Sunday, October 11, 2015

Ex-Benghazi investigator: ‘This has become a partisan investigation’ hyper-focused on Hillary Clinton

 

    A former investigator with the congressional Select Committee on Benghazi says the probe into the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attacks that killed four Americans — including Ambassador Chris Stevens — morphed into a politically motivated mission targeting Hillary Clinton after the revelation that she used a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.

“This has become a partisan investigation,” Maj. Bradley Podliska, an intelligence officer in the Air Force Reserve, told CNN. “I do not know the reason for the hyper-focus on Hillary Clinton.”

Podliska, who spent 10 months as an investigator for the Republican-led panel, says he was fired in June for resisting pressure to focus his efforts on Clinton.

“I was fired for trying to conduct an objective, nonpartisan, thorough investigation,” Podliska said in an interview with Jake Tapper that aired on “State of the Union” Sunday.

Podliska said he is planning to file a lawsuit against the committee over the firing next month.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the committee refuted Podliska’s claims.

“We are confident that the facts and evidence give no support to the wild imagination fueling these and any future allegations, and the committee will vigorously defend itself against such allegations,” the statement reads. “The committee will not be blackmailed into a monetary settlement for a false allegation made by a properly terminated former employee.”

Clinton speaks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual awards gala in Washington, D.C., Oct. 8, 2015. (Photo: Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

Podliska’s comments come amid mounting calls from Clinton and other Democrats to shut down the committee.

“This committee was set up, as they have admitted, for the purpose of making a partisan political issue out of the deaths of four Americans,” an angry Clinton said on the “Today” show last week. “I would never have done that, and if I were president and there were Republicans or Democrats thinking about that, I would have done everything to shut it down.”

Clinton is scheduled to testify before the committee on Oct. 22.

Last month, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested that the committee was summoned to derail the former secretary of state’s 2016 presidential bid.

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy said on Fox News. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers Friday? What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought.”

But Podliska insists his motivation to come forward has nothing to do with Clinton’s candidacy.

“I do not support Hillary Clinton for president,” Podliska, who describes himself as a libertarian-leaning Republican, said. “I am going to vote for the Republican nominee in 2016.”

He said he decided to speak out because the families of the Benghazi victims deserve it.

“I knew that we needed to get the truth to the victims’ families. And the victims’ families, they deserve the truth — whether or not Hillary Clinton was involved, whether or not other individuals were involved,” he said. “The victims’ families are not going to get the truth, and that’s the most unfortunate thing about this.”

Ex-Benghazi investigator: ‘This has become a partisan investigation’ hyper-focused on Hillary Clinton

YWCA of Rockford acquires La Voz Latina - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

By Lindsey Holden
Staff writer

Posted Oct. 8, 2015 at 11:00 AM
Updated Oct 8, 2015 at 9:32 PM

ROCKFORD — Two nonprofits are joining forces to better provide services to northern Illinois children and families.
Today, the YWCA of Northwest Illinois, formerly the YWCA of Rockford, acquired La Voz Latina, which is dedicated to helping the area's Hispanic children and families. La Voz will cease operations Friday, and move from 730 N. Church St. into YWCA's east-side facilities at 4990 E. State St. It also will maintain a west-side presence in Easter Seals Child Development Center, 815 N. Church St.
La Voz will function under YWCA's programming umbrella, and Executive Director Luz Ramirez will stay on as vice president. Nine La Voz workers will keep their jobs; three positions were eliminated. La Voz, which will retain its name, will expand into Stephenson and Jo Daviess counties. YWCA has changed its name to reflect its expanded programming across northwest Illinois.
Ramirez and YWCA CEO Kris Kieper said the acquisition will benefit both organizations, especially because they share similar missions. The acquisition made sense because both were spending money on such expenses as payroll, human resources and marketing, and .the YWCA is better equipped to direct and manage state funds.
"They mesh really well," Kieper said. "We work with so many families and so much of our work is directed at parents and children, and we share clients, so it just made sense."
La Voz, which serves about 7,600 families, struggled to remain open this summer amid the state budget impasse. Revenue from the state accounts for more than half of the $880,000 budget, so La Voz was tapping lines of credit to survive. The organization had been preparing to end services Oct. 16, Ramirez said.
"We're just waiting for miracles to come in," he said. "We knew that until the situation at the state gets resolved, we were going to be closing our doors."
Ramirez and Kieper were forced to cut some of La Voz's struggling programs but will maintain core initiatives: family advocacy, teen parenting support, parenting education classes and partner abuse intervention.
La Voz, like many nonprofits in Illinois, was forced either to find a way to continue programming or risk losing out on state money once an official budget is passed.
"We were told 'Either you choose to continue providing services or that contract may not be renewed'," Ramirez said. "In one way or another they did say it."
Kieper said nonprofit acquisitions and mergers are the wave of the future, especially for nonprofits with operating budgets of $1 million or less because the state has become such an inconsistent funding source.

