RUTHFULLY YOURS

A “pervasive army” of more than 25,000 federal lawyers have raked in $26.2 billion from U.S. taxpayers since 2007, according to a new report by the non-profit government watchdog Open The Books.

“Today’s federal government is protected by a pervasive army of attorneys,” Open The Books founder and the report’s author Adam Andrzejewski told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “At a force size of 25,000, that’s bigger than a conventional combat division.”

Nearly half of the lawyers are based in Washington, according to the report, called “Lawyered Up: Federal Spending On Lawyers, 2007-2014.” Open The Books maintains a database containing 2.6 billion lines of government spending, representing the largest such digital resource in the world.

The federal portion of the database was made possible by the Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which was co-sponsored by then-senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Barack Obama of Illinois, and signed into law by President George W. Bush.

“Since 2007, federal spending on attorneys exceeded $26 billion in salaries and bonuses,” the report said. More than 50 salaries exceeded $250,000 and 19 bonuses were for more than $50,000 since 2007. (RELATED: It Pays To Be A Lawyer In DC … A Lot)

“In 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency employed 1,020 attorneys while the Internal Revenue Service employed 1,423 attorneys,” the report said. (RELATED: Justice Department Plans Attorney Hiring Spree To Keep Pace With Obama’s Pardon Push)

Open The Books also found:

In 2014, the top federal lawyer salary was $266,469.

New counts show the number of federal lawyers now exceed the individual public payrolls of twelve states or the top seven largest private law firms in the USA – combined. It’s Uncle Sam, Esq.

This week, we released our OpenTheBooks.com Snapshot Oversight Report – Lawyered Up, Federal Spending on General Attorneys from FY2007-FY2014. We mapped an army of lawyers larger than a combat division. Yet, in a sense, the lawyers have more firepower. As Mario Puzo cautioned in The Godfather, “A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.”
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New mapping software allows citizens to track the 25,060 federal lawyers across 200 agencies and the 50 states by employment location.

Many times, those lawyers are out to protect the government’s interests, not the public interest.

Consider the example of North Carolina convenience store owner, Lyndon McLellan. McLellan was accused of making cash bank deposits less than $10,000 to avoid reporting requirements. The feds dropped the case but kept McLellan’s life savings of $107,000 for two more years. Prosecutors even had the gall to warn him not to go to the media.

A couple years ago, Chicago teamed up with the feds to rid itself of the numerous little-entrepreneurial electro-platers on the South and Near West sides. After the regulations, the enforcers moved in and today, there are very few left. In just one case, federal lawyers spent $1 million to shutdown a family owned electro-plater – settling for under $50,000. The business never recovered.

Our study illustrates the extent to which the little guys are outgunned. Here is just a small sample of our findings:
25,060 lawyers on the rank and file federal agency payroll with a job classification of ‘general attorney’ cost taxpayers $3.3 billion last year and $26.2 billion since 2007, plus $130 million in bonuses

The average federal lawyer ‘earned’ $132,817.06 plus bonuses in FY2014.
The number of federal lawyers exceeds the total public payroll headcount of twelve states including Alaska (25,050); Delaware (23,249); Idaho (20,270); Maine (18,602); Maryland (16,877); Nevada (24,524); New Hampshire (14,694); North Dakota (15,742); Rhode Island (17,073); South Dakota (12,774); Vermont (13,289); and Wyoming (8,500).
If the feds were a private-sector law firm, they would exceed the TOP 7 Largest Private Law Firms – combined (24,411): Baker & McKenzie (4,363); Yingke (4,153); DLA Piper (3,702); Dacheng (3,700); Norton Rose Fulbright (3,461); CMS Legal Service (2,522); and Jones Day (2,510).
More than half of the lawyers are located inside the Washington, D.C. beltway.

Most Americans probably assume that Uncle Sam’s lawyers are employed at the IRS, or Department of Justice. Yet, agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are employing nearly as many lawyers as the IRS. The EPA employs 1,020 lawyers with payroll exceeding $1.1 billion since 2007, while the IRS employs over 1,400 lawyers. Last fall, in a piece at Forbes, I covered the EPA’s penchant for lawyers – the agency alone would rank as the 11th largest domestic law firm.

Former U.S. senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) had a somber message for Congress Wednesday when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. “America doesn’t trust you anymore,” he told his former colleagues. “That’s the truth.” Coburn was appearing alongside Gene L. Dodaro, the head of the Government Accountability Office, during the hearing to discuss duplicative federal programs.

Via the Washington Free Beacon:

The GAO recently released its annual report, finding the federal government could save hundreds of billions of dollars just by consolidating duplicative programs.

