Congress split over NSA’s domestic spying program, could just let laws expire

President Obama says the NSA’s snooping programs need changes — but he tossed the biggest decisions to Congress, where the tide appears to be running against letting the government continue to scoop and hold Americans’ phone data.

However, the intelligence community does have some important defenders, both on the key oversight committees and within the leadership ranks of Senate Democrats and House Republicans. Their support of continued snooping — and the lack of an easy alternative to the government holding on to Americans’ data — could leave the program intact.

“We have carefully reviewed this program and have found it to be legal and effective,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, and Rep. Mike Rogers, Michigan Republican, said in a joint statement after Mr. Obama’s speech. They chair the intelligence committees in their respective chambers.

Mr. Obama on Friday announced a few immediate changes to the National Security Agency’s program that grabs the phone numbers, times and durations of every phone call made in the U.S. and stores that data for five years.

Under the changes, analysts must submit to court reviews before they are permitted to go through the data, and they will be more limited in how far they can snoop beyond the initial phone number they suspect belongs to someone involved in terrorism.

But the president said more changes are needed to re-establish Americans’ faith in the system.

All sides in the debate are now on the clock.

Mr. Obama gave the Justice Department two months to come back with a proposal for how to shift the phone records so they are no longer held by the government.

Congress, facing November elections, will have to act by late summer or leave the issue for the Congress convening in 2015. But that puts them against another deadline: The section of the Patriot Act that the NSA uses to grab the phone data expires next year.

Opponents of the NSA program said that’s their trump.

“Next year, these authorities expire. And I believe without real reform — not a veneer of reform, but the reform that the president’s panel proposed and that in many ways, the president proposed on Friday — these laws will expire,” Sen. Mark Udall, Colorado Democrat, said Sunday on CBS‘ “Face the Nation.”

The sides are also dividing up.

Mrs. Feinstein has pushed through her committee a bill that would officially approve NSA snooping and let the program continue with some additional reporting requirements.

On the other side is an emerging coalition of liberals and conservatives, who are backing a bill that would go the other way and completely outlaw bulk collection of records. That legislation is sponsored by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who was chief author of the Patriot Act.

“There’s a concern that we have gone too much into Americans’ privacy,” Mr. Leahy said on “Fox News Sunday.” “There’s still going to be legislation on this.”

White House officials specifically raised the possibility of telephone companies or other third parties keeping the information but made clear that “those options also present themselves other complications and other issues, some of them related to privacy concerns.”

Still, Mr. Obama’s speech last week shows how far the balance has shifted.

“The reforms I’m proposing today should give the American people greater confidence that their rights are being protected, even as our intelligence and law enforcement agencies maintain the tools they need to keep us safe,” Mr. Obama said.

“I recognize that there are additional issues that require further debate. I am open to working with Congress to ensure that we build a consensus for how to move forward, and am confident that we can shape an approach that meets our security needs while upholding the civil liberties of every American.”

The changes are a direct result of the leaks from former government contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed that the National Security Agency was gathering and storing the numbers, lengths and dates of most calls made inside the U.S. The leaks set off a firestorm of criticism and led the White House to appoint a panel to review U.S. surveillance and data-collection practices and offer recommendations on how to change and improve them.

Effective immediately, analysts at the NSA cannot query phone-record databases and other pools of information without specific judicial review of each individual case, senior White House officials said.

There is, however, a loophole.

In his remarks, Mr. Obama said the database “can be queried only after a judicial finding, or in a true emergency.” It’s unclear what will constitute a “true emergency.”

Privacy advocates hoped Mr. Obama would go further and implement more changes himself. They argue that the government cannot be trusted with data.

The intelligence community and its defenders said Mr. Obama is going too far, and some defenders, including House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said Mr. Obama is losing the debate because he mishandled it.

“Because the president has failed to adequately explain the necessity of these programs, the privacy concerns of some Americans are understandable,” said Mr. Boehner. “When considering any reforms, however, keeping Americans safe must remain our top priority. When lives are stake, the president must not allow politics to cloud his judgment.”

Beyond the NSA program, Mr. Obama is calling for other changes.

He said Friday that national security letters, used by the FBI and other government arms to order companies to turn over records in terrorism investigations, should not “remain secret indefinitely.” He told the Justice Department to look into when and how the letters could be released publicly.

He is not, however, calling for judicial review of those letters.

Mr. Obama also directed his administration to “review for declassification purposes” all future opinions within the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

The president also has called on Congress to establish a “panel of advocates” from the privacy and civil liberties realm, along with technology specialists, to add perspective to the legal review process of all data queries.

Mr. Obama said such a move will provide “an independent voice in significant cases before” the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

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States revolt against EPA’s global warming agenda

Nebraska filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency over the agency’s proposed carbon dioxide emissions limits for new power plants.

The Cornhusker State is the latest to push back against the Obama administration’s effort to fight global warming.

State Attorney General Jon Bruning says that the EPA’s carbon emissions limits would effectively ban the construction of new coal-fired power plants because it requires they adopt carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology — which is not commercially proven.

Bruning argues that the CCS requirement violates federal law as the EPA only cites projects that are federally-funded — which is prohibited under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The EPA justifies its CCS requirement by citing three inoperable projects in the U.S. that have received $2.5 billion in federal funds., as well as one Canadian government-backed project.

“The impossible standards imposed by the EPA will ensure no new power plants are built in Nebraska,” Bruning said in a statement. “This federal agency continues to overstep its authority at the detriment of Nebraska businesses.”

