing emails.

The environmental agency is having trouble locating emails belonging to a former agency employee and pulling information from his crashed hard drive, House members revealed Wednesday while questioning Administrator Gina McCarthy at a hearing on complaints of mismanagement.

“What is it with bureaucrats and public employees … the hard drives crash?” asked Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.).

McCarthy said her agency hasn’t given up.

“We’re having trouble getting information off of it and are trying different ways,” McCarthy said.

The Committee should find a way to compel the EPA to bring the hard drive(s) to someone, be it a different government department or someone contracted from outside, who can recover the data. Because EPA will never recover the data on their own, at least not for years.

The EPA apparently has a much, much, much worse problem, though

(Government Executive) It appears, however, that a regional office has reached a new low: Management for Region 8 in Denver, Colo., wrote an email earlier this year to all staff in the area pleading with them to stop inappropriate bathroom behavior, including defecating in the hallway.

In the email, obtained by Government Executive, Deputy Regional Administrator Howard Cantor mentioned “several incidents” in the building, including clogging the toilets with paper towels and “an individual placing feces in the hallway” outside the restroom.

Confounded by what to make of this occurrence, EPA management “consulted” with workplace violence “national expert” John Nicoletti, who said that hallway feces is in fact a health and safety risk. He added the behavior was “very dangerous” and the individuals responsible would “probably escalate” their actions.

Seriously, the EPA needed an outside consultant to tell them that? On the bright side, at least they weren’t pooing in wetlands, otherwise the employees might have found themselves in serious trouble.

Read: Surprise: EPA Also “Lost” Emails »

Posted in Enviroweenies, Government | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Did Lois Lerner Seek IRS Audit Of Sen. Chuck Grassley?

By William Teach June 26, 2014 – 6:37 am

Fox News runs with they headline that she did, and Rep. David Camp thinks she did, but, Grassley thinks she was targeting a Tea Party group. Some news orgs follow along with the Grassley targeted meme, others go with group targeted

Congressional investigators have uncovered emails showing ex-IRS official Lois Lerner targeted a sitting Republican senator for a proposed internal audit, a discovery one GOP lawmaker called “shocking.”

The emails were published late Wednesday by the House Ways and Means Committee and pertain to the woman at the heart of the scandal over IRS targeting of Tea Party groups.

The emails appear to show Lerner mistakenly received an invitation intended for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in 2012.

The invitation offered to pay for Grassley’s wife, and

“Looked like they were inappropriately offering to pay for his wife. Perhaps we should refer to Exam?” she wrote.

Her colleague, though, pushed back on the idea, saying an offer to pay for his wife is “not prohibited on its face.” There is no indication from the emails that Lerner pursued the issue any further.

Just the very indication that a top IRS official would so casually suggest and audit is blood chilling. Mark Stein wrote of the IRS “The IRS is its own law enforcement agency: judge, jury and executioner. If it decides you’ve done something wrong, it garnishes your wages, takes out a lien on your house, or freezes your kid’s bank account – all without due process.”

“We have seen a lot of unbelievable things in this investigation, but the fact that Lois Lerner attempted to initiate an apparently baseless IRS examination against a sitting Republican United States Senator is shocking,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said in a statement.

but, Grassley seems to think it is the group that would be “referred to exam”

Grassley said in a statement that this kind of incident fuels concerns people have about “political targeting” at the highest levels. “It’s very troubling that a simple clerical mix-up could get a taxpayer immediately referred for an IRS exam without any due diligence from agency officials,” the senator said.

Reading the emails (the link in the first excerpt), Lerner doesn’t say who would be audited. The reply states that if an audit occurred, it would need to be on Grassley, because the income would be to Grassley, as it would be part of a “speaking fee”, and suggests that Matthew Guiliano is “not sure we should send to exam”.

The IRS, in response to the publication of the emails, said in a statement that it could not comment on “any specific situation” due to taxpayer confidentiality issues.

Except for all those Tea Party records sent to the FBI, as well as released to private Democrat supporting groups, one of which has resulted in a $50k settlement.

But the agency added: “As a general matter, the IRS has checks and balances in place to ensure the fairness and integrity of the audit process. Audits cannot be initiated solely by personal requests or suggestions by any one individual inside the IRS.”

Yet, the very notion that Lerner could be so cavalier in suggesting an audit is chilling. And, did they have the same checks in place regarding the stonewalling of applications for Tea Party groups to receive 503(c)(4) status?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Did Lois Lerner Seek IRS Audit Of Sen. Chuck Grassley? »

Posted in Democrats, Taxation | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Who Knew Thate Stealing A/C Units Is Now A Federal Offense Under The Clean Air Act?

By William Teach June 25, 2014 – 6:52 pm

When conservatives refer to government overreach and the proliferation of Big Government, this fits in perfectly

(WLWT) An Ohio man has pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act by releasing a refrigerant into the air during the theft of dozens of air conditioning units.

Federal prosecutors say Martin Eldridge and others stole at least 49 units between August and October last year, releasing the refrigerant when tubing that connected units to houses and businesses was cut.

The 35-year-old Columbus man pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to one count of knowingly venting the refrigerant HCFC-22 into the environment. That refrigerant is sold under trade names including Freon.

Eldridge will serve 31 months in prison under terms of the plea. His attorney declined to comment.

Read: Who Knew Thate Stealing A/C Units Is Now A Federal Offense Under The Clean Air Act? »

Posted in Enviroweenies, Good Move Slick | 13 Comments | Trackback URL

The Bird Feeder

By William Teach June 25, 2014 – 3:43 pm

In the email:

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: TIME TO TAKE DOWN THE BIRD-FEEDER

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it was, I reflected as I filled it lovingly with seed. First came the chickadees and then within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue.

Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table. Everywhere!

Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket.

Other birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.

Soon, the back yard was like it used to be: quiet and serene.

Now let’s see. Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.

Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly, our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families; and you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor. Your child’s 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn’t speak English.

Corn flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to ‘press one’ to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than ‘Old Glory’ are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

IT’S WAY PAST TIME FOR OUR GOVERNMENT TO TAKE DOWN THE BIRD FEEDER.

Read: The Bird Feeder »

Posted in Illegal Immigration | 3 Comments | Trackback URL
Pirate's Cove