90 Miles From Tyranny : 2018-07-22

VA whistleblowers say Denver office did no work for a year


VA whistleblowers say Denver office did no work for a year


DENVER -- Imagine making close to $100,000 a year and having nothing to do at the office.

It's what Denver whistleblowers say was reality for employees at the local Office of the Inspector General for Veterans Affairs.

That's the very division in charge of wiping out waste, fraud and abuse for the medical system that serves the nation's veterans.

"These are your tax dollars that are paying the salaries of these individuals to sit in an office and do absolutely nothing all day," said one anonymous whistleblower to the Problem Solvers.


"After a while it became a joke," is how a second whistleblower described it.

"Come into work and pretty much staring at the wall all day kind of just hanging out every day pretty much with nothing to do."

Both whistleblowers filed complaints with the Office of Special Counsel in Washington, stating an office of 11 employees basically did no work from April 2017 to April 2018.

The combined salaries of those employees during that time frame totaled more than $1.2 million.

"Long lunches, I mean watching movies, reading books. I mean I was doing school work. I`m not going to lie I did not have any work assigned. I spent the majority of my time doing school work," said whistblower No. one, who happened to be a paid intern making $47,214 a year to help conduct information technology audits.

The Problem Solvers obtained copies of the complaints filed with the Office of Special Counsel and the one from whistleblower No. 2 states, "I would have filed this sooner but this office has already had two investigations into management and nothing has happened. The office has actually gotten worse and now you throw in no work.

In mid-June the Office of Special Counsel released a letter to the whistleblowers admitting the Denver OIG office "did not have sufficient work to keep all employees fully engaged on active projects," though it only acknowledges this for a nine-month period from July 2017 to April 2018, instead of the one-year time frame alleged by the whistleblowers.

"It really gives you no confidence in the system," said Rep. Mike Coffman, who represents Colorado's 6th Congressional District.

Coffman said he wants the Veterans Affairs Oversight Committee to investigate how it's possible an office doing almost no work would then hire three more auditors in May of 2018, each making $95,000 a year.

"It`s a big deal to the taxpayer of United States. It`s a big deal to the veterans that aren't getting the resources that they should be getting because they're being wasted in...

Deport Them Together!



Reunite Them With Their Extended Families In Their Home Country!

Philippines Pres. Caves to Extremist Muslims, Grants Extremists Autonomous Region To Quell Violence

How long until they demand their own muslim state?

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte signed legislation to create a Muslim autonomous region in the south to quell violence from Islamic State rebel groups.

Philippines presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Thursday evening that Duterte signed the bill, called the Bangsamoro organic law, bringing fruition to an autonomy deal that four successive presidents have negotiated for over 20 years.

Islamic rebel groups that have been fighting for control over the region for decades agreed to disarm as part of the deal to create the autonomous region, which will be called Bangsamoro.

The new autonomous region will replace the current five-province Muslim autonomous region, created after the 1996 peace deal between the government and the Islamic rebel group called the Moro National Liberation Front.

That autonomous region has largely been labeled a failure, as it wracked with poverty and ongoing violence between government forces and various rebel groups, some of whom are linked to ISIS.

Muslim fighting in the region has killed more than 120,000 people over the years.

Government troops supported by U.S. and Australian surveillance aircraft squared off with ISIS-linked rebels in 2017 and ultimately defeated their attempt to create a stronghold in the region in the city of Marawi, in which they took at least 40 hostages including a Catholic priest.

That conflict alone accounted for over 1,200 deaths, most of whom were Islamic militants.

Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front, said Tuesday at a press conference that 30,000 to 40,000 militants would disarm in response to the signing of the bill and that the remainder of the guerrilla soldiers would disarm once...

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #331


You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside? 
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific, 
from the beautiful to the repugnant, 
from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed, 
you could be inspired, you could be appalled. 

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. 
You have been warned.

Nunes: Redacted Sections Of Page FISAs Are ‘Really Bad, If Not Worse’ For FBI

The release of heavily redacted versions of the FBI’s applications for surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page has generated speculation about what’s behind the black boxes that cover up a significant portion of the government documents.

But House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes claimed in an interview that aired Thursday that what’s behind the redactions is “really bad” in terms of showing the FBI relied on flimsy evidence to obtain the spy warrants on Page.

“What’s in the redactions is equally bad, some would probably say worse than what the American people can see today,” Nunes said in an interview with Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton.

“I would argue that what’s left in there is really bad, if not worse, but also what’s not in there is even worse than what people can see, what people can’t see.”