Nebraska is the most recent state to challenge the EPA’s attempts to regulate carbon emissions and fight global warming. Late last year, Texas and twelve other states challenged the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other stationary sources.

The states, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, argued that the EPA did not have the authority to require power plants and other facilities to get permits for emitting greenhouse gases. The EPA argued that its “tailpipe” rule for vehicles triggered permitting for stationary sources as well.

The major problem with the EPA’s attempt to require permitting for greenhouse gases from stationary sources was that the Clean Air Act’s permitting requirements were configured for emissions levels that only a few industrial facilities met. But carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas emitted by human activity, is emitted by nearly every facility, and in amounts that would have required more than six million buildings to get EPA permits.

“Smart, necessary regulation by the EPA makes sense, but once again the EPA – under President Obama’s tenure – has stretched the boundary of its authority. The Clean Air Act was never designed to regulate greenhouse gases,” said Indiana Chamber President and CEO Kevin Brinegar.

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce joined with 74 other state and local business groups from 33 different states to oppose the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations.

Despite pushback from states and businesses, the Obama administration is still moving forward with its climate agenda. Earlier this month, the EPA published its proposed carbon emissions limits for new power plants.

“Provided that Congress does not prevent EPA and other agencies from doing their jobs, and provided that those agencies are ambitious in implementing the President’s Climate Action Plan,” Natural Resources Defense Council climate expert Dan Lashof testified to the Senate on Thursday, “we can build on the progress to date and achieve this goal through cost effective standards to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and vehicles, methane emissions from oil and gas operations, and HFC emissions from the chemical and consumer products industries.

“Doing so will create new markets for technological ingenuity and will put the United States on track to the much deeper emission reductions needed to forestall out-of-control climate disruption and protect our health and the future our children inherit,” Lashof added.

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Jim Moran Third Democrat in Three Days to Announce Retirement from Congress

On Wednesday, Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) became the third Democratic member of the House of Representatives in the last three days to announce that he will retire and not run for re-election in 2014. 

On Tuesday, Congressman Bill Owens (D-NY) announced his retirement. On Monday, prominent Nancy Pelosi ally George Miller (D-CA) announced his retirement.

Though Moran's retirement is not expected to give Republicans a significant chance of wresting control of the Northern Virginia district he has represented in Congress for twelve terms away from the Democrats, it is a clear signal that the ranking Democrat on the Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee believes there is little likelihood his party will win the House back in 2014. 

The unattractive prospect of serving in a third consecutive Congress without the subcommittee chairmanship, relegated to having little power as the minority party's ranking member, likely figured in Moran's decision to retire.

Like his retiring Democratic colleague Owens on Tuesday, Moran offered little insight into the real reason for his resignation, saying only, "it's time to close this chapter of my life and move on to the next challenge." Many expect that "next challenge" to be a highly lucrative job as a lobbyist on K Street.

Moran has a reputation as one of the most partisan and unpleasant members of Congress. As Roll Call reported Wednesday, "his professional accomplishments were sometimes overshadowed by personal scandals. Brash and occasionally outspoken to a fault, he has shoved members leaving the House floor, suggested that the Jewish community pushed for the U.S. invasion in Iraq in 2003 and possibly squandered a small fortune in the stock market."

As Breitbart News editor Joel Pollak pointed out Monday, Moran's retirement is yet another sign that Democrats know the 2014 midterm elections are not likely to go their way.

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House to Consider 1,582-Page Omnibus Spending Bill Less than Two Days, Then Vote

The omnibus spending bill that House Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) introduced with Senate Appropriations Committee chairwoman Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) is more than 1,500 pages long – and House lawmakers are expected to vote on it less than two days after it was introduced.

More specifically, the bill is 1,582 pages long. It is the second part of the budget deal that House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) cut with Senate Budget Committee chairwoman Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA). The Ryan-Murray deal set broad outlays, while the Rogers-Mikulski omnibus spending bill offers specific funding directed at various programs and agencies as part of a reflection of the guidelines of the Ryan-Murray deal.

Via Twitter, the Senate Budget Committee GOP staff who work for ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) sent out a photo of the omnibus bill with a question for their Twitter followers: “The House will vote on the omnibus as little as 46 hours after receiving it. Could you read this thing that quickly?”

Jenny Beth Martin, the national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, says there is no way lawmakers can read that large bill before voting on it.

“While Americans suffer the consequences of Obamacare, Congress is trying to rush through another massive bill before reading it,” Martin said in a statement Tuesday. 

The Omnibus bill, a 1,582-page monstrosity with a price tag of $1.1 trillion, was quietly introduced under the cover of darkness on Monday night, and is being rushed to a vote before Congress can read it. Has Congress learned nothing from the Obamacare disaster? We need members in the House and the Senate who are willing to keep their campaign promises, stand up for the people, and protect Americans from Washington's tax, borrow, spend and spend and spend mentality.

Martin further called the omnibus spending package “unacceptable” and something that “sets the stage for another debt increase in February.” Martin argued that Congress is spending money that the government does not have.

“The mindset of ‘who cares about the future’ is a travesty and completely irresponsible,” Martin said. “One trillion dollars does not appear magically out of thin air. The only way to pay for such a mess is to borrow, and borrow some more. Congress may be deluding themselves, but the American people will hold them responsible for this fiscal irresponsibility.”

