"Air Force has lost 100,000 inspector general records"

The Hill:  The Air Force announced on Friday that it has lost thousands of records belonging to the service's inspector general due to a database crash.

"We estimate we've lost information for 100,000 cases dating back to 2004," Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told The Hill in an email.

"The database crashed and there is no data," Stefanek said. "At this time we don't have any evidence of malicious intent."

The database, called the Automated Case Tracking System (ACTS), holds all records related to IG complaints, investigations, appeals and Freedom of Information Act requests.

"The exception is senior official data which is maintained in a separate database," the Air Force said in a statement. "We also use ACTS to track congressional/constituent inquiries." 

The Air Force said it was notified on June 6 by a contractor that administers the database of records that the data within was "corrupted," according to a statement. 

Intel Analysts claim forced out for not toeing the Obama line on ISIS.

"The growing scandal over crooked ISIS intelligence just got much worse..."

Two senior intelligence analysts at U.S. Central Command say the military has forced them out of their jobs because of their skeptical reporting on U.S.-backed rebel groups in Syria, three sources with knowledge of their claim told The Daily Beast. It’s the first known instance of possible reprisals against CENTCOM personnel after analysts accused their bosses of manipulating intelligence reports about the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS in order to paint a rosier picture of progress in the war.

One of the analysts alleging reprisals is the top analyst in charge of Syria issues at CENTCOM. He and a colleague doubted rebels’ capabilities and their commitment to U.S. objectives in the region. The analysts have been effectively sidelined from their positions and will no longer be working at CENTCOM, according to two individuals familiar with the dispute, and who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The analysts’ skeptical views put them at odds with military brass, who last year had predicted that a so-called moderate opposition would make up a 15,000-man ground force to take on ISIS in its self-declared caliphate. An initial $500 million program to train and arm those fighters failed spectacularly. And until the very end, Pentagon leaders claimed the operation was more or less on track. Lawmakers called the plan a “joke” when Gen. Lloyd Austin, the CENTCOM commander, finally testified last September that there were just “four or five” American-trained fighters in Syria. (read more)

Via Instapundit 

Nobody does it better

They'll still take him back. #HeOnlySpiesBecauseHeLovesMeSoMuch https://t.co/ucdp17gZzD

— jon gabriel (@exjon) December 30, 2015

Obama spies on Congress... again

But don't expect anybody to do anything about it.

The National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups. That raised fears—an “Oh-s— moment,” one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.

White House officials believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign. They also recognized that asking for it was politically risky. So, wary of a paper trail stemming from a request, the White House let the NSA decide what to share and what to withhold, officials said. “We didn’t say, ‘Do it,’ ” a senior U.S. official said. “We didn’t say, ‘Don’t do it.’ ”

My question is will California senator Dianne Feinstein claim shock and ignorance a second time?

Axelrod: There's been no major scandal in Obama White House

Laundry list of scandals during Obama's six years includes Operation Fast and Furious, IRS targeting conservative nonprofit groups, Justice Department snooping on reporters
State Department was slammed for bungling that led to the 2012 Benghazi terror attack, and alleged cover-ups afterward
Healthcare.gov website's follies made for late-night TV jokes during its botched rollout and immigration executive actions have brought lawsuits
National Security Agency was pilloried for a global eavesdropping program that included Americans' computers and foreign leaders' cellphones
Bowe Bergdahl 5-for-1 Taliban trade drew catcalls from both sides of the political aisle

Other than that... How was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

David Axelrod

"Feds balk at releasing docs showing IRS sharing tax returns with White House"

Less than a week after ’fessing up that it found some 2,500 documents potentially showing that the IRS shared taxpayer returns with the White House, the Obama administration has reversed course and won’t release the trove to a group suing for access.

In an abrupt decision, the Treasury inspector general’s office said that the documents are covered by privacy and disclosure laws and can’t be provided to Cause of Action, despite a promise last week to hand over some 2,500. (read more)

"Email Proves that White House, DOJ Targeted Reporter Sharyl Attkisson"

"One of the documents provides smoking gun proof that the Obama White House and the Eric Holder Justice Department colluded to get CBS News to block reporter Sharyl Attkisson. Attkisson was one of the few mainstream media reporters who paid any attention to the deadly gun-running scandal."

In an email dated October 4, 2011, Attorney General Holder’s top press aide, Tracy Schmaler, called Attkisson “out of control.” Schmaler told White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz that he intended to call CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer to get the network to stop Attkisson.

Schultz replied, “Good. Her piece was really bad for the AG.”