Coburn, making his first appearance before the Senate since his farewell speech when retired in late 2014, pleaded with Congress to take action to reform government, simplify the tax code, and save taxpayers billions of dollars in the process.

Coburn, whose efforts at combating waste, fraud and abuse are legendary, is the man behind the annual government wastebook. Now he is a senior advisor in the Convention of States Project, which aims to force Congress to balance the budget. The Convention of States Project is currently organized in all 50 states, with hundreds of thousands of working volunteers, supporters and advocates committed to stopping the federal government’s abuse of power.

He said 10 of 34 states needed have passed resolutions so far.

“I would just tell you a little of my background this last year in 2015 I spent my time in 21 different states,” Coburn told the committee. “And America doesn’t trust you anymore. That’s the truth. Because they don’t see the actions coming out of Congress that should be coming out.”

“And that doesn’t mean that they’re right all the time, but you’ve lost their confidence,” he said. “And that’s not one party, that’s both. And so when you have hundreds of billions of dollars that could be saved and aren’t, and they know it. You know, they actually read your reports. People online, and then they use social media, pass it around.”

The small state of Vermont is poised this summer to upend national policy—and it doesn’t have anything to do with Bernie Sanders. Starting July 1, many foods sold in the Green Mountain State must carry a label if they are made with genetically modified ingredients. The law is full of carve-outs: It applies to grocery stores, but not restaurants, and to packaged foods, but not meat or cheese. Nonetheless, it will have nationwide implications. Because food manufacturers may not want to create separate packaging for different regions of the country, or to risk the legal liability if a non-labeled GMO winds up in Vermont, they will probably adjust their supply chains far beyond New England.

Lawsuits and bills in Congress have attempted to nullify the Vermont measure, but they have been unsuccessful. Those in favor of labeling and those against have tussled over philosophical and legal matters. What is the consumer’s right to know? Can the government compel speech when the best science suggests that GMOs pose no safety risk? Proponents argue that the only cost of labeling is the price of ink. Opponents worry that labeling GMOs will stigmatize them, causing food manufacturers to switch to more expensive non-genetically engineered ingredients.

Polls do show that 80% or more of consumers support labeling GMOs. But this is a dubious argument in favor, since most know little about the issue. A survey that I conducted on food preferences in January asked more than 1,000 Americans about an absurd hypothetical policy mandating labels for foods containing DNA. Eighty percent supported the idea. A follow-up last February asked another 1,000 people whether they thought that the statement “all vegetables contain DNA” was true or false. More than half, 52%, said “false.” For the record, the correct answer is “true.”

My research shows that when people are directly asked how they want the issue of GMO labeling to be decided, they do not defer to politicians or their fellow citizens. In a survey last May, a strong majority, 61%, preferred to put the matter to experts at the Food and Drug Administration. This seems to be borne out at the ballot box: To date, referendums on mandatory labeling have been held in five states, and none has passed. CONTINUE AT SITE

On Tuesday, April 19, 2016, the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security conducted a hearing on the topic, “The Real Victims of a Reckless and Lawless Immigration Policy: Families and Survivors Speak Out on the Real Cost of This Administration’s Policies.”

I urge you to watch the entire video of that important hearing. And then I recommend that you provide information about that hearing to as many folks as possible.

The witnesses at this hearing were: Sheriff Charles Jenkins of Frederick County, Maryland; Michelle Root, the mother of Sarah Root; Laura Wilkerson, the mother of Joshua Wilkerson; and Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the United Methodist Church.

The timing of the hearing could not have been better because the day before, on Monday, April 18th, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the administration’s implementation of the DAPA program (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents). A CNN news report, “Supreme Court divided on Obama’s immigration actions,” focused on this program, which is a follow-on to the DACA program (Deferred Action, Childhood Arrival), which largely paralleled the failed DREAM Act.

To provide my perspectives on the use (or, rather, misuse) of prosecutorial discretion, I wrote an op-ed for Fox News Latino, “Obama Invokes Prosecutorial Discretion to Circumvent Constitution and Congress” that was published on June 17, 2012 — two days after President Obama stood in the White House Rose Garden to proclaim that “since Congress failed to act” he was going to take action. Of course to Obama, his concept of a “failure of Congress to act” was the refusal of Congress to pass bad legislation. When Congress votes down bad legislation, they most certainly are acting.

Obama also deceptively said that this was about children, kids and young people, even though illegal aliens as old as 31 years of age could apply for this program, provided that they claimed that they entered the United States prior to their 16thbirthdays. Without any interviews or field investigations being conducted, fraud likely permeates this program that has an approval rate of more than 95%.