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U.S. issues first challenge to WTO over Chinese compliance claim

The United States on Monday challenged China’s claim that it has complied with World Trade Organization rules regarding duties on certain US steel products.

US Trade Representative Michael Froman announced that the United States was requesting that China enter into consultations over Beijing’s claim that it has brought its duties on US exports of grain oriented flat-rolled electrical steel (GOES) into compliance with WTO rules.

The request marks the first time the United States has launched a proceeding in the Geneva-based international trade body to challenge a claim by China that it has complied in a WTO dispute, the USTR said.

“The WTO found that China’s duties are inconsistent with WTO rules. We were right, and China was wrong. Unfortunately, it appears that China has not corrected those inconsistencies,” Froman said in a statement.

According to the USTR, China’s actions cut off more than $250 million in US exports of the high-tech steel product used primarily in the power-generating industry.

The magnetic US rolled steel is made by AK Steel Corporation, based in Ohio, and Allegheny Ludlum, based in Pennsylvania.

The dispute dates back to September 2010 when Washington accused China of breaching trade rules by not providing sufficient evidence that antidumping duties were needed on US imports of the specialist steel.

In June 2012 the WTO ruled in favor of the United States complaint. China, after losing an appeal of the decision, pledged in November that year to change its restrictive policy to comply with the ruling.

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Darrell Issa: Obama administration waging ‘a war on guns’ with ‘rogue’ ATF sting operations

California Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, accused the Obama administration of waging “a war on guns” after new reports of “rogue” sting operations by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) conducted during 2013.

Issa spoke to Fox News’ Shannon Bream Sunday about a report by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which claimed that ATF agents operating firearm stings in 6 separate cities “took advantage of the mentally ill, set up stings near churches and schools and made decisions which some claim actually increased crime in their neighborhoods.” Issa and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley sent a letter to ATF Director Todd Jones this week to demand answers on the tactics and how often they’ve been used.

But Issa believes he already knows what’s going on.

“This is ‘Fast and Furious’ revisited,” he began, referencing the infamous gun-running operation that saw thousands of small arms fall into the hands of drug cartels. “You finally have a confirmed director, Todd Jones, who was supposed to clean up these operations. And instead — what you see in many of these cases — they’re continuing. They’re continuing to have this be what’s called a ‘rogue organization.’ But I think for the members of the ATF, I want to make sure I make one thing clear. The ATF never acts alone. The FBI and the U.S. attorneys in each of these areas — political appointees — they work hand in hand… This is the president, President Obama’s Department of Justice that continues to support these sting operations, these ‘rogue operations’ as they’re called, that lead to harm in communities.”

Issa explained why the Obama administration has gone to such great lengths — exploiting the mentally disabled and shelling out large amounts of taxpayer dollars in buyback programs — in its quest to get all guns, both legal and illegal, “off the street.”

“I think what we have here once again is a war on guns, if you will, that causes them to take these bold moves — bold and reckless moves — because they hate guns so much,” he said. “‘Fast and Furious’ had the opposite effect; it made Americans scared of their government… Whether it’s ‘Fast and Furious’ or being lied to by the NSA, the American people are getting tired of assuming that an agency does one thing and then finding out that they’re abusing citizens, and in this case the mentally retarded.”

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Senators propose giving Obama ‘fast-track authority’ for trade deals

Lawmakers on Thursday proposed empowering US trade negotiators to push ahead major deals with Pacific Rim and European Union nations, but the move faces stiff opposition.

Three key lawmakers on trade policy introduced a bill to give President Barack Obama “fast-track authority,” which would allow his team to negotiate agreements that Congress could approve or reject — without making changes.

Supporters said the four-year extension of the powers, which last ended in 2007, is indispensable to speeding up trade negotiations.

The Obama administration has put a high priority on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, seeing it as tying the United States more firmly to the dynamic Asia-Pacific region.

The administration has also opened talks with the European Union on a potentially sweeping pact known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

The trade authority legislation “is critical to a successful trade agenda,” Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat who heads the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement.

“It is critical to boosting US exports and creating jobs. And it’s critical to fueling America’s growing economy,” said Baucus, who Obama recently nominated to be ambassador to China.

The legislation outlines US objectives in trade deals, including the protection of intellectual property and assurances against currency manipulation.

Some lawmakers accuse Japan, which is part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and especially China, which is suspicious of the trade pact, of artificially weakening their currencies to promote exports.

“This legislation will be instrumental to ensuring that our country’s current trade negotiations in Asia and Europe are a success and that these agreements meet the high standards necessary for congressional approval,” said Senator Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

The bill was also introduced in the House of Representatives by the head of the parallel committee, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, a Republican.

But in November, 151 House Democrats — three-quarters of the party’s membership in the House — signed a letter opposing fast-track authority.

The Ways and Means Committee’s top Democrat, Representative Sandy Levin, said that the proposal “has fallen far short” in addressing changes in the global economy.

“We must do more to ensure that our trading partners do not gain competitive advantages through weak labor and environmental laws and enforcement — a challenge that Vietnam’s inclusion in TPP makes clear,” Levin said in a statement referring to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Levin also called for Congress to renew a program that expired last month that supports US workers hurt by trade. The assistance had previously been renewed after pressure from Levin and other labor-friendly Democrats in exchange for approving free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama in 2011.

