Obama is willing to circumvent the law and screw over the primary bond holders in GM and Chrysler, making sure his union buddies get taken care of. Now he is willing to ignore a law he co-sponsored to take care of his buddy KJ!



Obama Fires Inspector General Who Investigated a Friend
Monday, June 15, 2009
Gerald Walpin

President Barack Obama tried late last week to quietly fire an inspector general who had investigated a close political ally, a move that prompted attention from several media sources anyway. Obama terminated Gerald Walpin, inspector general of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs the AmeriCorps program, after Walpin launched an investigation last year that involved Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA player who had founded a community group called St. HOPE Academy.

Walpin’s audit of St. HOPE, which sought to find out how the organization had spent $847,673 in grant funds from AmeriCorps, came in the middle of Johnson’s reelection campaign. At that time, Walpin raised the specter of funds being diverted and misused by Johnson’s organization. The Democrat and supporter of Obama called the investigation “politically motivated,” and his aides brought up details about Walpin’s support for Republican Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to indicate bias on his part. In 2007 and 2008, Walpin donated money to the presidential campaigns of Rudy Giuliani and John McCain.

In April, St. HOPE Academy agreed to a settlement with the federal government to pay $423,836.50, of which $72,836.50 came out of Johnson’s pocket. Walpin was cut out of those negotiations to settle the matter.

After hearing of the inspector general’s firing, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) complained to Obama in a letter, which reminded him that he had supported legislation last year as a U.S. senator requiring the president to give Congress 30 days notice in writing of the reasons for terminating or transferring any inspector general.


Here are a couple of choice quotes from Senator Grassley's letter you might enjoy

In a letter to the President, Senator Charles Grassley (R - Iowa) urges him to review the law he might be violating - a law that Obama had co-sponsered with Senator Grassley:

Last year, President Bush signed the Inspector General Reform Act (P.L. 110-409) into law. Both you and I were cosponsors of this important legislation that was introduced to strengthen the independence and integrity of the Inspectors General. One of the most important provisions of the legislation we cosponsored was Section 3 which amended the procedures for the removal of Inspectors General. Specifically, Section 3 requires that, "the President shall communicate in writing the reasons for any such removal or transfer to both Houses of Congress, not later than 30 days before the removal or transfer." No such notice was provided to Congress in this instance.

Senator Grassley also reminded the President why he and then Senator Obama proposed such a law:

"The Committee intends that Inspectors General who fail to perform their duties properly whether through malfeasance or nonfeasance, or whose personal actions bring discredit upon the office, be removed. The requirement to notify the Congress in advance of the reasons for the removal should serve to ensure that Inspectors General are not removed for political reasons."


Oh yes political reasons,,, What might those be??? Perhaps it was because Inspector Walpin was a republican??? Or maybe it was because Obama's buddy was under the microscope? Either way this guy has a history of catching cheats and getting more than 75 million of fraudulently spent grant money back! I didn't really like Clinton to much, but damn I miss those days. He was a crook but at least he was quiet about it. Still waiting to see some of that "most ethical, transparent administration in history".

Well Hank,,, since you brought up the press,,, did you notice that MSN edited out the doctors booing Obama during his speech at the AMA today?

Didn't vote for the community organizer .

But seeing how my PAC $ contributed to Mr. Obama getting elected...... I'll reap the rewards.

It's the American way....

Mf

We should get the other 75% or 80% of the doctors who aren't part of the AMA, and see how they react...they'd boo the AMA right out of the room!

I think the visitor logs should almost always be made public, unless it is a matter of actual national security, or some overarching...and legal...need is served by keeping all or part of them secret.

Otherwise, let 'em out!

Fish on...

Todd

Well the doctors were booing the president because in one breath he was asking them not to do procedures just to cover their butts, then in the next breath said he wasn't going to do anything to limit the costs of malpractice insurance. Pretty sure the other 70-80% of doctors would support the AMA's stance on that.

I know. Let's start a seven year witch hunt. There has to be something evil about Obama....there just has to be. He's a bad man like Clinton. Those liberal lefties are all bad. Why, if the Republicans weren't such moronic idiots who squandered all of their power they'd be able to hire the Starr Witch Doctor to make it appear there is more to this liberal evilness.

"Well the doctors were booing the president because in one breath he was asking them not to do procedures just to cover their butts, then in the next breath said he wasn't going to do anything to limit the costs of malpractice insurance. Pretty sure the other 70-80% of doctors would support the AMA's stance on that."


Nice spin. He doesn't want docs racking up the charges which you should agree with and he wasn't going to limit YOUR ability to sue if some ahole cuts off the wrong leg which you should also agree with. Actually the other 80% would join the AMA if they agreed with their stances. How about we make it voluntary in all things. You want poor big business to succeed you can sign away your rights to sue forever.

stlhead

How is what you just posted relevant to the conversation? Its not. It is partisan drivel and nothing more.

Witch hunt? Obama can't even follow the law he created, and fired a guy who saved millions of grant money for political reasons and nothing more.