YWCA of Rockford acquires La Voz Latina - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

Corporate Welfare for the Kochs - The New York Times

 

FRIDAY, Feb. 1, 2013, was a red-letter day for a proposed Arkansas steel mill called Big River Steel. With a cost estimated at around $1.3 billion, the project, if it got off the ground, was expected to be the largest industrial development in Arkansas history, easily exceeding the cost of two Nucor steel plants situated just 30 miles from the planned site of the new mill.

As is typical of such things, the people who dreamed up Big River Steel wanted government aid that would help make the project successful — the kind of aid that groups like Heritage Action and Americans for Prosperity, both generously supported by the right-wing billionaires Charles and David Koch, derisively describe as “corporate welfare.”

For instance, the Arkansas Legislature was considering a $125 million bond issue to help pay for the mill’s construction, as well as over $200 million in tax credits for buying and installing recycling equipment. The recycling credits would go to the investors, though, not the mill itself.

The deal also depended on an $800 million 10-year loan from a German bank, KfW IPEX-Bank. That loan, in turn, was contingent on credit insurance provided by Euler Hermes, a credit agency like the Export-Import Bank of the United States. In America, of course, Koch-funded groups have led the battle to defund the Ex-Im Bank, which Congress declined to reauthorize this summer, in part because of pressure applied by those groups. (On Friday, Ex-Im backers in the House said they had enough support to force a reauthorization vote.) Opponents argue, among other things, that giant corporations like Boeing and General Electric that make use of the Ex-Im bank shouldn’t put taxpayers’ money at risk to finance their exports.

The Germans have no such ideological hang-ups. Because Big River Steel would be buying its steelmaking equipment from a German company, SMS Siemag AG, and because the deal would lead to German exports “while also safeguarding many qualified jobs for the exporter in Germany,” as a news release later put it, the German government was only too happy to insure the loans, through Euler Hermes.

So what happened on Feb. 1, 2013? On that day, the Arkansas Legislature was informed that Big River Steel had a new investor: none other than Koch Minerals, which is part of Koch Industries, the Koch brothers’ privately held industrial conglomerate. The Kochs, you see, had decided to take a 40 percent equity stake, making them the project’s biggest investor. In doing so, of course, the Kochs were taking advantage of the same “corporate welfare” they had long condemned — while relying on the kind of government credit agency they are trying to dismantle in America.

When I asked a Koch Industries spokesman about the company’s willingness to take advantage of tax incentives and other government goodies, he gave me the standard response to such queries. “Koch Industries has consistently opposed and actively lobbied against all forms of corporate welfare, including those we currently benefit from,” read an emailed statement. “With that said, we will not put ourselves and our employees at a competitive disadvantage in the current marketplace.” In other words, the Kochs believe there is nothing hypocritical about employing government subsidies they oppose.

But I’m not so sure. The Arkansas incentive package ultimately passed, the German government-insured loan was completed and the plant should be up and running next year. And thanks to the recycling tax credits, the Kochs will recoup a significant portion of their investment even if the mill never makes a penny in profit. Indeed, the Kochs’ involvement helped give Arkansas legislators the comfort they needed to approve the incentive package. It gave “validity to the project,” one state legislator told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“We don’t have the budget to hire people to do due diligence,” says Grant Tennille, who was then running the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. “If people like the Kochs walk in the door, with a reputation and money, that’s a big deal.” In other words, the Kochs didn’t just take advantage of corporate welfare; their involvement was the impetus for the corporate welfare Big River Steel got.

Perhaps more important, the Big River Steel project offers a clear illustration of why those who want to put the Export-Import Bank out of business are dead wrong.

Usually, big new plants are built by existing companies, but that’s not the case with Big River Steel. It is the brainchild of the late John Correnti, a steel executive who rounded up bank financing and investors. (Correnti died in August; the new chief executive is the project’s investment banker.) A group of investors, even one led by a seasoned executive like Correnti, was never going to be able to get the $1 billion-plus needed to build Big River Steel without government help.

“Because of the size of the loan and the 10-year repayment period, private insurers would not have wanted to pick it up,” says Jonathan Bell, the editor in chief of Trade and Export Finance. “And banks wouldn’t have touched it with a 10-foot pole.” There is also usually a grace period during construction that would make banks wary, Bell adds. “This is exactly what export credit agencies are good at,” he says: stepping in to complete deals that make business sense but need the backing of a sovereign to complete.