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Feds pick Obama supporter to lead probe of IRS tea party targeting

The Justice Department selected an avowed political supporter of President Obama to lead the criminal probe into the IRS targeting of tea party groups, according to top Republicans who said Wednesday that the move has ruined the entire investigation.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, and regulatory affairs subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, said they have discovered that the head of the investigation is Barbara Kay Bosserman, a trial lawyer in the Justice Department who donated more than $6,000 to Mr. Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, as well as several hundred dollars to the national Democratic Party.

“The department has created a startling conflict of interest,” Mr. Issa and Mr. Jordan said in a letter sent Wednesday and reviewed by The Washington Times. “It is unbelievable that the department would choose such an individual to examine the federal government’s systematic targeting and harassment of organizations opposed to the president’s policies.”

The Internal Revenue Service’s internal auditor revealed in May that the agency had been inappropriately targeting and blocking applications for tax-exempt status from tea party and conservative-leaning groups. In the immediate aftermath, Mr. Obama promised that the FBI and the Justice Department would investigate whether the IRS broke any laws.

Eight months later, the investigation has not produced any public findings, and Mr. Issa says the FBI and Justice Department have stonewalled his efforts to find out what’s going on.

Ms. Bosserman didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

But the Justice Department said it isn’t allowed to consider a career lawyer’s political leanings when doling out assignments and that it would violate an employee’s constitutional rights if he were penalized on the job for making legal political contributions.

“It is contrary to department policy and a prohibited personnel practice under federal law to consider the political affiliation of career employees or other non-merit factors in making personnel decisions,” said spokeswoman Dena Iverson.

According to campaign finance records, Ms. Bosserman donated $400 to the Democratic National Committee in 2004 and $250 in 2008. She gave $3,600 to Mr. Obama’s campaign in 2008, $2,000 to his campaign in 2012, and $500 to the separate Obama Victory Fund in 2012.

The tea party scandal has faded from the headlines but the fallout continues. The IRS is trying to come to terms with some of the conservative groups it delayed in approving tax-exempt status.

Meanwhile, the criminal investigation continues, according to an FBI letter sent to Mr. Issa late last month. The FBI says it’s because of that investigation that the agency will not release any of its documents to Mr. Issa.

“We would request that the committee permit the investigators to complete their investigation and consult with federal prosecutors,” Stephen D. Kelly, assistant director of the FBI’s office of congressional affairs, said in a Dec. 31 letter to Mr. Issa. “As a result, we cannot provide the documents requested … while the criminal investigation is active.”

The FBI didn’t say when it would complete the investigation.

Mr. Issa and Mr. Jordan warned Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that the FBI’s refusal to cooperate could rise “to the level of criminal obstruction” of Congress’ oversight responsibilities. The Justice Department promised to at least brief congressional investigators on the status of the FBI probe, but then backed out.

Mr. Kelly’s letter didn’t address the reason, but it did reply to another request from Mr. Issa seeking information about the FBI’s contacts with King Street Patriots, one of the tea party groups that applied for tax-exempt status but was stonewalled.

Catherine Engelbrecht, a chief organizer of King Street Patriots, said she felt the government was targeting her after the FBI made repeated inquiries about someone who attended a King Street Patriots meeting.

In its letter to Mr. Issa, the FBI said it contacted the King Street Patriots after receiving a complaint in 2010 that a member of the group had said he wanted to start a revolution and had visited a firing range.

Mr. Kelly said FBI agents checked with the group, which said the man attended a training session but was asked to leave. Mr. Kelly said the group provided an address the man had given, but that address turned out to be false. When the FBI ultimately tracked down the man, he “indicated that his remarks were made in jest.”

“The King Street Patriots were questioned concerning their limited relationship with the individual in question,” Mr. Kelly said in the FBI letter.

But that doesn’t jibe with Ms. Engelbrecht’s recollection, nor with the paper record that was released. In a heavily redacted copy of one of the FBI’s contact reports, which Ms. Engelbrecht obtained, the FBI makes no mention of the individual Mr. Kelly said the agency was investigating. Instead, the report lists the contact as part of “community outreach.”

Ms. Engelbrecht said the FBI made a half-dozen inquiries over the course of a year. She said she also fielded inquiries at her business from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; faced an audit by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of Engelbrecht Manufacturing; and underwent an IRS audit of her personal tax returns.

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Gates says Obama, Clinton played politics with Iraq war

President Obama’s former defense secretary says in a new book that both the president and then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged in front of him that they opposed the Iraq surge because of presidential politics.

Robert Gates, who led the Pentagon for President George W. Bush and then stayed on for the first 2½ years of Mr. Obama’s tenure, also said Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was regularly wrong about his views on international affairs.

In excerpts posted on The Wall Street Journal’s website, Mr. Gates bristled at much of Washington, including having to submit to pointed questioning from members of Congress, managing the internal turf conflicts at the Pentagon and trying to avoid the White House’s desire to micromanage everything.
And the former secretary said that Mr. Obama himself seemed to dislike having to deal with uniformed officers.

“Bush was willing to disagree with his senior military advisers, but he never (to my knowledge) questioned their motives or mistrusted them personally. Obama was respectful of senior officers and always heard them out, but he often disagreed with them and was deeply suspicious of their actions and recommendations,” Mr. Gates said.

“Bush seemed to enjoy the company of the senior military; I think Obama considered time spent with generals and admirals an obligation,” the former secretary said.

The new book, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” recounts Mrs. Clinton telling Mr. Obama her opposition to Mr. Bush’s 2007 troop surge in Iraq was a political decision, made because she was trying to match Mr. Obama’s anti-war sentiment in their primary campaign.