Let me help you out with this one stlhead,,, go back reread the article, and substitute Bush's name for Obama's every time it comes up. Then take another shot at responding here.

Stlhead.

How is what I said spin. I didn't give my feeling either way. Simply stated why the docs were booing.

No doc in this country wants the guberment telling them what they can and can not do. We would also like to get rid of insurance comps doing that exact same thing.
Any time you have someone with no medical training telling you they want to limit what you can do in your attempt to help people and wont even help protect you from the blood sucker lawyers you are going to get booing. Pretty clear cut.
I agree you should have compensation for malpractice but what we have is B.S. Turn on the TV tonight and look at all the ads from the blood suckers. "Did you recieve this medication, call and we will get you money". You follow the best avalable info and help people the best you can. You treat and follow the guidelines. Then someone comes out with some study ten to twenty years down the road saying that what was done was not as good as we all thought. Here come the ambulance chasers. Better be prepared to defend yourself because they are going to go as far as ads on TV to create a class action suit. All about money and with the donation to BO he will throw Drs under the bus to protect his donators. Just like with the unions.

Perhaps because it's not an illegal firing.

"The President wrote "it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as Inspectors General. That is no longer the case in regard to this Inspector General." Walpin was put on a 30 day suspension with pay to ensure that President Obama complies with the 2008 Inspector General Reform Act, which he sponsored."

So that leaves the only crap being your unsubstantiated accusations----again. Given that, those probably aren't crickets, but rather little neocon voices in your head.

So this firing isn't politically motivated? This isn't payback for exposing Obama's crooked buddy? Did Obama give any reasons to the contrary? Or did he just say he lost confidence in the guy? Seems to me Obama is using a technicality to keep his ass out of a sling, and not living with in the spirit of his own law. Obama created this law to allow Inspector Generals the freedom to find this kind of fraud with out having to worry about this kind of retribution. Fraud,,, hmmm how ironic.

Seems to me that there are three separate issues here...

1. Can he fire the IG? Yes, he serves at the President's pleasure...but the IG can't be fired for improper reasons.

2. Was there sufficient reason to fire the IG? Yes, and the support for that comes from two Republican lawyers, one of whom is also a Bush appointee. Political reasons or not, there's plenty of support to fire him if the Prez isn't pleased with his performance.

3. Should the 30 day rule apply? Seems like it should to me, but violating it doesn't all of a sudden make the firing illegal, nor does it make Walpin all of a sudden invulnerable to being fired. I looked up the law and couldn't find anywhere in it a remedy for its violation. Violating the 30 day rule doesn't make the firing a "political" act, and more to the point, virtually everything that politicians do are "political acts" in some way or another.

I think the proper way to handle this would be to put him back on the payroll, put him on administrative leave for 30 days, notify Congress that he's being let go, pay him for the 30 days, and send him packing.

That's what should have been done in the first place, and this whole thing could have been avoided...and should be done right now.

Fish on...

Todd

I didn't see that part...and if that's true, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with what he did...nothing whatsoever. Looks like the President did exactly what I suggested in my last post.

As far as the reason for firing him, it doesn't take much to be proper...and not having confidence in him is plenty of reason, especially if it's backed up by the CSNS attorney, and the Sacramento AG, both of whom are Republicans, one of whom was appointed by George W. Bush.

Tempest in a teapot, all of it.

Fish on...

Todd

As far as a few Doc's booing...we've been through all this before....read em and weep:

http://www.slate.com/id/2145400/

Stlhead:

I think you are off track again. No one ever offered commentary on malpractice insurance or any of that. What was mentioned was that the doctors booed and MSN edited out of the clip they played on tv.

The concept of Adapt and Overcome is a very common concept in the military, especially when thinking of the situations our troops in combat find themselves in on a daily basis. It is the ability of the men and women in our nation’s armed forces, to adapt themselves to any situation that they’re confronted with, improvise when things don’t go according to the textbook and overcome any hurdle in their path, to push on to success and victory. Adapt and overcome is a concept that our Wounded Warriors practice on a daily basis. It’s a concept that many civilians have no clue about, as they remain comfortable in their daily routines, in their daily lives, in their safe and secure coccoon.

"Well the doctors were booing the president because in one breath he was asking them not to do procedures just to cover their butts, then in the next breath said he wasn't going to do anything to limit the costs of malpractice insurance. Pretty sure the other 70-80% of doctors would support the AMA's stance on that."

Word for word Vic. Sounds like commentary to me.

Except there was no question that the AG's that were fired were doing a good job, and there is a question as to whether the IG was doing a good job...and the question about his competence on the issue at hand is coming from both sides of the aisle, not just partisan Democrats.

Pretty big difference, actually...

Fish on...

Todd

Stlhead, did you listen to the speach??? Didn't think so. Did you watch MSN last night and notice that they edited out the boos? Didn't think so. Either get the facts or STFU!


Here is another article that shines a little more light on things. The IG wouldn't bow to political pressure and take KJ off of probation so that Sacramento could receive federal stimulus money. More than likely the real reason he was fired.

