Obama's Department of Education won't say which colleges it has banned receiving federal money

From Inside Higher ED:

The U.S. Department of Education is so concerned about the risk that dozens of colleges pose to students and taxpayers that it has curtailed access to federal money at those institutions -- but it won’t say which ones.  

Even as it pushes to make far more information about colleges available to consumers, the department is keeping hidden from public view its decisions to punish certain colleges with funding restrictions known as heightened cash monitoring. 

At the end of last October, 76 colleges or universities were subject to the most stringent form of those restrictions, according to the department. Another 455 institutions, as of last August, faced a lower level of scrutiny.  

But the department has refused to provide the names of those colleges because of the “competitive injury” it may cause them.  . . . 

Such reasoning hasn’t stopped the department from publishing other information about colleges that might harm their reputation in the interest of protecting students. It annually publishes colleges’ financial responsibility scores and an array of other financial and price data. And last year the Obama administration began releasing the names of colleges under investigation for mishandling sexual assault cases. . . .

Here is my concern.  In the past the Obama administration has banned students at some private schools from obtaining federal student loans.  I wouldn't be surprised if all 76 schools here are private schools.

Just how bad is the DC city government at treating people who don't pay their parking tickets?

Emily Miller at MyFoxDC has this story from October 2014:

Megan Johnson got about ten parking tickets, and they all doubled. Then, Megan's car was booted, towed and sold. . . . .  

Johnson's problems started when she had about ten parking tickets that she could not afford to pay. The fines doubled after 30 days, so the total got to about $1,000. . . . 

Meanwhile, Johnson's car was booted and impounded -- for which the city charged her $700 in fees -- and then the car was sold out from under her. 

I asked Megan if the city sent her a check after it auctioned off her car for $500. She said that the city was supposed to credit that amount to her debt but never did. 

I've asked the DMV, the Department of Public Works and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer about the city profiting $500 from the sale of Megan's car, but not one of these agencies will help rectify it. . . .

An earlier story by Pamela Brown at ABC 7 in DC from August 2012 noted:

More than 230,000 drivers have been turned over to the District’s debt collector this year. The reason – unpaid parking tickets. It’s an aggressive new measure that’s caught many off guard.  

Once the debt collector takes over, a person’s credit score can drop significantly.
“Someone with a higher score in the 700s is likely to get hit as much as 100, 125 points,” explained Anthony Sprauve, FICO spokesperson. FICO provides credit scores to consumers. “The better your score is, the bigger hit you're going to get.” 

In 2011, nearly 300,000 drivers were reported for unpaid parking tickets. There are several warnings about deadlines on the back of a ticket. However, those warnings do not mention collection agencies. . . .

Apparently the debt collectors weren't enough. 

With all the corruption and unnecessary deaths in the Veterans Administration hospitals, it is interesting to see who has touted it as the big success story

With even the Obama administration admitting that 27 veterans have died because of the waiting list scam, Democrats even having a hard time with the VA now.  But a few years ago, while these problems were festering, liberals were pointing to the VA as the example that we should all follow.  As to the Obama administration's explanation On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” NBC News chief Pentagon reporter Jim Miklaszewski claimed, “You have a VA that is overwhelmed and under-resourced,” John Merline points out that was incorrect. 

Paul Krugman in 2011 wrote of the VA’s “huge success story”:

Multiple surveys have found the VHA providing better care than most Americans receive, even as the agency has held cost increases well below those facing Medicare and private insurers…the VHA is an integrated system, which provides health care as well as paying for it. So it’s free from the perverse incentives created when doctors and hospitals profit from expensive tests and procedures, whether or not those procedures actually make medical sense. . . . Yes, this is ‘socialized medicine’… But it works, and suggests what it will take to solve the troubles of US health care more broadly. . . .

Nicholas Kristof of the Times wrote in 2009:

Take the hospital system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest integrated health system in the United States. It is fully government run, much more “socialized medicine” than is Canadian health care with its private doctors and hospitals. And the system for veterans is by all accounts one of the best-performing and most cost-effectiveelements in the American medical establishment. . . .