“The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying,” Mr. Gates wrote, according to excerpts published in The Washington Post’s review of the book.

But Mr. Gates also had kind words for Mrs. Clinton, calling her “smart, idealistic but pragmatic, tough-minded, indefatigable, funny, a very valuable colleague, and a superb representative of the United States all over the world.”

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden disputed Mr. Gates’ conclusions, though she said Mr. Obama still appreciated his service. Ms. Hayden took particular exception to the former secretary’s criticism of Mr. Biden, whom he described as almost uniformly wrong on big foreign policy questions.

“The president disagrees with Secretary Gates’ assessment — from his leadership on the Balkans in the Senate, to his efforts to end the war in Iraq, Joe Biden has been one of the leading statesmen of his time, and has helped advance America’s leadership in the world. President Obama relies on his good counsel every day,” said Ms. Hayden.

Both Mr. Biden and Mrs. Clinton are seen as potential successors when Mr. Obama’s second term ends, and Mr. Gates’ book is likely to cause problems for both of them.

Mr. Biden’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Ready for Hillary, a grass-roots organization established to lay the groundwork for Mrs. Clinton’s expected presidential run in 2016.

Mr. Obama will also likely have to answer questions about Mr. Gates’ evaluation of his Afghanistan policy.
His former defense chief said the president seemed intent on getting out of Afghanistan, regardless of conditions on the ground or the advice of commanders.

Ms. Hayden said the president’s deliberations on Afghanistan “have been widely reported on over the years, and it is well known that the president has been committed to achieving the mission of disrupting, dismantling and defeating al Qaeda, while also ensuring that we have a clear plan for winding down the war, which will end this year.”

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Former congressman Mel Watt sworn in as Fannie and Freddie regulator

Mel Watt was sworn in as the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency on Monday afternoon, capping a contentious, partisan nomination process and giving the office that runs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac its first Democratic head. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx administered the oath of office.

Watt, who had served as the representative from North Carolina's 12th District since 1993, replaces Ed DeMarco, who took over as acting director of the independent agency in 2009 and served in that position throughout the housing market's collapse and the administration's efforts to provide relief to homeowners and minimize foreclosures.

Since 2008, the FHFA has acted as the conservator for Fannie and Freddie after they failed in the financial crisis and received a government bailout, which ultimately totaled nearly $200 billion in taxpayer funds.

DeMarco stymied the Obama administration’s plans to offer principal reductions to homeowners with Fannie- and Freddie-backed loans, but he proved difficult for the White House to replace. Republicans blocked Watt’s confirmation for much of 2013, saying the agency’s head should be a technocrat, not a politician. The GOP’s filibuster of Watt was part of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s motivation for changing Senate rules to remove the filibuster for executive nominees.

Watt’s Democratic supporters hope that the 68 year-old former lawyer’s presence at the agency will mean a policy that is more focused on home affordability. Many saw DeMarco as overly concerned with fiscal concerns and tight lending standards.

“Mel will do everything he can to maintain affordability of mortgages to the middle class,” said Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., who served with Watt on the House Financial Services Committee. “It’s a delicate balance.”

Even before taking office, Watt took the first step toward reversing some of DeMarco’s efforts to tighten the standards Fannie and Freddie apply to the mortgages they guarantee. DeMarco had scheduled increases in the fees the two government-sponsored mortgage businesses charge for backing loans — a move intended to ensure that Fannie and Freddie only guarantee sound loans and to foster competition from private lenders. Watt announced in December that he would stay the increases in the so-called G-Fees until he had a chance to review them as director.

Watt takes office as both the House and Senate consider bills to end Fannie and Freddie and replace them with a new system of housing finance. Analysts don’t expect either of those bills to become law in the next few years, meaning that Watt will continue to have an outsized influence on the housing market as its recovery advances.

The two mortgage giants guaranteed nearly 70 percent of all U.S. mortgages by the end of 2012, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication. Together, they have more than $5 trillion in debt outstanding, according to the FHFA’s figures.

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White House announces new executive actions on background checks for guns

The White House announced two new executive actions Friday that would expand the government’s access to mental health information during background checks on gun buyers.

The two new actions clarify what constitutes a mental health problem that might prohibit gun ownership and allow states more wiggle room in disclosing such personal medical information.

One executive action frees states from some of the privacy laws that prohibit the disclosure of patients’ medical information, allowing institutions to input mental health information relevant to gun ownership into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, otherwise known as NICS.

It modifies the HIPAA Privacy Rule to allow institutions “to disclose to the NICS the identities of persons prohibited by federal law from possessing or receiving a firearm for reasons related to mental health.”

Not everyone who has struggled with mental health issues is prohibited from owning a gun, but people who have been “involuntarily committed to a mental institution or otherwise have been determined by a lawful authority to be a danger to themselves or others or to lack the mental capacity to manage their own affairs” will be noted as such in the NICS.

“There is a strong public safety need for this information to be accessible to the NICS, and some states are currently under-reporting or not reporting certain information to the NICS at all,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement. “This proposed rulemaking is carefully balanced to protect and preserve individuals’ privacy interests, the patient-provider relationship, and the public’s health and safety.”

The other executive action, issued by the Department of Justice, clarifies what exactly in someone’s mental health history would prohibit them from owning or purchasing a gun. Persons who fall under the category of “adjudicated as a mental defective” and “committed to a mental institution” include those who are “incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect; persons lacking mental responsibility or deemed insane; and persons found guilty but mentally ill, regardless of whether these determinations are made by a state, local, federal or military court,” as well as “a person committed to involuntary inpatient or outpatient treatment.”