The Department of Justice on Friday released heavily redacted versions of four applications the FBI submitted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in order to obtain warrants to spy on Page, an energy consultant who joined the Trump campaign in March 2016.

The unredacted sections of the applications showed the FBI relied on the unverified Steele dossier to make the case that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as a foreign agent of Russia. The documents have touched off an intense partisan debate over whether the FBI misled surveillance court judges by relying on the dossier, which was funded by the Clinton campaign and DNC.

Page has vehemently denied the allegations in the dossier. In the 35-page document, former British spy Christopher Steele alleged Page met secretly with two sanctioned Kremlin insiders during a trip to Moscow in July 2016. He also alleged that Page was the Trump campaign’s contact to the Kremlin for an alleged collusion conspiracy.

The FISA applications sought against Page also relied on a Sept. 23, 2016, Yahoo! News article that was based heavily on Steele’s allegations. But the applications showed that the FBI did not disclose that Steele was a source for the article. The FBI erroneously stated that investigators did not...

GDP: 4.1 % - Trump: 'We're going to go a lot higher' than 4.1% GDP growth

  • "We're going to go a lot higher than these numbers, and these are great numbers," the president said.
  • Earlier Friday the government announced that the economy grew in the second quarter at the fastest pace in nearly four years. The nation's GDP grew 4.1 percent, in line with estimates.
  • Trump had previewed the economic data on Thursday, during a speech in Illinois. Trump said of the indicator, "If it has a 4 in front of it, we're happy."

President Donald Trump pitched his economic record to voters Friday, boasting that strong numbers released earlier in the morning were "sustainable" and blasting Democrats for wanting to "raise everybody's taxes."

"We're going to go a lot higher," Trump said, referring to the report that showed a 4.1 percent rise in gross domestic product during the second quarter. It was the highest quarterly jump in nearly four years.

During a speech on the White House South Lawn, he predicted that the country was on track for its highest annual growth rate in over 13 years.


"As the trade deals come in one by one, we're going to go a lot higher than these numbers, and these are great numbers," he said.

The president also championed the GOP tax overhaul passed late last year, saying that "as a result, more than 6 million Americans are enjoying new bonuses, better jobs, and far better paychecks." The president said that Democrats' efforts to turn back the tax cuts would be a "disaster for our economy."

"As you know, the Democrats want to end that and raise everybody's taxes," Trump said, referring to...

Who Leaked the Trump Tape?

The reason this is important to all Americans, beyond the immediate parties to this taped conversation, is that it may well discourage clients, patients, penitents and others from confiding in their lawyers, doctors, priests and the professionals who promise them confidentiality.

Cohen promised confidentiality and yet the world heard what his client confided in him.

Obviously, people who are willing improperly to leak confidential material may also be willing to lie about it under oath, but the consequences of lying under oath are greater than leaking, since leaking is not a crime but perjury is.

Someone leaked the lawyer/client confidential tape containing a conversation between President Donald J. Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen. A former judge, assigned by the presiding judge to evaluate the seized tapes, reportedly concluded that this conversation was privileged. Yet someone leaked their contents. The President Trump's current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, then waived the privilege as to that tape. He said he never would have waived it had its existence and content not been improperly leaked.

So, the question remains: Who leaked this privileged material? If it was anyone in the Trump camp, there would be no violation of confidentiality, as the privilege belongs to the client, namely Trump, who can waive it. But no one else, most especially his lawyer, may properly waive the privilege. And Giuliani has categorically denied that it was leaked by Trump or anyone on his behalf. Indeed, he has expressed outrage at the leak.

Whom does that leave? Cohen is an obvious suspect, although I am confident that his excellent and experienced lawyer, Lanny Davis, would not have done so. Perhaps Cohen himself, who ran into Michael Avenatti at a restaurant, told him about the tape. We simply do not know.

It is unlikely that any judicial or prosecutorial authority is responsible for the leak, because they would have more to lose than to gain if they were caught.

The reason this is important to all Americans, beyond the immediate parties to this taped conversation, is that it may well discourage clients, patients, penitents and others from confiding in their lawyers, doctors, priests and the professionals who promise them confidentiality. Cohen promised confidentiality and yet the world heard what his client confided in him. We know he recorded the confidential conversation without the knowledge of his client. That is bad enough. Then it was deliberately leaked by someone who must have believed he or she would reap some benefit or advantage from having the public hear it.

We must find out who is the source of this damaging leak — damaging to all Americans who place their faith in the promise of confidentiality from...

Obama Sought To Wipe Out Outdated Security Clearances Just Like Trump Wants To Do

Earlier this week (seriously, just this week), the mainstream media got its undies in a wad over talk that President Trump planned to revoke the security clearances of some high-level former intelligence officials.