Uwe Reinhardt of Princeton wrote in the pages of the Times:

Remarkably, Americans of all political stripes have long reserved for our veterans the purest form of socialized medicine, the vast health system operated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (generally known as the V.A. health system). If socialized medicine is as bad as so many on this side of the Atlantic claim, why have both political parties ruling this land deemed socialized medicine the best health system for military veterans? Or do they just not care about them?  . . .

Ironically, President Obama now explains that the current problems are nothing surprising, with the VA’s issues go back years:

[A]ll of us, whether here in Washington or all across the country, have to stay focused on the larger mission, which is upholding our sacred trust to all of our veterans, bringing the VA system into the 21st century, which is not an easy task….  caring for our veterans is not an issue that popped up in recent weeks. Some of the problems with respect to how veterans are able to access the benefits that they've earned, that's not a new issue.  . . .

Click to make the screen shot from the website from when Obama was president-elect larger.

Fed government raids gun parts stores despite court order

From the local Fox station in San Diego:

With a search warrant in hand, federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confiscated computers, customer lists and the questionable polymer 80 percent lower receivers from four Ares Armor store locations throughout San Diego County over the weekend. 

“There were women and children inside our retail establishment when the (ATF) agents came in with guns drawn,” said Ares Armor Executive Officer Dimitrios Karras. “They came into our firearms manufacturing facility saying, ‘Arms up!’  like they were invading Iraq.” 

The raid happened three days after Ares owner was granted a temporary restraining by a judge to stop ATF agents from searching their stores. 

The ATF confirmed they were investigating the stores for federal firearm violations stemming from the sale of a new plastic version of the 80 percent lowers, which gun enthusiast use to build their own AR-15 rifles. . . .

So why are people so concerned about the Obama administration's evaluation of whether the news media is properly picking the right stories to cover?

One would think that the Obama administration's study of whether the news media is covering the right news stories and doing so properly would pose obvious problems.  Of course, the FCC says that "Any suggestion the Commission intends to regulate the speech of news media is false," but what else is the point of the study?  In any case, there was another event this week that should make clear the dangers of getting the government involved with this type of monitoring of news content.

Take this threat just this week by a US Congressman against a television station.  From the Daily Caller:

Last week, The Washington Post began grumbling about an Americans for Prosperity (AFP) ad featuring Julie Boonstra, a woman with leukemia who was thrown into expensive uncertainty by Obamacare, with Greg Sargent lamenting the tragedy of its effectiveness and Glenn Kessler asking for more proof. (BEDFORD: The Post is pretty worried about the people Obamacare hurts)  

Then Rep. Gary Peters, who is the running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, went all-in Friday, having his lawyers send a letter to a Michigan television station citing the Post in demanding that AFP provide more evidence that Obamacare is as terrible as it really is. Mr. Peters’ lawyers wrote that “Unlike federal candidates, independent political organizations” — and by extension, Ms. Boonstra — don’t have a “right to command use of broadcast facilities.” They clinched with a threat that airing the ad could “be cause for the loss of a station’s license.”  

Big guns, Mr. Peters. Big guns. . . .

Shocking how the government uses taxpayer funds to buy support from private entities

Given how much money the government has access to, they could buy support for Obamacare from almost anyone.  For an administration claims to have high standards of transparency, it is astounding that the Obama administration wouldn't make clearly public that they are making these bribes.   From the Washington Times:

Two months before enrollment began in the Obamacare exchanges, the administration’s top health care official heaped praise on WebMD for launching an online resource to help Americans navigate the complex law. 

The consumer health care site had the occasional nice thing to say about Obamacare, too. In one article, it predicted doctors might pick up more patients and crowed in an article titled “7 Surprising Things About the Affordable Care Act” that many consumers already had received insurance refunds under the law. 