“We are taking an important, commonsense step to clarify the federal firearms regulations, which will strengthen our ability to keep dangerous weapons out of the wrong hands,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. “This step will provide clear guidance on who is prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law for reasons related to mental health.

The executive actions come less than a month after the one year anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 elementary school children and six adults dead. The shooting rampage sparked off a movement in Congress to pass background checks for gun owners, but ultimately congress could not agree to any such legislation.

The National Rifle Association declined to comment immediately on the executive actions.

“Nothing to say until we have a chance to review the actual language of these proposals,” emailed NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.

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Judicial Watch's Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians of 2013

Judicial Watch (JW) has released its list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2013, and it’s bipartisan in nature.

Not only are eight members of the Obama Administration named, starting with Obama himself, but also GOP Speaker of the House John Boehner and GOP Senator Saxby Chambliss.

As the release states, “President Barack Obama actually tops this 'Top Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians' list for 2013 as the driving force behind so many of the misdeeds... He is a master at catch-me-if-you-can, corrupt politics.”

Judicial Watch notes Obama’s penchant for ignoring Congress and rewriting federal law himself, including rewriting the Obamacare law 14 times by executive fiat; his “continual lies” that Americans could keep their own health care under Obamacare, despite his knowledge that “more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them;” and his disavowal of responsibility for targeting the Tea Party and other conservative groups by the IRS, though he had made remarks warning about the dangers of conservative groups since 2010.

Moreover, Judicial Watch referred to the latest Obama deceit:

The latest Obama fix came on December 20, when he suddenly moved to allow hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their insurance due to Obamacare to sign up for bare-bone “catastrophic” plans. As National Review observed, “Of course, like every other exemption from Obamacare the latest fix is supposed to last only a year, raising the prospect that people will be kicked off their catastrophic coverage as soon as the 2014 election is safely in the political rear-view mirror.

The next highest Obama official on the list is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, noted for her evasion of responsibility for the Benghazi massacre, saying, “…the level of responsibility for the failures… was set at the Assistant Secretary of State level and below,” and yelling “What difference does it make?” when asked why the attack transpired and why the administration lied about a video being the cause of the attack. That outburst followed her statement at a September 14, 2012, event honoring the victims, during which she said, “We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen the rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful video that we had nothing to do with.”

JW also targets Clinton for the conflict of interest regarding her bosom buddy Huma Abedin, who had worked as a “special government employee” (SGE), a consultant position allowing her to represent outside clients while continuing as a top adviser at State. Lastly, JW cites the potential conflict of interest between Hillary Clinton’s role as Secretary of State and Bill Clinton’s international ventures, as noted in 2008 when Bill released a list of donors to his library and foundation in what he termed “a deal between” Obama “and Hillary.” According to the Associated Press, “Saudi Arabia gave $10 million to $25 million to the foundation. Other government donors include Norway, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Oman…” 

Attorney General Eric Holder is chosen for lying about whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) could prosecute reporters under the Espionage Act for publishing classified material. Holder stated, “In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material – this is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy.” However, NBC news reported Holder approved a search warrant for the email account and phone records of Fox News reporter James Rosen.  

Holder is also noted for “bludgeoning states over taking steps to prevent voter fraud… Judicial Watch went to court in North Carolina in early December to defend the State of North Carolina against a DOJ lawsuit to prevent enforcement of the state’s recently passed law HB 589, which simply requires that voters present a photo ID before casting their ballots.”

JW writes, “The DOJ is similarly assaulting Texas in federal court as part of this ideological effort to suppress efforts to protect election integrity. More than a dozen states – including Kansas, Indiana, Tennessee and Wisconsin – have similar laws that require voters to show government-issued photo identification at the polls, and Obama’s attorney general has launched a campaign to challenge them all.” Then there’s the small matter of Holder’s travel expenses – “from March 2008 until August 2012… $697,525.20 were personal travel expenses." All, of course, at taxpayer expense. Lastly, there is Holder’s continued stonewalling on the “Fast & Furious” gun-running scandal.

What would a top-ten-most-corrupt list be without Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) and his corrupt donors and pals? As JW quotes from FrontPage.com, “Harvey Whittemore was sentenced to two years in prison for funneling more than $130,000 in illegal campaign funds to Sen. Harry Reid’s re-election committee in 2007...” Peter Schweizer writes for Fox News, “Sen. Reid has sponsored at least $47 million in earmarks that directly benefitted organizations that one of his sons, Key Reid, [RW1] either lobbies for or is affiliated with.”

In addition, JW notes, “Obama and Reid have long opposed a proposed nuclear waste dump in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, which has already cost U.S. taxpayers an astounding $15 billion, according to various federal audits. So, Obama simply instructed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to decline to conduct the statutorily mandated Yucca Mountain licensing process, essentially destroying the project. In mid-August, a federal appellate court ruled that Obama ‘is simply flouting the law.’”

The icing on the cake, as JW writes, took place when, on “November 21, 2013, – a day which should live in congressional infamy – Reid gutted the long-standing filibuster rules of the U.S. Senate in order to grease the path for Barack Obama’s court appointees.”