Schultz also told Schmaler that he was working with reporter Susan Davis, then at the National Journal, to target Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA). Issa led the House investigation into Fast and Furious. Davis now works at USA Today. In the email chain, Schultz tells Schmaler that he would provide Davis with “leaks.”

MT: @cjciaramella: Fun email from. #DOJ public affairs on @SharylAttkisson that @JudicialWatch just dug up pic.twitter.com/tUv58G46R9
— Anne L Galante (@AnneLGalante) November 20, 2014

Daily Caller: "IRS Reports EVEN MORE Computer Crashes"

"IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane said in transcribed congressional testimony that more IRS officials experienced computer crashes, bringing the total number of crash victims to “less than 20,” and also said that the agency does not know if the lost emails are still backed up somewhere."

"The new round of computer crash victims includes David Fish, who routinely corresponded with Lois Lerner, as well as Lerner subordinate Andy Megosh, Lerner’s technical adviser Justin Lowe, and Cincinnati-based agent Kimberly Kitchens."

Instapundit: SO TWO WATERGATE-ERA HEROES DIED TODAY.

"Howard Baker, who famously asked “what did the President know and when did he know it?” and Johnnie Walters, the IRS Commissioner who refused to go along with Nixon’s efforts to target his enemies. Both were Republicans who stood up for the rule of law."

Where are the Democrats willing to stand up for it under this Administration?

Washington Post: IRS lost emails by official in tea party probe

"The Internal Revenue Service said Friday it has lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency’s tea party controversy, sparking outrage from congressional investigators who have been probing the agency for more than a year."

The IRS told Congress Friday it cannot locate many of Lois Lerner’s emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year.

Lerner headed the IRS division that processed applications for tax-exempt status. The IRS acknowledged last year that agents had improperly scrutinized applications for tax-exempt status by tea party and other conservative groups. (read more)

 

The Weekly Standard: The Taliban Five are even worse than you’ve heard

"One of the five senior Taliban leaders transferred to Qatar in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl played a key role in al Qaeda’s plans leading up to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Mohammad Fazl, who served as the Taliban’s army chief of staff and deputy defense minister prior to his detention at Guantánamo, did not have a hand in planning the actual 9/11 hijackings. Along with a notorious al Qaeda leader, however, Fazl did help coordinate a military offensive against the enemies of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan the day before. And Osama bin Laden viewed that September 10 offensive as an essential part of al Qaeda’s 9/11 plot." (read more)

In some alternative universe (in a place far far away) there would be a mad dash of enterprising reporters staking out the homes and neighborhoods of 9/11/2001 survivors, seeking a comment, a reaction. Did you know the president swap included the release of people involved in the 9/11 attacks? ... while a camera rolls.

Thank goodness, however, in the real world we live in, decent enterprising reporters do not use surviving family victims that way... except maybe now and then, when... someone is telegenic enough and... they are physically in the right coast. You can't expect people in NY to make good compelling television. No offense Trooper.

Sen Jeff Sessions: Obama 'Committed To Escalating' Lawlessness at Border

"There is now an unprecedented crisis unfolding at the border. The flow of illegal immigrant youth across the southern border is on track to reach 130,000 next year—a projected increase of more than 2,000% from 2011. The White House estimates the cost of “resettling” these illegal immigrants in the United States will reach $2.3 billion in a single year."

This crisis is a direct and predictable result of the President’s sustained and deliberate campaign to dismantle immigration enforcement. His administration has announced to the world that our nation’s immigration laws will not be enforced and that, in particular, they will not be applied to foreign youth.

The world has heard and heeded the President’s message. A wave of illegal immigration has overwhelmed authorities, producing a completely preventable humanitarian crisis—and further diminishing the integrity of our national borders. And there is but one way for the crisis to end: for the President of the United States to declare to the world: "Do not attempt to come here illegally. Our border is no longer open. Our laws will be enforced." (read more)

Via Breitbart

National Review: While Vets Wait, VA Employees Do Union Work

"In 2012, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs paid at least $11.4 million to 174 nurses, mental-health specialists, therapists, and other health-care professionals who, instead of caring for veterans, worked full-time doing union business."

“So many health-care providers were on that list — nurses or physical therapists or whatever they may be — when so many veterans are falling through the cracks,” a Gingrey aide tells me. “It’s kind of shocking that these paid employees wouldn’t be fully dedicated to patient care.”