But what neither Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius nor WebMD mentioned at the time was that the company, which millions of Americans regularly read for health news, also stood to earn millions of dollars from a federal contract to teach doctors about Obamacare. 

The contract documents, reviewed by The Washington Times, reward WebMD handsomely. For instance, the fee schedule offers dozens of products, including: 

 • As much as $126,826 for a single 5,000-word review article on scientific advances in a clinical topic. 

• Up to $68,916 for a four-minute video from an opinion specialist. 

• More than $140,000 for an eight-question online quiz. . . .

CNN: Insurance Executives are being pressured by White House, threatened with regulatory retaliation

Obama doesn't want the insurance companies to explain that it is Obamacare regulations that are causing people to lose their health insurance coverage.

So why does the Obama administration think that they can effectively threaten a journalist's job if the journalist says anything critical?

From Mediaite:

On Wednesday morning, CNN Newsroom anchor Carol Costello made a rather stunning, if cryptic, revelation. In discussing the firing of national security official Jofi Joseph, Costello agreed with panelist Jason Johnson that the Obama administration can be thin-skinned, and said that “President Obama’s people can be quite nasty. They don’t like you to say anything bad about their boss, and they’re not afraid to use whatever means they have at hand to stop you from doing that, including threatening your job.” . . . 

Another similar comment was made by Bob Beckel, who ran Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign:

The Five co-host Bob Beckel revealed this week that after he spoke out in favor of delaying Obamacare, he received a call from someone connected to the White House who “absolutely bludgeoned” him over the phone for daring to suggest a delay to the health care law. . . . 

Obama administration pressing insurance companies not to release exchange signup numbers

There has already been plenty of news regarding Obama administration pressure on companies.  Previously they were pressuring companies not to talk about the data errors in the system.  Now comes word of more pressure on companies not to release the number of people signing up for the program.  From INFORUM:

The Obama administration asked North Dakota’s largest health insurer not to publicize how many people have signed up for health insurance through a new online exchange, a company official says. 

During a Monday forum in Fargo for people interested in signing up for coverage via the exchange, James Nichol of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota told the crowd his company received the request from the federal government earlier Monday. Nichol is a consumer sales manager for the company. 

Still, a spokeswoman from Blue Cross Blue Shield says about 14 North Dakotans have signed up for coverage since the federal exchange went live Oct. 1. That brings total statewide enrollment to 20 – less than one a day. . . . 

An official from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, one of the main the federal agencies handling the federal marketplace, would not directly address questions about the request made of Blue Cross Blue Shield, including whether other insurers were also asked to keep quiet about enrollment. . . .

Obama administration thinks owning 7 firearms is evidence of terrorist activity. Is this just the Obama administration's effort to make gun ownership difficult and costly?

So owning 7 firearms (4 pistols, 1 shotgun, and 2 rifles) is evidence of terrorist activity?  The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI warn state and local law enforcement agencies to look out for people in possession of “large amounts” of weapons and ammunition, describing the discovery of “unusual amounts” of weapons as a potential indicator of criminal or terrorist activity.  Is this just the Obama administration's effort to make gun ownership difficult and costly?

Obama intimidation of companies they regulate, thuggish behavior and corruption

Who knows what these insurance companies really believe.  Everyone is upset about IRSgate, but that is only the tip of the iceberg.  It is also an argument for why government shouldn't have this much power because that power will be abused.  From the Wall Street Journal:  

Health-department officials have pressured insurers to refrain from commenting publicly about the problems, according to executives at four health plans, who asked not to be named. . . . .

Two weeks ago I was talking to a fairly prominent person in the health care industry and he told me that Kathleen Sebelius was again pressuring health care companies that her department regulates to make donations to help out Obamacare.  The above quote was actually in reference to companies not 

Emerging errors include duplicate enrollments, spouses reported as children, missing data fields and suspect eligibility determinations, say executives at more than a dozen health plans. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Nebraska said it had to hire temporary workers to contact new customers directly to resolve inaccuracies in submissions. Medical Mutual of Ohio said one customer had successfully signed up for three of its plans. 

