Keeping an Eye on Elena Kagan White House: Obama may use executive privilege to withhold Kagan documents Posted by Kagan Watch on June 3, 2010 Leave a comment (40) Go to comments
In a letter to Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee Republican, Robert Bauer, counsel to Obama, implied the president may use executive privilege to hide some memos Elena Kagan wrote when she served in the Clinton White House.
“President Obama does not intend to assert executive privilege over any of the documents requested by the Committee,” Bauer writes.
“Of course, President Clinton also has an interest in these records, and his representative is reviewing them now,” he adds.
The Clinton library has more than 150,000 documents related to Elena Kagan. This is one of the few sources we have to know what Kagan thinks on many issues.
How can we keep up with all of the bullsh!t going on in our government at all levels? Dems or reps...they're one in the same these days!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Are poll workers being used to inflate jobs totals?
Posted: 1:15 AM, September 14, 2010
Workers at polling places for today's primary and November's general election are being required to file tax withholding forms for the first time ever in a move that could be aimed at inflating the nation's employment numbers.
Is this really a little Election Eve trick? Here's what I learned, you decide.
The New York City Board of Elections, which uses 30,000 to 36,000 temporary workers for both the primary and general election, said it is being ordered by the Internal Revenue Service to make "employees" out of the very temporary workers who tend the polling sites.
But an IRS spokesperson couldn't find such an order.
"The Internal Revenue Service has determined that all poll workers are considered employees of the Board of Elections for tax purposes," said a Board memo dated Aug. 2 and signed by Rosanna Kostamoulas Rahmouni, coordinator of Election Day Operations.
"Therefore, the Board is required to have every poll worker complete the following before processing your application for work," her note added, listing tax forms W-4 and IT-2104 as necessary.
"It is imperative that you promptly submit the forms or you will not be paid for your training class or processed to work on Election Day," she said.
Although the note was dated Aug. 2 it apparently wasn't delivered to poll workers until very late in August. Workers get paid only $100 for training and $200 each day for working the primary and general election. So it's unlikely that the main purpose of this order is to collect the measly amount of taxes that would be owed -- mostly by the low-income retirees who man the polling centers -- on such a small amount of wages.
But if the election boards in all 50 states suddenly report an influx of additional government workers, the effect on the monthly employment numbers could be very, very significant.
As you know, the monthly employment report -- in which the number of jobs created or lost by the US economy is revealed -- is closely watched by the public and the financial community. And it's often cited publicly by President Obama.
The next employment report before the election will come on Oct. 8.
Massive wealth confiscation program would replace 401(k) system with Social Security-run ponzi scheme
Government Prepares To Seize Private Pensions
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Tuesday, October 12, 2010
The government is preparing to seize the private 401(k) pensions of millions of Americans while enforcing an additional 5 per cent payroll tax as part of a new bailout program that will empower the Social Security Administration to redistribute pension funds in a frightening example of big government gone wild.
Public pension plans have been so aggressively looted already by the government that cities and counties face a $574 billion funding gap, according to a CNBC report.
That black hole is set to be filled by a new proposal that will “fairly” distribute taxpayer-funded pensions to everyone, by confiscating the private wealth of millions of Americans. Its proponents express staggering arrogance in thinking that they can just steal money people have worked for decades to accrue as if it’s their own.
Not only would the government confiscate 401(k) pensions, it would also impose a mandatory 5 per cent payroll tax payable by everyone, according to a hearing chaired last week by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
“This would, of course, be a sister government ponzi scheme working in tandem with Social Security, the primary purpose being to give big government politicians additional taxpayer funds to raid to pay for their out-of-control spending,” writes Connie Hair.
The hearing was a platform for advocates of Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs), a program authored by Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York. Back in November 2008, Ghilarducci testified to Congress that 401(k)s and IRAs should be confiscated and converted into universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration.
“You don’t hold hearings on something you don’t intend to do,” points out the Market Ticker blog. “I hate it when I’m right. I hate it even more when tens of millions of Americans are going to get reamed to pay for the crimes of the handful on Wall Street, and their crony enablers in Washington DC.”
As Bloomberg reported earlier this year, pension funds are already being taken by stealth and invested in failed banks.
The GRAs would be enforced by means of a mandatory savings tax equating to 5 per cent of an individual’s annual paycheck deposited to the GRA. Social Security and Medicare taxes would still be payable, employers would no longer would be able to write off their contributions and capital gains would be taxable year-on-year. In addition, workers could bequeath only half of their account balances to their heirs, unlike full balances from existing 401(k) and IRA accounts.
During a Seattle radio interview in October 2008, Ghilarducci explained the motive behind the plan, stating, “I’m just rearranging the tax breaks that are available now for 401(k)s and spreading – spreading the wealth” (emphasis mine).
However, as we painfully learned in the immediate aftermath of the original $700 million dollar bailout, which was originally sold on the basis that it would be used to pay off bad debt, governments that propose “spreading the wealth” under socialist-style financial reforms almost always collect the wealth under the pretext of being the saviors before greedily hoarding it all for themselves.
The GRA program is being pushed by the Economic Policy Institute, an organization housed on the third floor of the building occupied by the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress. The Center for American Progress is a think tank headed by Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff John D. Podesta, who was also head of Barack Obama’s presidential transition team after the 2008 election.
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