In total, the VA spent at least $13.77 million on 251 salaried employees performing full-time union work. Others, who were not included on the list provided by the VA, work part-time for unions at the taxpayer expense. In fiscal year 2011, the latest on record, the VA used 998,483 hours of this “official time,” costing taxpayers more than $42 million.

In Columbia, S.C., the VA pays one health technician a $40,706 salary to work for the American Federation of Government Employees.

At that same location, CNN reported in January, a 44-year-old veteran named Barry Coates was forced to wait a year for a colonoscopy, despite intense pain, constipation, and rectal bleeding. When Coates finally got his appointment, doctors found a tumor the size of a baseball — Stage 4 colorectal cancer that had metastasized elsewhere.

Meanwhile a Fox News Poll found that "by a 50-31 percent margin, voters think enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay get better health care than veterans. Nearly one in five is unsure (18 percent)."

What would you say is a National Scandal?

National scandal: drivers waiting 30 minutes on a NJ bridge. Not a national scandal: vets dying a secret V.A. waiting list. #YayMedia
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 21, 2014

Financial Times: Veterans scandal risks engulfing Obama

"Amid contrived outrage over Benghazi and the improving fortunes of its healthcare reform, the Obama administration could be facing a genuine scandal about its treatment of military veterans that has the potential to attract broad political condemnation of its competence..."

... the subject really began to gather steam three weeks ago when CNN interviewed Sam Foote, who had recently retired as a doctor after working for 24 years for VA hospitals in Phoenix, Arizona. He said that as many as 40 patients had died after being placed on a hidden waiting list that could last for up to a year, while officials at the hospital shredded documents and faked evidence to make it seem as if waiting times were under control.

Since then... whistleblowers have alleged similar practices at least seven other VA hospitals around the country and claimed that officials at the hospitals were sometimes paid bonuses for reducing declared waiting times.

The political impact of the scandal has been somewhat muted so far, in part because of the respect still enjoyed by the veterans affairs secretary, retired four-star general Eric Shinseki who was himself wounded twice in Vietnam. Appearing before a Senate hearing on Thursday, Mr Shinseki received pointed questioning, but in a tone more respectful than almost any other cabinet member would have encountered. “I am mad as hell,” he told the committee.

Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Department of Justice doesn't have any plans to investigate allegations that veterans placed on secret waiting lists at VA hospitals died while waiting for care.

IRS Conservative Groups Targeting Update

Instalinks.

Judicial Watch: New Documents Show IRS HQ Control of Tea Party Targeting; Documents also Reveal Unusual Pressure from Key Democrat Senator to Target Conservatives.

Interesting, isn’t it, that Levin decided not to run for re-election after the IRS scandal got out.

Related: IRS’s tea-party noose tightens: Targeting campaign was directed by HQ in Washington, D.C. – not by a few ‘rogue agents’ in Ohio, documents reveal.

UPDATE: Judicial Watch Obtains New Documents Showing IRS Targeting Came Directly From Washington D.C.

Marvin Gaye: Negotiation means getting the best of your opponent

"Boko Haram is preparing to announce a list of key militants that it wants released in exchange for its schoolgirl hostages, The Telegraph has learned."
 

"Sources close to the group say that an Islamic cleric from northern Nigeria will be authorised to negotiate on its behalf with the Nigerian government, and to seek a freed prisoner for every one of the kidnapped girls." (read more)

***

"The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released 36,007 convicted criminal aliens last year who were awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings, according to a report issued Monday by the Center for Immigration Studies.

"A majority of the releases were not required by law and were discretionary, the organization says.

According to the report, the 36,007 individuals released represented nearly 88,000 convictions, including:

• 193 homicide convictions
• 426 sexual assault convictions
• 303 kidnapping convictions
• 1,075 aggravated assault convictions
• 1,160 stolen vehicle convictions
• 9,187 dangerous drug convictions
• 16,070 drunk or drugged driving convictions
• 303 flight escape convictions

In the first story, The Telegraph report clearly states what the terms of negotiations are between the kidnapers Boko Haram and the government of Nigeria. In the second story, however, the terms of negotiations seem murky.

Who gets what in exchange for these conviction releases, here in the United States?

Commenter Lydia said...

These releases have been happening since a 2001 Supreme Court ruling saying aliens cannot be detained for more than six months if efforts to deport them have failed.

Between 2001 and 2004, nearly 134,000 were released. So, it's not just the Obama folks doing it.

More about it here.

'We hope you will, please, pursue this... Check it out. Challenge us.'

"The Citizens Commission on Benghazi, a self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that it could have been prevented – if the U.S. hadn't been helping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier."