The flaws could do lasting damage to the law if customers are deterred from signing up or mistakenly believe they have obtained coverage. 

"The longer this takes to resolve…the harder it will be to get people to [come back and] sign up," said Aetna Inc. Chief Executive Mark Bertolini. "It's not off to a great start," he said, though he believes the marketplaces are "here to stay." . . .

If companies can't comment publicly about what they really believe about Obamacare, what else can they not comment on?

From CBS News:

Corruption: White House discussed closing monuments with Park Service Director

One might think that this would be big news.  Using government resources for purely political goals seems like corruption to me.

REP. JOHN MICA (R-Fla.): I think nothing has resonated more with the public than to see an open-air monument such as the World War Two memorial, and closeby, the Martin Luther King memorial. It just seems that common sense did not prevail. Did you, now, you aid you take full responsibility for that action, is that correct? 

JONATHAN JARVIS, NPS DIRECTOR: That's correct. 

MICA: And did you discuss this with the Secretary of Interior at any time? 

JARVIS: Yes I did. 

MICA: And did she -- you didn't discuss it with anyone in the White House, did you? 

JARVIS: Several times on the phone with the White House, I presented, with the Secretary, my decision. But it was never the reverse. There was never information coming in. 

MICA: So you discussed with officials in the White House, your action, and you also discussed it with her.

Will Obama's legacy be to reintroduce slavery?: Obama threatens jail for man who wants to shut down business

When Federal government demands backdoor to his system, Lavabit Founder, Ladar Levison, wants to shut Down His Service and Feds respond by threatening his arrest.  Threatening someone with jail for shutting down their business sure sounds like Obama is demanding that they continue working at a particular job and do that job a particular way even when they don't want to do it.  Isn't that what slavery is?  From NBC News:

The owner of an encrypted email service used by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden said he has been threatened with criminal charges for refusing to comply with a secret surveillance order to turn over information about his customers.

"I could be arrested for this action," Ladar Levison told NBC News about his decision to shut down his company, Lavabit LLC, in protest over a secret court order he had received from a federal court that is overseeing the investigation into Snowden. 

Lavabit said he was barred by federal law from elaborating on the order or any of his communications with federal prosecutors. But a source familiar with the matter told NBC News that James Trump, a senior litigation counsel in the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, Va., sent an email to Levison's lawyer last Thursday – the day Lavabit was shuttered -- stating that Levison may have "violated the court order," a statement that was interpreted as a possible threat to charge Levison with contempt of court. . . . 

Levison, a 32-year-old entrepreneur who ran his company out of a Dallas apartment, said in a public statement last Thursday that he made "the difficult decision" to shut down Lavabit because he did not want "to become complicit in crimes against the American people." . . . 

Levison stressed that he has complied with "upwards of two dozen court orders" for information in the past that were targeted at "specific users" and that "I never had a problem with that." But without disclosing details, he suggested that the order he received more recently was markedly different, requiring him to cooperate in broadly based surveillance that would scoop up information about all the users of his service. . . .

Fortunately, President Obama assures us that there is no domestic spying.

Obama's fourth scandal: Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius using her position to force those she regulates to give money to Obama campaign

Using the threat of regulation to force those being regulated to give money to Obama sure sounds like thuggish behavior.  I suppose that Obama will again claim ignorance of this, but Sebelius has gotten in trouble before on these issues.  He might claim outrage, but he didn't publicly reprimand her earlier.  From The Hill newspaper:

House Republicans have widened their probe of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius by asking the country's largest health insurers for information on her fundraising for a nonprofit group promoting ObamaCare. 

Leaders on the Energy and Commerce Committee said Friday they have written to 15 insurance companies and other groups asking whether Sebelius had contacted them to solicit funds for ObamaCare's implementation.  

Companies should hand over any internal communications that document conversations with Sebelius or discussions about her request, including emails, lawmakers wrote.  