This would seem to offer a rather resounding rejoinder to the right-wing refrain that giant companies like G.E. ought to be able to finance their own exports. Sometimes that’s simply impossible. SMS Siemag is a reasonably big company, yet there was no way that Big River Steel could borrow the money to buy its steelmaking equipment without the involvement of the German government. Understanding that, Germany facilitated the deal — because it would benefit German exports and German workers.

As for American workers, Big River Steel likes to brag that the mill will provide 525 well-paying jobs. But with the steel industry in a terrible slump, it will surely result in layoffs for other American steelworkers. Those nearby Nucor plants are operating at less than 75 percent capacity; other American steel mills are faring no better. Nucor, in fact, has tried to block Big River Steel, largely because it fears the effect the new mill will have on the steel industry over all. Thus are the Koch brothers helping German workers while hurting Americans.

Bell, the editor who covers export credit agencies, sounded appalled at the fight over the Export-Import Bank. “A lot of U.S. companies are going to lose business,” he said. Then he added, “Those Tea Party idiots have no idea how business is done in the real world.”

But the Koch brothers sure do.

Corporate Welfare for the Kochs - The New York Times

Governor’s Staff ceases travel reimbursements since July 1

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Read the article at:  http://thesouthern.com/news/opinion/editorial/erickson/erickson-no-money-for-gas-either/article_99026a97-8428-56ac-904d-a2596911a986.html

Rauner focuses criticism on public sector unions - Blogs On Politics - Crain's Chicago Business

 

October 09, 2015

Rauner finally stumbles on a winning message. Is it too late?

Rauner-focuses-criticism-on-public-sector-unions.jpg

Photo by Charles Rex Arbogast Gov. Bruce Rauner

 

After nine months of all-out warfare with Speaker Mike Madigan and other Springfield Democrats, and nearly four months without a state budget, Gov. Bruce Rauner finally seems to have come up with a reform message that could resonate in this Democratic blue state.

The message is clear and direct and has more than a little truth to it: Government unions are getting rich off of you and your kids and need to be reined in before your property taxes go through the roof.

Unfortunately for Rauner, the new talk comes late, very late. Positions have hardened and a recalibrated message may not resonate the way it would have in, say, March. Plus, Team Rauner keeps adding in distracting stuff that it can achieve other ways and which will only provoke lawmakers. Stuff like term limits and remap reform.

Sigh! Better late than never, I suppose.

If you'll recall, Rauner entered office promising to reform or revamp just about everything that moved. His February State of the State speech, his first opportunity to fully present his plan and priorities as governor, included a stunning list of changes in how Illinois operates, from junking the way the state selects judges to passing an eye-ball spinning six constitutional amendments.

He declared war on organized labor as a whole, asking for right-to-work zones, cuts in unemployment insurance and workers compensation and a bunch of other stuff. In proposing too much and failing to focus on what must be any governor's top priority--enacting a balanced budget--Rauner gave Madigan the room he needed to avoid making any changes at all.

This week, a more restrained Rauner has focused on what he should have emphasized from the beginning: Public-sector unions really do have extraordinary control over who's elected to the Legislature and who lawmakers in an impossible conflict-of-interest situation.

Rauner essentially is right that, if you're going to freeze property taxes, you either have to come up with replacement revenue or cut personnel costs. He's right that, when it's been in their interest, Chicago Democrats have signed off on limiting union prerogatives, for instance clearing the way for a longer Chicago school day over intense union opposition.

Now, I don't endorse all of what Rauner wants to do, which comes pretty close to abolishing collective bargaining in the public sector. But labor groups that demand the right to retire with full benefits as early as their late 50s, who insist on 3 percent annual, compounded pension hikes in an era of 1 percent or 2 percent inflation are expecting to live better than taxpayers who pay the bills. As a matter of practical politics, Rauner has more potential to make a salable argument to taxpayers--the unions are asking you to pay too much--if he sticks to government unions and lets the private sector work on its problems itself.

Rauner says he's taken some stuff off the table, and he has, most notably local right-to-work zones. But even this week, he was still talking about how he needs legislative term limits and reapportionment changes.

Governor, you're not going to get that through the Legislature. Ain't gonna happen. You'd be smarter to take those issues right to the people in the form of petition campaigns to change the Illinois Constitution. Ultimately, such changes are going to have to be ratified by voters anyhow.

With Springfield at war, I'm not sure any of it will work now. But Rauner must have figured out by now that Madigan is not going to meekly fold his cards.

This now is about public opinion, a building state budget crisis and upcoming elections. Rauner finally is beginning to focus on what counts. It's a correct, if tardy, move.

Rauner focuses criticism on public sector unions - Blogs On Politics - Crain's Chicago Business