Next up is John Brennan, CIA Director, who “revealed that the U.S. and its allies had 'inside control over any plot' in its efforts to thwart a May 2012 terrorism bomb plot, thus blowing the cover on undercover agents within al Qaeda” in a May 7, 2012, teleconference with various TV terrorism consultants. As Reuters reported, “The next day's headlines were filled with news of a U.S. spy planted inside Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), who had acquired the latest, non-metallic model of the underwear bomb and handed it over to U.S. authorities. At stake was an operation that could not have been more sensitive – the successful penetration by Western spies of AQAP, al Qaeda's most creative and lethal affiliate. As a result of leaks, the undercover operation had to be shut down.”

JW also points out Brennan’s involvement in influencing the storyline of the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.” 
Speaker of the House John Boehner is selected for what Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer calls the “Tollbooth Strategy,” explaining, “You pay money at a tollbooth in order to use a road or bridge. The methodology in Washington is similar: if someone wants a bill passed, charge them money to allow the bill to move down the legislative highway.” Schweizer reported that Boehner apparently used the Tollbooth Strategy to collect more than $200,000 in political donations from executives just days before holding votes on bills critically important to their industries.

Add former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose DHS U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) “abandoned required background checks in 2012, adopting, instead, costly ‘lean and lite’ procedures in an effort to keep up with the flood of amnesty applications resulting from the DACA directive… the directive actually created a new avenue of chain migration, whereby immediate relatives of DACA requesters could be approved for amnesty.” As a result, according to an agency memo from District 15 Director David Douglas, “some of the districts closer to the U.S./Mexico border have been inundated.” JW concludes, “Napolitano’s legacy is one that has gutted, for political reasons, the very immigration laws she swore to uphold.”

Who could forget Former IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller, who wound up admitting to the targeting of anti-Obama Tea Party groups during the 2012 presidential election, as the IRS purposefully stonewalled the approval of nonprofit applications from “Tea Party” and other conservative groups that were seeking tax exempt status. Of course, Miller’s partner in crime, former IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner, was also named. As JW points out, “Eventually, the IRS acknowledged that while she was in charge, IRS agents improperly targeted Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status from 2010-2012.” JW adds of Miller and Lerner’s targeting, “they both lied about it in separate appearances before Congress.”

Another GOP member of the list is Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), who is “one of the key abusers who used leadership PAC loopholes to convert campaign cash into lavish lifestyle upgrades for themselves and their family members.” According to The New York Times, his “leadership PAC spent $10,000 on golf at Pebble Beach, nearly $27,000 at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, and $107,752 at the exclusive Breakers resort in Palm Beach, Fla. The amount Mr. Chambliss spent at the Breakers in the 2012 election cycle, the book reports, is three times what the senator gave to the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the same period.”

Lastly, there is Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius:

[Sebelius] solicited financial support for President Obama’s huge health care disaster. In May, Secretary Sebelius was caught hitting health care companies up for cash to fund Obamacare after Congress rejected all of the administration’s requests. But, that was just for openers – in October Sebelius redefined the term “incompetence” when she oversaw the disastrous launch of the Obamacare website.

Dishonorable mentions on the JW list were former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for using his staff to work on Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) at taxpayer expense; outgoing Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who “became the subject of an FBI probe because of his possible quid-pro-quo dealings with Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the chief executive of Star Scientific;" incoming Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who has a “Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation hanging over his head;” and former Rep. Rick Renzi, as in June, 2013, Renzi was convicted on 17 counts of extortion, racketeering and other federal charges; in October, he was sentenced to three years in prison.

One more dishonorable mention to really complete the list: National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who made the list last year for her duplicity with regards to Benghazi. This year she was chosen for accepting the position of National Security Advisor, which requires no Senate approval.

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5 ObamaCare Nightmares for Democrats in 2014

Democrats are no doubt eager to put 2013 and the disastrous ObamaCare roll-out behind them. There is, however, a reason they pushed implementation of the health care law until well after Obama's reelection. There are 5 major reasons the Democrats long ObamaCare nightmare is just beginning. 

1. People who think they have coverage, don't.

Approximately 2 million Americans have signed up for ObamaCare, far below the Administration's goal. As these Americans may learn, though, signing up for coverage through the exchanges doesn't mean they have coverage. Many haven't yet made their first premium payment. Washington and Nevada, the only states that report this number, say half of the enrollees have not made a premium payment. The Obama Administration has pressured insurance companies to accept payments until January 10th. It is unclear, however, if people even understand they need to make a payment. 

Beyond this, there are problems with processing individual applications. The state of Iowa recently asked 16,000 people to reapply for insurance, because of ongoing problems with the federal exchange. The state of Oregon made robocalls to thousands of residents, warning them to seek coverage on their own if they hadn't heard from the state exchange by December 23. Potentially hundreds of thousands of people are entering the new year thinking they have coverage and will soon learn the don't. 

2. Millions more people will lose insurance in 2014.

News that 5 million individuals had their health insurance policies cancelled at the end of 2013 came as a shock to most Americans. Obama and Democrats who supported ObamaCare had repeatedly assured the public that if they like their policy they could keep it. The fact that wasn't true smashed their credibility. Unfortunately for Democrats, millions more Americans will have their existing policies cancelled next year. 

If a person in the individual insurance market renewed their policy in 2013, they didn't receive a cancellation notice. They will next year, however. Potentially 10-15 million Americans will have their policies cancelled, just aead of the mid-term elections. 