The Sebelius probe began when news broke that she was petitioning major healthcare players to contribute to Enroll America, a group tasked with educating the public about its new health coverage options under healthcare reform.  

Republicans have denounced the effort as a "shakedown" that will line the pockets of Obama supporters and former administration officials now working to promote the Affordable Care Act. . . .

Scary: Obama uses the power of the federal government to destroy his political opponents

These audits just didn't represent the costs of lawyers' fees and delayed refunds, but also all of the time and emotional drain that was spent personally dealing with the audits.  From Kimberly Strassel in the WSJ:

. . . Mr. Obama now professes shock and outrage that bureaucrats at the IRS did exactly what the president of the United States said was the right and honorable thing to do. "He put a target on our backs, and he's now going to blame the people who are shooting at us?" asks Idaho businessman and longtime Republican donor Frank VanderSloot.
Mr. VanderSloot is the Obama target who in 2011 made a sizable donation to a group supporting Mitt Romney. In April 2012, an Obama campaign website named and slurred eight Romney donors. It tarred Mr. VanderSloot as a "wealthy individual" with a "less-than-reputable record." Other donors were described as having been "on the wrong side of the law."
This was the Obama version of the phone call—put out to every government investigator (and liberal activist) in the land.
Twelve days later, a man working for a political opposition-research firm called an Idaho courthouse for Mr. VanderSloot's divorce records. In June, the IRS informed Mr. VanderSloot and his wife of an audit of two years of their taxes. In July, the Department of Labor informed him of an audit of the guest workers on his Idaho cattle ranch. In September, the IRS informed him of a second audit, of one of his businesses. Mr. VanderSloot, who had never been audited before, was subject to three in the four months after Mr. Obama teed him up for such scrutiny.
The last of these audits was only concluded in recent weeks. Not one resulted in a fine or penalty. But Mr. VanderSloot has been waiting more than 20 months for a sizable refund and estimates his legal bills are $80,000. That figure doesn't account for what the president's vilification has done to his business and reputation.
The Obama call for scrutiny wasn't a mistake; it was the president's strategy—one pursued throughout 2012. The way to limit Romney money was to intimidate donors from giving. . . .

Peggy Noonan has a similar list here:

. . . Hal Scherz, a Georgia physician, also came to the government's attention. He told ABC News: "It is odd that nothing changed on my tax return and I was never audited until I publicly criticized ObamaCare." 

Franklin Graham, son of Billy, told Politico he believes his father was targeted. A conservative Catholic academic who has written for these pages faced questions about her meager freelance writing income. Many of these stories will come out, but not as many as there are. People are not only afraid of being audited, they're afraid of saying they were audited. 

All of these IRS actions took place in the years leading up to the 2012 election. They constitute the use of governmental power to intrude on the privacy and shackle the political freedom of American citizens. . . . 

Fox News has this story about a Texas Tea Party group's filing with the IRS.

Are Democrats in Colorado Threatening Sheriffs with Lower Salaries because of their support for gun ownership?

Here is something that received from Colorado State Representative Lori Saine:

Sheriff Maketa is filing charges with the AG, we will see where this leads. Apparently he is the only one to have received the email. If this is true, there will be no doubt we have a totally gangster government.   

Here is a quote from the video:

The Senate dem leadership is very upset with the sheriffs and their opposition to the gun control bills.  And there is another bill that has been put off and put off and that is the salary commission which makes recommendations to the legislature for the pay of sheriffs and other country elected officials.  And as you know Jeff, my pay is actually by the legislature.  Well, Governor Ritter under his tenure created a commission that would study these salaries and come forward with fact backed recommendations.  Now this salary bill has no effect on me, but the Dems have been dangling it out there and refusing to follow their own created commission's recommendations and they have put it off for two years and basically in that email it said sheriffs the Senate majority leadership are very upset with your testimony and opposition on the gun bills . . . they are stating . . . we should reconsider our positions to gain a more favorable light for salary support from the Dems. . . . 