The White House Fires a Watchdog
The curious case of the inspector general and a Presidential ally.


President Obama swept to office on the promise of a new kind of politics, but then how do you explain last week's dismissal of federal Inspector General Gerald Walpin for the crime of trying to protect taxpayer dollars? This is a case that smells of political favoritism and Chicago rules.

A George W. Bush appointee, Mr. Walpin has since 2007 been the inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that oversees such subsidized volunteer programs as AmeriCorps. In April 2008 the Corporation asked Mr. Walpin to investigate reports of irregularities at St. HOPE, a California nonprofit run by former NBA star and Obama supporter Kevin Johnson. St. HOPE had received an $850,000 AmeriCorps grant, which was supposed to go for three purposes: tutoring for Sacramento-area students; the redevelopment of several buildings; and theater and art programs.
[The White House Fires a Watchdog] Associated Press

Gerald Walpin, Inspector General of the Corporation For National and Community Service, was fired by President Barack Obama.

Mr. Walpin's investigators discovered that the money had been used instead to pad staff salaries, meddle politically in a school-board election, and have AmeriCorps members perform personal services for Mr. Johnson, including washing his car.

At the end of May, Mr. Walpin's office recommended that Mr. Johnson, an assistant and St. HOPE itself be "suspended" from receiving federal funds. The Corporation's official charged with suspensions agreed, and in September the suspension letters went out. Mr. Walpin's office also sent a civil and/or criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California.

So far, so normal. But that all changed last fall, when Mr. Johnson was elected mayor of Sacramento. News of the suspension had become public, and President Obama began to discuss his federal stimulus spending. A city-hired attorney pronounced in March that Sacramento might be barred from receiving stimulus funds because of Mr. Johnson's suspension.

The news caused a public uproar. The U.S. Attorney's office, which since January has been headed by Lawrence Brown -- a career prosecutor who took over when the Bush-appointed Attorney left -- had already decided not to pursue criminal charges. Media and political pressure then mounted for the office to settle the issue and lift Mr. Johnson's suspension. Mr. Walpin agreed Mr. Johnson should pay back money but objected to lifting the suspension. He noted that Mr. Johnson has never officially responded to the Corporation's findings and that the entire point of suspension is to keep federal funds from individuals shown to have misused them.

Mr. Brown's office responded by cutting off contact with Mr. Walpin's office and began working directly with the Corporation, the board of which is now chaired by one of Mr. Obama's top campaign fundraisers, Alan Solomont. A few days later, Mr. Brown's office produced a settlement draft that significantly watered down any financial repayment and cleared Mr. Johnson. Mr. Walpin told us that in all his time working with U.S. Attorneys on cases he'd referred, he'd never been cut out in such fashion.

Mr. Walpin brought his concerns to the Corporation's board, but some board members were angry over a separate Walpin investigation into the wrongful disbursement of $80 million to the City University of New York. Concerned about the St. HOPE mess, Mr. Walpin wrote a 29-page report, signed by two other senior members of his office, and submitted it in April to Congress. Last Wednesday, he got a phone call from a White House lawyer telling him to resign within an hour or be fired.

We've long disliked the position of inspectors general, on grounds that they are creatures of Congress designed to torment the executive. Yet this case appears to be one in which an IG was fired because he criticized a favorite Congressional and executive project (AmeriCorps), and refused to bend to political pressure to let the Sacramento mayor have his stimulus dollars.

There's also the question of how Mr. Walpin was terminated. He says the phone call came from Norman Eisen, the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, who said the President felt it was time for Mr. Walpin to "move on," and that it was "pure coincidence" he was asked to leave during the St. HOPE controversy. Yet the Administration has already had to walk back that claim.

That's because last year Congress passed the Inspectors General Reform Act, which requires the President to give Congress 30 days notice, plus a reason, before firing an inspector general. A co-sponsor of that bill was none other than Senator Obama. Having failed to pressure Mr. Walpin into resigning (which in itself might violate the law), the Administration was forced to say he'd be terminated in 30 days, and to tell Congress its reasons.

White House Counsel Gregory Craig cited a complaint that had been lodged against Mr. Walpin by Mr. Brown, the U.S. Attorney, accusing Mr. Walpin of misconduct, and of not really having the goods on Mr. Johnson. But this is curious given that Mr. Brown himself settled with St. HOPE, Mr. Johnson and his assistant, an agreement that required St. HOPE (with a financial assist from Mr. Johnson) to repay approximately half of the grant, and also required Mr. Johnson to take an online course about bookkeeping.

Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, a co-sponsor of the IG Reform Act, is now demanding that the Corporation hand over its communications on this mess. He also wants to see any contact with the office of First Lady Michelle Obama, who has taken a particular interest in AmeriCorps, and whose former chief of staff, Jackie Norris, recently arrived at the Corporation as a "senior adviser."

If this seems like small beer, keep in mind that Mr. Obama promised to carefully watch how every stimulus dollar is spent. In this case, the evidence suggests that his White House fired a public official who refused to roll over to protect a Presidential crony.