3. Deductible Shock

Many first-time buyers of insurance coverage are likely to be shocked by the high deductibles under ObamaCare's most affordable plans. Under the cheapest plan in ObamaCare, a family of 4 would have to pay over $12,000 in medical bills before insurance kicked in. Every year. A recent study found that just 14% of Americans understood insurance provisions like "deductibles" and "co-pays." The other 86% are due for a big shock in 2014. 

4. Insurance Premium Sticker Shock

ObamaCare only "works" if millions of healthy, young adults buy health insurance. Their premiums are needed to subsidize insurance for older and sicker adults. For young adults, though, anything beyond a catastrophic plan is largely unnecessary. The ObamaCare exchanges have not reported demographic information for people buying coverage, but it is reasonable to assume, given the difficulty of signing up, that those who most need coverage, i.e. older and sicker adults, make up a large share of new enrollees. 

Even though many Americans are already facing higher premiums through ObamaCare, the costs could skyrocket even more next year unless millions of healthy people buy coverage. Insurance companies will have to drastically increase premiums to cover their costs. This will make coverage more unaffordable for many Americans, potentially causing a "death spiral" in coverage. As relatively health Americans drop coverage, premiums will have to increase for those who are in the most need of medical care. 

5. Employer Mandate 

In July 2013, President Obama announced that he had unilaterally decided to delay ObamaCare's mandate that employers provide coverage until 2015. Employers with more than 50 employees now have to provide health insurance or pay a penalty, effective January 1, 2015. The penalty for not providing coverage is $3,000 per employee. For many businesses, it will be cheaper to pay the penalty than provide health insurance, when there is so much uncertainty about future premium costs. 

This is a feature of the law, not a bug. The long-term goal is to get Americans out of employer-provided health coverage and into the exchanges, leading ultimately to a single-payer system. Had Democrats really wanted to encourage employers to provide coverage, they would have made the penalty higher than annual premium costs. They also wouldn't have put a tax on policies offered by employers. 

Unfortunately for Democrats, businesses will inform their employees of their plans around the middle of 2014, just before the midterm elections. Many businesses will alter their operations to fall below the mandate threshold. Others will simply drop coverage and pay the penalty. This will be a shock for most people, especially since most Americans have health insurance through their employer. That this shock could come just weeks before the midterm elections will create a nightmare for Democrats on the ballot. 

As we enter 2014, Democrats are trying to reassure themselves that Americans will eventually embrace ObamaCare. They point to the "good" things in the law, i.e. parents able to keep kids on their policy until they are 26, free health screenings and new prescription drug benefits. The problem for Democrats, however, is that those provisions are already in effect and have been since 2010. Any benefit Americans perceive from these provisions is already factored into their views of ObamaCare. 

The Democrats front-loaded all the "good" provisions in ObamaCare and put off the politically painful provisions until after Obama's reelection. The tab is coming due in 2014, however. The potentially very negative consequences of the law will unfold throughout the year. Americans will finally find out "what's in the bill." They are not likely to be happy. 

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It’s official: Obamacare debuts with more cancelled plans than enrollments

Obamacare may have promised health insurance for the masses. But on its first day, it’s left more Americans without coverage than before the law was passed.

More than 4.7 million Americans had their health insurance cancelled as a result of any of the thousand-plus-page law’s new rules, the Associated Press reports, but the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed Tuesday that between federal and state exchanges, just 2 million Americans have signed up for Obamacare coverage. 

(RELATED: Obama administration announces net loss of at least 3 million insurance plans)

The Obama administration has yet to announce the final tally of full enrollments, which are only confirmed once customers have made their first payment, but Cato Institute health policy expert Michael Cannon warns that not all those who signed up will complete their purchases, potentially leaving the White House with an even lower bottom line.

Even without the full number of enrollments, Obamacare’s current net effect is clearly in favor of cancellations. Millions are already seeing Obamacare’s adverse effects — largely due to more mandates for more services.

The health-care law requires that all insurance plans cover 10 “essential benefits,” eliminating millions of plans that don’t fit the bill and boosting costs for consumers that have to purchase coverage for services they may not want or need.

All plans must include maternity coverage, for example — including plans for men and post-menopausal women. Even customers without children must purchase plans that cover pediatric services. Other newly established essential benefits include hospitalization, mental-health services and preventive and wellness services.

While a grandfather clause allowed plans purchased before Obamacare passed in 2010 to continue, HHS estimated that 40-67 percent of plans would eventually lose their status and cost millions of Americans their insurance plans.

The Obama administration eventually admitted Obamacare’s role in crushing many Americans’ coverage and has scrambled to belatedly make up for it. President Barack Obama first attempted to reinstate the cancelled coverage for just one more year, but many insurers chose not to restart already-cancelled plans.

The latest stopgap, announced just before the deadline to purchase exchange coverage, is to allow those with cancelled plans a one-year “hardship exemption” from the individual mandate to have medical coverage, but insurance companies didn’t see this as an adequate solution either.

“This type of last-minute change will cause tremendous instability in the marketplace and lead to further confusion and disruption for consumers,” Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans, told reporters.

While attempts to fix the cancellations are floundering, the Obama administration is backtracking on their enrollments goals as well. White House officials have now abandoned HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ benchmark of 7 million enrollment by March 2014. Instead, Obama emphasized that it’s Obamacare’s net effect that matters most. 

(RELATED: White House denies promising 7 million Obamacare signups: ‘That was never our target number’)

“Ultimately I think I’ll be judged on whether this thing is better for people overall,” Obama told NBC’s Chuck Todd in November.

The overall effect on the first day is a net loss of several million Americans, who are now without health coverage.

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