Sheriffs haven't apparently gotten a raise since 2006.

Did government pressure cause Boeing to use a lower quality company to make batteries?

Did government corruption force Boeing to use a component that was not as high of a quality product as it would want in the new 787?  This quote from 2008 seems pretty old to imply anything about a newly released plane, but the NY Times still sees a link.

A former Boeing executive confirmed this when we spoke this week. After asking not to be named because of the diplomatic fragility of the topic, he said: “Let me put it this way: we knew the Japanese market would be Boeing’s in return for our selecting these Japanese partners. It was a silent understanding, and there was nothing in writing.” He added that Boeing’s Japanese suppliers had received low-interest loans from the Japanese government repayable only out of future profits. 

Although the Japanese airlines and suppliers are independent companies, “in Japan there’s a unique relationship between the airlines, the suppliers and the government,” according to the former Boeing official. “It’s cultural. The officials all went to the same schools and have close personal relationships. The government supported the airlines and the industries and they developed together. The government has enormous influence. They all work together.” 

As a Boeing vice president and former Boeing Japan president, Nicole Piasecki, told the company magazine in 2008: “These aren’t just relationships with people in business. The Japanese government is a powerful and important part of all economic activity and industrial development. So part of relationship building is negotiating these two important spheres of influence in Japan and understanding it’s all tied together.” 

Mr. Aboulafia agreed that Japan was unique. “This is the way things used to be in the days before free trade,” he said. “Japan is the last unreconstructed believer in industrial policy writ large.” . . . .

Democrats put political pressure on banks to sever ties with gun makers

Democrats are trying to drive gun makers out of business by making it financially more costly for them to do business.  This strikes me as pretty lawless.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, moving to take a lead role in the gun control debate, is turning up the pressure on banks that do business with firearms manufacturers. 

Emanuel is sending letters to two major financial institutions, TD Bank and Bank of America, which offer lines of credit to gun makers suggesting that they stop lending money to the manufacturers if they don’t come out for new gun restrictions. . . . .

Can government ever divorce politics from its actions?: Requests to cut off aid to Michigan over Right-to-Work law

This is part of a series of similar comments that I should keep track of.  Here is what Michigan Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer has been suggesting:

“If this works out the way the Democrats would hope, here’s the scenario: Governor, if you sign the legislation, kiss that money goodbye. And if you nix it and veto it, well, guess what? We’ll open up the wallets and get you the money,” [WWJ Lansing Bureau Chief Tim Skubick] told CBS Detroit [when he described Whitmer's argument]. “Some people might call that blackmail. In politics we call it taking advantage of a situation.” 

Detroit-based WJR host Frank Beckmann condemned Whitmer’s remarks, calling her plan “outrageous.” 

“This should immediately disqualify her for any consideration to run for governor,” Beckmann said on the air. “Taking the interests of the entire state of Michigan, the entire region of Detroit, holding them hostage because you object to legislation that has passed in 23 other states and has caused great economic growth?” . . .

Obama interjects himself into the debate.

“I’ve just got to say this,” Obama said at the Daimler Detroit Diesel plant in Michigan before a small crowd of workers. “What we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions. We shouldn’t be doing that. 

“You know, these so-called right-to-work laws, they don’t have to do with economics, they have everything to do with politics,” Obama added to applause and cheers from the crowd. “What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money.” . . . 

Politics enters into decision of whether to label Sandy as a hurricane

Is everything a political question when the government gets involved?  It certainly seems to.  It would be one thing for Schumer to say that NOAA should base its decision on science, but instead he argues that they should make a decision based on political considerations.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is urging the federal weather agency to avoid labeling super-storm Sandy a hurricane because doing so would raise insurance deductibles. 

Schumer sent a letter Sunday to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and insurance companies warning that classifying Sandy as a hurricane could boost deductibles to $20,000, compared with $1,000 for a tropical storm. . . .

The original story is available here.