In my Fox News Latino piece, I noted that what Mr. Obama referred to as “Prosecutorial Discretion” should be more properly referred to as “Prosecutorial Deception.” Incidentally, I cannot pass up the opportunity to note that while the term “alien” has come under attack by Obama and his supporters, the open borders anarchists, the term “DREAMers” is derived from the acronym for the “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors” Act.

On Monday, April 18, legislators’ offices were visited by individuals associated with a group unknown to most lawmakers: The United States Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO). In the interest of helping members of the U.S. Congress understand precisely who their interlocutors are, permit a brief introduction: The USCMO is the latest in a long series of front organizations associated with, and working to advance, the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.

Members of Congress should be clear about the true nature of that agenda. It is laid out most authoritatively in a document introduced into evidence by federal prosecutors in the course of the largest terrorism financing trial in the nation’s history, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation et al. Written in 1991 by a top Muslim Brotherhood operative, Mohamed Akram, and entitled “The Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal of the Group in North America,” this internal correspondence was meant for the eyes only of the organization’s leadership in Egypt. So, the document is direct and to the point: It explicitly states that the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America is “destroying Western civilization from within … by [the infidels’] hands and the hands of the believers so that Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

There are two other important facts legislators should know about Akram’s memo.

First, the document helpfully attaches a list of 29 groups under the heading “Our organizations and organizations of our friends: Imagine if they all march according to one plan!” A number of the identified Muslim Brotherhood fronts – and many others that have come into being since 1991 – are members of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations. Representatives and associates of such fronts will be among the Islamists in congressional offices on Monday.

Second, the memo describes in detail the Muslim Brotherhood’s favored technique for accomplishing its stated goal of “destroying Western civilization” – at least until such time as they are strong enough to use violence decisively: “civilization jihad.” This sort of jihad involves employing stealthy, subversive means like influence operations to penetrate and subvert our government and civil society institutions. (The successful application of these means have been chronicled extensively in the Center for Security Policy’s “Civilization Jihad Reader Series.”)

The Obama White House is “aggressively engaged” in the push to allow transgender students to use whichever bathroom they wish at school, according to a top Obama appointee in the Department of Education. DOE Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon made the point last Thursday during her keynote address at an LGBT summit in Michigan which was co-hosted by the White House.

Via the Daily Caller:

The event was co-sponsored by activist group Equality Michigan, which has led a statewide charge to allow schoolchildren to choose their name, gender and bathroom, all without parental knowledge or input. Officials from seven different federal agencies attended the event, according to the Equality Michigan website.

Equality Michigan executive director Steph White blasted out a giddy email to supporters after the event, which she called “a great catalyst that will propel our collective work forward.” The email included an excerpt from Lhamon’s remarks, which White called “refreshingly clear.”
Speaking about the Obama administration, Lhamon told attendees: “We are serious. We are aggressively engaged. We will enforce Title IX.” The Daily Caller has filed a FOIA request with the Department of Education for Lhamon’s full remarks.

Under Lhamon’s guidance, the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights has ruled that schools will be in violation of Title IX if they do not permit transgender students to use the bathroom and locker rooms of their choice. The administration has made clear that giving private, single-user bathrooms is not a sufficient accommodation. That is: schools must allow boys who think they’re girls to shower and change alongside actual girls.

On April 19, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that a biological female who identifies as a male may bring a claim under Title IX against a school for not allowing her to use the men’s restrooms and locker room facilities.

Let us stipulate that ESPN, as a private institution, was entirely within its rights to have sacked Curt Schilling for his combative Facebook post on the continuing national saga that is North Carolina restrooms. Let’s stipulate too that the way the former Red Sox pitcher advanced his case—sharing a meme featuring a grotesque fat man in a blonde wig pretending to be a woman—was not the line of argument that, say, William F. Buckley would have chosen.
But let us also note the irony. Mr. Schilling’s main contention—“a man is a man no matter what they call themselves”—is supported by DNA and those pesky X and Y chromosomes. In short, in this fight between science and authority, Mr. Schilling is in the amusing position of being the Galileo, with ESPN filling in for the Holy Office.

Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital, puts it this way: “Curt Schilling is of course correct with the science in saying that claiming to be a woman when you have the chromosomal and anatomical structures of a man does not make you such. You’re still a man no matter what you think or how you dress.”

It’s an interesting detail that has gone largely unaddressed since Mr. Schilling delivered his knuckleball. Nor is it hard to see why. For it contradicts the dominant narrative in which Democrats take their positions from a clear-eyed look at the science while Republicans are blinded by their religious, social and economic orthodoxies.

This was the trope Barack Obama invoked in his maiden inaugural address, when he promised to “restore science to its rightful place.” Well, the American people have now had almost eight years of it. Turns out that restoring-science-to-its-rightful-place comes with its own set of dogmas and orthodoxies. CONTINUE AT SITE