The story, of course, died in a couple days as the MSM moved on to the next Outrage Of The Day. But with just a little reporting, we at The Daily Wire have found that former President Barack Obama wanted to do exactly the same thing — and a former Obama intelligence official (who now thinks the idea is, again, treasonous) thought it was a good plan.

“W.H. looks to scrub clearance list,” Politico wrote in November 2013.

The Obama administration has ordered a government-wide reassessment of how almost 5 million Americans have been granted classified information security clearances and whether each person currently approved to see sensitive national security secrets truly has a need for such access.

Reeling from National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks of top-secret surveillance programs and mentally computer contractor Aaron Alexis’s deadly shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard, the intelligence community is coming to the conclusion that the sheer number of personnel with clearances is making the government and the country as a whole vulnerable to a slew of dangers.

In a directive obtained by POLITICO, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper questioned the booming rolls of security-clearance holders. At last count, more than 4.9 million people held clearances, of whom over 1.4 million were cleared for access at the “Top Secret” level.

Hilarious, because James Clapper, director of National Intelligence throughout most of Obama’s two terms, thinks Trump’s plan is...

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #330


You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside? 
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific, 
from the beautiful to the repugnant, 
from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed, 
you could be inspired, you could be appalled. 

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. 
You have been warned.

Hillary Lost Six Billion Dollars When She Ran The State Department.


"Lost"


"... the failure to adequately maintain contract files — documents necessary to ensure the full accounting of U.S. tax dollars — “creates significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department’s contract actions.”

Sounds Like People Got Paid Off With My Tax Dollars To Me...

Salon Mocks MSNBC for Doing 455 Stormy Daniels Segments in Past Year

In stark contrast the laughably absurd claim by the Morning Joepanelists last March that the media barely covered the Stormy Daniels story, Salon.com published an article by Adam Johnson on July 25 revealing that there had been 455 segments about that porn star on MSNBC during the past year. The mocking criticism of the Stormy Daniels overdose of coverage on MSNBC comes from a left perspective since they contrast that sharply with lack of reporting on the war in Yemen which they view as "Trump's war" despite former President Obama also backing Saudi Arabia in that conflict.

Although I knew there was extreme MSNBC over-reporting about Stormy Daniels, even I was quite surprised at the high amount of coverage quantified in the Salon story title, "MSNBC has done 455 Stormy Daniels segments in the last year — but none on U.S. war in Yemen."

July 3, 2017, to July 3, 2018, MSNBC dedicated zero segments to the U.S. war in Yemen, but 455 segments to Stormy Daniels. This isn’t to suggest the Stormy Daniels matter isn’t newsworthy — presidential corruption is per se important. But one has to wonder if this particular thread of venality is 455 stories more important than...

CNN GOT COHENED: TRUMP WASN’T THE ONLY ONE COHEN RECORDED, HE RECORDED SOMEONE AT CNN TOO

Though none of you give a damn about the tape President Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen recorded of him speaking with the then-GOP presidential nominee in 2016 about paying off some bimbos, ya’ll might like what I’m about to tell you.

First, let me give you some of the backstory. This week Cohen provided the tape to CNN. Then on Tuesday evening CNN talking head Chris Cuomo played the tape in full during that day’s broadcast of “Cuomo Prime Time.”





Full audio: Presidential candidate Trump is heard on tape discussing with his attorney Michael Cohen how they would buy the rights to a Playboy model's story about an alleged affair Trump had with her years earlier, according to the audio recording

Oooooooh, exciting. NOT!

What makes this story interesting is a report confirming that the president wasn’t the only individual to be recorded by Cohen. It turns out that Cuomo himself was once recorded without his knowledge.
Via The Wall Street Journal:
Michael Cohen recorded a conversation he had with a reporter this year in which he said he arranged “on my own” a $130,000 payment in 2016 to a former adult-film star who alleged an affair with Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.
In the nearly two-hour conversation with CNN reporter Chris Cuomo, which the people said appears to have been surreptitiously recorded by Mr. Cohen, the former Trump lawyer discussed at length the payment he arranged in October 2016, a month before the presidential election, to Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels.

But it gets even better. During the interview, Cohen assured Cuomo “that he wasn’t running a tape, according to the people familiar with the matter. He told Mr. Cuomo he was placing the phone in his desk drawer and that the conversation was off the record. The phone appeared to record the entire conversation, the people said.”

The irony of this was not lost on the denizens of social media:
Not that this information changes anything on the ground (there’s reportedly nothing damaging/incriminating in the Cuomo tape), but it’s funny nonetheless.