IRS Gives Bonuses to Employees Who Owed Back Taxes and Committed Fraud & Abuse

HYPOCRISY AT IT’S WORSE …

So what happens to Americans who fraudulently claim unemployment benefits, misuse a company credit card or not pay your taxes, you would be arrested, charged with a crime, no longer allowed to use the hand out program, get reprimanded or fired from your job and have the IRS threaten you, place liens on your property and garnish your wages. What happens to an IRS employee  fraudulently claiming unemployment benefits, misusing government credit cards and failing to pay their taxes … THEY GET BONUSES!!!

When is enough, enough with this out of control rogue agency? The Founding Fathers did not intend a federal government to have federal agencies that acted above the law. It is time for a flat tax so that everyone, and I mean everyone pay their fair share, as well as to end this governmental agency of corruption, cronyism and fear. I wonder if any of the IRS employees who received bonuses and owed back taxes have been audited?

A report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration shows that between Oct. 1, 2010, and Dec. 31, 2012, the IRS paid $2.8 million in bonuses to employees cited in the past year for such things as drug use, making violent threats, fraudulently claiming unemployment benefits, misusing government credit cards and — get this — failing to pay their taxes.

The report said more than 1,100 employees who failed to pay their taxes received discretionary awards of more than $1 million in cash bonuses and more than 10,000 hours in extra paid vacation.

At least five employees received performance awards after being disciplined for intentionally under-reporting their tax liabilities for multiples years, paying taxes late and under-reporting income.

Like many companies and government agencies, the IRS sweetens the deal for its employees by giving bonuses based on performance. But at the IRS, breaking the federal tax laws you were hired to enforce and running afoul of other agency rules aren’t considered relevant to performance-based awards.

I guess we are now giving bus drivers who get into accident and police officers with criminal records raises and bonuses too?

Texas EquuSearch Sues FAA in Federal Court Challenge Agency’s Order to Stop Using Drones in Searching for Missing Persons

Since when is a non-profit considered commercial use?

Texas Equusearch has sued the Federal Aviation Administration in federal court to challenge the FAA’s order to stop using unmanned drones in the search for missing persons. Texas Equusearch,  a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, has been tirelessly been searching for missing persons for years and been using unmanned planes, drones, if you will since 2006. So once again we have federal government interference in the search for missing loved ones. I am sure this is what our Founding Father’s had in mind. Sorry, but I happen to think there is a huge difference between a non-profit organization searching for missing persons as compared to Amazon delivering packages.

Click HERE or on pic to watch VIDEO – pic screen grab from Houston Chronicle video

A Texas group sued the Federal Aviation Administration in federal court to challenge the agency’s order to stop using drones in the group’s searches for missing people, the latest round in an intensifying battle over regulation of the sector.

Search-and-rescue organization Texas EquuSearch, which has used unmanned aircraft to help search for missing people since 2006, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to set aside the FAA’s order to halt its use of drones. The group argued in a five-page petition filed on Monday that the FAA’s order has no legal basis and “is unlawful, arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and not otherwise in accordance with law.”

The FAA said it is reviewing the suit. The agency suggested in an email that Texas EquuSearch could work with public entities that hold FAA authorizations to use drones, such as some police departments, and obtain emergency authorizations to conduct its searches.

The FAA has effectively banned the commercial use of unmanned aircraft in the continental U.S. It says the limit is needed to protect air safety, at least until the agency sets full rules for the devices—now expected by late 2015 at the earliest.

Is the federal government more concerned with its overreaching authority or helping the families of missing loved ones?

Tim Miller, founder and director of EquuSearch, said the Feb. 21 Federal Aviation Administration order prohibiting the operation of four drones has meant the nonprofit organization has not used them in three active searches for missing people in Katy, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Miller said the 4-foot-long drones have led to the discovery of 11 missing individuals and allow searchers to view large stretches of wooded areas, fenced property and bodies of water.

“I was hoping we’d get a response from them that was more positive and we didn’t have to go to this extreme,” Miller said of the FAA. “It’s time-consuming for us, and God only knows what the outcome is going to be.”

Brendan Schulman, a New York attorney representing Texas EquuSearch, said the lawsuit seeks to confirm the rights of nonprofits to use civilian drone technology for the nation’s benefit.

Ooops … Federal Govt Study Concludes Biofuels From Corn Waste Not Better Than Gas

It’s settled science … bio-fuels made from corn worse than gas in emitting greenhouse gases …

What say you Barack Obama, Al Gore and the rest? According to a federal government paid for study, bio-fuels made from leftovers of harvested corn plants release 7% more greenhouse gases as compared to conventional, evil gasoline. Let me repeat that, this was a paid for federal government study. So not only are we creating a fuel that is more harmful, as they say, to the environment, they are taking the food source away from human and animal usage.

Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration’s conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change.

A $500,000 study paid for by the federal government and released Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change concludes that biofuels made with corn residue release 7 percent more greenhouse gases in the early years compared with conventional gasoline.

While biofuels are better in the long run, the study says they won’t meet a standard set in a 2007 energy law to qualify as renewable fuel.

If I build subsidies it, it will fail …

Hate it when that happens, eh environmental wackos? Here comes the priceless part, the LEFT and Obama admin officials is criticizing the study as flawed. HAHAHA!!! What’s the matter, don’t like it when the results that you paid for don’t fit your liberal agenda? These are the people that demonize those that do not believe that man is responsible for global warming, oh sorry what do they call it these days, climate change.

The conclusions deal a blow to what are known as cellulosic biofuels, which have received more than a billion dollars in federal support but have struggled to meet volume targets mandated by law. About half of the initial market in cellulosics is expected to be derived from corn residue.