'The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,' Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline.

She blamed the Obama administration for failing to stop half of a $1 billion United Arab Emirates arms shipment from reaching al-Qaeda-linked militants.

'Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,' Lopez claimed. 'They were permitted to come in. ... [They] knew these weapons were coming in, and that was allowed..

'The intelligence community was part of that, the Department of State was part of that, and certainly that means that the top leadership of the United States, our national security leadership, and potentially Congress – if they were briefed on this – also knew about this.' (read more)

'Osama Bin Laden is Dead and GM is Recalling', would not have sounded right.

"The Justice Department has begun a criminal investigation into General Motors’ decade-long failure to address deadly safety problems before announcing a huge vehicle recall last month, according to people briefed on the matter."

Right off the bat, the NY Times sees fit to put some distance between the Obama takeover of G.M. and the failure to "address deadly safety problems".

The preliminary inquiry by federal prosecutors in New York is focused on whether G.M., the nation’s largest automaker, failed to comply with laws requiring timely disclosure of vehicle defects. The prosecutors, one of the people said, are questioning whether G.M. misled federal regulators about the extent of the problems.

It's one thing to use the IRS to make it harder for tea parties to get off the ground, quite another, to possibly threaten the safety millions of Americans take for granted, when they get behind the wheel of their presumably safe automobiles.

The investigation is the latest in a widening series of threats to G.M. over its handling of faulty ignition switches in its Chevrolet Cobalt sedan and other cars that the company says are linked to 31 accidents and 13 deaths. READ MORE

I started reading this story last night, but I didn't quite make the connections back to the administration, possibly micromanaging G.M., to make the company a re-election prop. Although, I did remember the Joe Biden Democratic Party Convention "Osama Bin Laden is Dead and General Motors is Alive" mantra. It was politically powerful.

Here is Liz Peek, of The Fiscal Times, asking some pertinent questions about the possible White House interference...

Did the Obama administration purposefully hide problems with GM cars? Were they panicked that a massive recall of GM products would undermine one of President Obama’s most self-congratulatory campaign themes – that he “saved” Detroit’s auto industry? This is a tale of two car companies: GM, shining star in President Obama’s reelection galaxy, and Toyota, which became political fodder...

Skipping down...

By 2011 there had been 204 complaints lodged. In 2010 then-Congressman Barney Frank inquired on behalf of a constituent about the multiple accidents apparently brought on by the random deceleration issue. He was told by NHTSA that it had “insufficient evidence to warrant opening a safety defect investigation.” By that time, there had been several fatalities related to Cobalts’ stalling. Still, NHTSA did nothing.

At the same time, after the Obama administration had orchestrated a government takeover of General Motors, NHTSA hit Toyota with its largest-ever fine and demanded a recall of some 9 million cars and trucks. Over several years, NHTSA had received more than 3,000 reports of sudden acceleration in Toyotas; there had been some 75 fatal crashes. Though the incidents of problems continued to mount, it was not clear at the time of the recall what exactly accounted for the mishaps. The Wall Street Journal announced that a report attributing most of the accidents to driver error had been “temporarily blocked” by safety officials, acting under the direction of Secretary of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. READ MORE

Yes, Ray LaHood was/is a republican politician, precisely why I would like to hear what he has to say under oath.

"Senate panel issues harsh report on Benghazi attack"

"The deadly 2012 assault on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, was caused by the failure of the State Department to adequately protect the facility and poor intelligence-gathering by the CIA and other agencies, according to a harsh assessment by the Senate Intelligence Committee."

The report debunks several often-repeated assertions about the attack, including that it erupted spontaneously after protests outside the gates and that the U.S. military could have scrambled personnel and aircraft in the region quickly enough to come to Stevens' aid.

In a scathing separate conclusion, six Republicans on the panel said the report showed that "Americans serving in Libya were vulnerable; the State Department knew they were vulnerable; and no one in the administration really did anything about it."

Since the attack, no senior officials at the State Department have been fired or disciplined and none of the attackers in Libya have been taken into custody, even though one of them, Ahmed abu Khattala "continued to live freely in Libya while giving taunting interviews to major media outlets," the lawmakers said.

Within hours of the initial attack, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered special operations teams and Marine security to respond, but the only military asset that arrived while the assault was still underway was an unarmed Predator drone, a failure the report criticizes.

Not a word on where the commander in chief was during the attack? I mean, we know there was a failure, 4 Americans died. But what did we do about it?
Would it be premature to call this report a whitewash?