Obama Administration in Bed With Capt. Morgan

As most of you know, Captain Morgan, a rum manufactured by Diageo, has become very popular in the past few years. While I'm not a drinker, I've been told it's very good. In fact, on New Year's, my husband thought it was so good we ended up stopping on the way home to allow him to barf. He's vowed never to sail with the Captain again.

Diageo is a London-based company with a rum distillery in Puerto Rico. They are also the makers of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Diageo is poised to move their Captain Morgan operation from Puerto Rico to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. When they do, they will be building a new state-of-the-art distillery and providing 40 to 70 new jobs to St. Croix while hundreds in Puerto Rico will lose theirs. What does all of this have to do with you and I? Diageo will get $2.7 billion in tax credits and benefits from the U.S. government. In short, we will be paying Diageo money to fund their operations in an unincorporated U.S. territory. All this will happen during the worst economic climate since the Carter years.

"TurboTax" Geithner has said that he doesn't have the authority to investigate or block the deal because the subsidies will come from a special tax on every bottle of rum sold in the U.S. The total expected money to be collected is $500 million. The Ways and Means committee chairman of the House refuses to intervene as well. That would be Charlie Rangel. Right now, he's busy trying to get his pee-pee out of the wringer on tax corruption allegations.

Why does the government feel the need to give tax breaks to a corporation that sees millions (if not billions) of dollars in profits every year? Can't Diageo fund their own operations? Now if this had been a Republican administration giving tax credits and funding to a very well-established company with major profits, the cries of "corporate welfare" would still be echoing somewhere around the South Pole.

The silence from this administration demonstrates that they not only approve of this deal, but they're probably going to make the next First Family vacation one to St. Croix.

Two More Inspectors General Fired

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According to American Thinker, Gerald Walpin was not the only Inspector General fired by the Obamarx administration for doing their job. We're headed for a thugocracy.

In addition to Walpin ( I did a post on this recently; he was fired for blowing the whistle on AmeriCorps), Neil Barofsky and Judith Gwynne were also fired for uncovering impropriety within their respective assignments.

Barofsky was given the task of overseeing financial stimulus spending. From Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten of the Chicago Tribune:

...now Neil Barofsky is embroiled in a dispute with the Obama administration that delayed one recent inquiry and sparked questions about his ability to freely investigate.

The disagreement stems from a claim by the Treasury Department that Barofsky is not entirely independent of the agency he is assigned to examine a claim that has prompted a stern letter from a Republican senator warning that agency officials are encroaching on the integrity of an office created to protect taxpayers.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, sent the letter Wednesday to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner demanding information about a "dispute over certain Treasury documents" that he said were being "withheld" from Barofsky's office on a "specious claim of attorney-client privilege."

Judith Gwynne was acting Inspector General at the International Trade Commission (ITC). As per American Thinker:

Separately this week, the International Trade Commission told its acting inspector general, who is not subject to White House authority, that her contract would not be renewed.

Grassley had become concerned about her independence because of a report earlier in the year that an agency employee forcibly took documents from the acting inspector general.

"It is difficult to understand why the ITC would not have taken action to ensure that the ITC inspector general had the information necessary to do the job," Grassley wrote on Tuesday.

Less than three hours after the letter was e-mailed to the agency, the acting IG, Judith Gwynne, was told that her contract, which expires in early July, would not be renewed.

The level of corruption is astounding. Where are the media, including Fox News? I haven't heard much about this from them. I know where the MSM are...and it's going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.