The biofuel industry and administration officials immediately criticized the research as flawed. They said it was too simplistic in its analysis of carbon loss from soil, which can vary over a single field, and vastly overestimated how much residue farmers actually would remove once the market gets underway.

It’s Final — Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use.

OK, can we please stop pretending biofuel made from corn is helping the planet and the environment? With huge subsidies for ethanol in gasoline, with all States now selling gasoline having some ethanol blend, and a general misconception that these biofuels are green, corn ethanol has taken on a $30 billion/yr life of its own.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released two of its Working Group reports at the end of last month (WGI and WGIII), and their short discussion of biofuels has ignited a fierce debate as to whether they’re of any environmental benefit at all.

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Says Politics Had Nothing to do With Obama’s Delay of Keystone XL Pipeline Until After 2014 Midterm Elections

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE …

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) was on ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday spinning like a top. DWS told David Gregory that she does not believe that Barack Obama’s decision to delay the XL Keystone pipeline had nothing to do with politics. HAH! Seriously Debbie, the fact that it is referenced that a decision will be made at the earliest after the 2014 has nothing to do with politics? Sorry, but much like everything with Obama, it has everything to do with politics. This is just another example of Barack Obama kicking the political can of issues down the road and playing partisan politics and putting Democrats ahead of Americans. We know that the Keystone XL pipline construction will create primary jobs and secondary one’s from that. But that does not matter to the Food Stamp president.

DWS discusses Keystone XL Pipeline around the 4:00 mark

DWS went on to say, “It [Keyston XL pipeline] affects multiple states.  What’s also true is that incumbent senators like [Louisiana Democrat] Mary Landrieu understand the issues that are important on the ground in their states to their constituents.” Yes, they do and they do not appear to be happy.

This woman has the nerve to talk about Tea party extremists when Democrats and Barack Obama are pandering to the far-left wing environmental wackos in delaying the XL Keystone as even Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) stated, “Today’s decision by the administration amounts to nothing short of an indefinite delay of the Keystone pipeline. The decision’s irresponsible, unnecessary, and unacceptable. By making it clear that they will not move the process forward until there’s a resolution in a lawsuit in Nebraska, the administration is sending a signal that the small minority who oppose the pipeline can tie up the process in court forever.”

Meet the Press Transcript:

DAVID GREGORY: Are you worried, as the party chair, that this shouldn’t be resolved before the election because of the potential impact it could have on vulnerable Democrats?

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: As a member of Congress who represents hundreds of thousands of people in south Florida, I want to make sure that the right decision is arrived at. And that the president makes that decision carefully and he doesn’t factor politics into his decision, which I don’t think he is.

DAVID GREGORY: Is the issue in the fall a referendum on President Obama?

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, absolutely not. The–

DAVID GREGORY: It’s not?

I suppose the IRS targeting the Tea Party, blaming Benghazi on a video tape and delaying employee mandates for Obamacare were not political either.

Obama Administration Delays Once Again Final Decision on Keystone XL Pipeline … Play Politics Over Jobs for Americans

Barack Obama has made promises to Americans that jobs is his number one priority, but has done everything but …

The Obama administrations has once again kicked the can of American jobs down the road in place of playing politics.  Team Obama has once again delayed the decision on the XL Keystone pipeline on Good Friday and Easter weekend.  The decision now will most likely not be made until after the November midterm elections. How convenient. This is just another attempt to humor the far left and the environmental wackos to get their campaign dollars and votes. The Weekly Standard makes a valid and important point, “if the administration wanted the pipeline built, construction would have long since been underway … Witness the numerous executive fiats regarding the implementation of Obamacare.”

The Obama administration further delayed its decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project on Friday, with no conclusion now likely until after the U.S. mid-term elections in November.

President Barack Obama has said he will have the final say on whether to allow the pipeline connecting Canada’s oil sands region to Texas refiners, and several government agencies had been given until May to weigh in. This had raised expectations of a final decision by mid-year.

But the State Department said on Friday it was extending that agency comment period, citing a need to wait until the Nebraska Supreme Court settles a dispute over what path the $5.4 billion TransCanada Corp project should take.

“That pipeline route is central to the environmental analysis for the project and if there are changes to the route it could have implications,” a senior State Department official told reporters.

UPDATE I: Keystone non-decision keeps some Democrats on the hot seat.

Politically, it seems like a great idea, since kicking Keystone down the road — probably long past November — is better than an outright rejection for vulnerable oil-state Democrats, whose voters love the proposed project. And it keeps environmentalists at bay, boosting hopes that President Barack Obama might still swing their way.

But the non-decision decision also makes life a little harder for several groups of Democratic senators and Senate candidates fighting for their lives.

Some, like Colorado Sen. Mark Udall, have yet to take a firm stance on the Alberta-to-Texas oil pipeline — and the State Department’s announcement Friday that it’s extending its review of the project removes the possibility that Obama could resolve the issue one way or another next month.

Meanwhile, pro-Keystone Democrats like Senate energy Chairwoman Mary Landrieu will face heightened pressure to take actions to match their rhetoric.

UPDATE II: Vulnerable Senate Democrat  Mary Landrieu, D-LA Speaks Out Against Keystone XL Pipeline delay.

Responded Landrieu, the newly installed chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee: “Today’s decision by the Administration amounts to nothing short of an indefinite delay of the Keystone Pipeline. This decision is irresponsible, unnecessary and unacceptable. By making it clear that they will not move the process forward until there is a resolution in a lawsuit in Nebraska, the administration is sending a signal that the small minority who oppose the pipeline can tie up the process in court forever. There are 42,000 jobs, $20 billion in economic activity and North America’s energy security at stake.” Landrieu said she plans to use her chairmanship of the Senate Energy Committee to try and move the project forward.