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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has identified five men who might be responsible for the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year, and has enough evidence to justify seizing them by military force as suspected terrorists, officials say. But there isn't enough proof to try them in a U.S. civilian court as the Obama administration prefers.

Ireland has long been the world leader in maternal health and respect for women, but now the Irish government has launched a vicious attack against women, exploiting them to build a case for brutal abortion legislation. … In 2011, Enda Kenny was brought to power as the Prime Minister of Ireland, after promising that he would uphold the country’s pro-life laws and never legislate on abortion. … Nearly two weeks ago, the coalition government, with Fine Gael Prime Minister Enda Kenny as its leader, introduced legislation that would legalize abortion and allow doctors to directly end the life of a...

SAN DIEGO (CN) - A lurid but vague class action accuses corrupt and abusive IRS agents of stealing 10 million people's medical records without a warrant - including "intimate medical records of every state judge in California."

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, which voted overwhelmingly to arm elements of the Syrian opposition in a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). "This is an important moment," Paul said, addressing his Senate colleagues. "You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda. It's an irony you cannot overcome."

Everything had to come together just perfectly to create the killer tornado in Moore, Okla.: wind speed, moisture in the air, temperature and timing. And when they did, the awesome energy released over that city dwarfed the power of the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima. On Tuesday, the National Weather Service gave it the top-of-the-scale rating of EF5 for wind speed and breadth, and severity of damage. Wind speeds were estimated at between 200 and 210 mph. The death count is 24 so far, including at least nine children. The United States averages about one EF5 a year, but this...

Much of the talk in the news this week regards the appalling scandal involving IRS targeting of conservative non-profit groups. So it’s worth noting that Obamacare dramatically expands the authority and the scope of the Internal Revenue Service. Two provisions in particular will require thousands of new IRS agents, and billions in funding, to enforce: the law’s individual mandate, forcing most Americans to buy government-approved health insurance; and its employer mandate, forcing most employers to take money out of workers’ paychecks to purchase costly health insurance on their behalf. Here’s why these two provisions are so intrusive, and why the...

<p>Here’s a list of news media members who have been under Washington’s watch: The Associated Press: Telephone records for a number of lines over a period of weeks were taken by the feds. WND reported that the Obama administration said it pursued the news wire’s records because a double agent in the war on terror was compromised by a story.</p>

MOSCOW — "Russia is like a tub full of dough. You push your hand all the way to the bottom, pull it out, and right before your eyes, the hole disappears, and again, it is a tub full of dough," Nikita Khrushchev once said, assessing the country he ruled. The former premier -- my great grandfather -- who 60 years ago denounced Joseph Stalin and his pervasive security apparatus, must be turning in his grave. Russia's legal institutions are still run along the lines of Stalin's "show trials." Following the politically motivated prosecutions of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and...

The parents of a U.S. engineer found dead in Singapore last year said on Wednesday they will not take part in the rest of a coroner’s inquiry into his death, which they say was linked to a project involving the transfer of sensitive technology to China. In a statement issued through their lawyers, Rick and Mary Todd said they had lost confidence in the system investigating the death of their 31-year-old son, Shane, who was found hanging in his Singapore apartment last June. The Todds did not appear in court on Wednesday, the day after a U.S. medical examiner they...

White House press secretary Jay Carney has been under serious pressure to handle the press’ grilling over the big scandals facing the Obama administration this past week, and when people get particularly stressed, they tend to do a lot of deflecting. In Carney’s case, he attempted to dismiss all the criticism of the Benghazi, IRS, and AP scandals (as well as an emerging one about Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius) by digging up what Bill O’Reilly would call an “old canard”: birtherism. During today’s press briefing, Carney sequentially smacked down the outrage over Benghazi, the IRS, and the...

There were multiple reported sightings of agents with the Department of Homeland Security at several Tea Party-led IRS protests in states like Missouri, Florida, Illinois and Indiana. The rallies that occurred across the country on Tuesday were sparked by the IRS’ unfair targeting of conservative groups — one of the several scandals the Obama administration is dealing with. What is unclear though is why federal officials felt the Tea Party presence required more than the attention of local law enforcement. These photos, one showing “armed” DHS guards, were reportedly taken at the St. Louis IRS protest:

Just a little heads up that tomorrow’s progressive damage-control groupthink is likely to be group-ier than usual: Ari Shapiro ✔ @arishapiro Spotted: @joshtpm @CapehartJ @ezraklein & other lefty columnists headed into the West Wing as a group. POTUS coffee? Carney meeting? Anyone?

In remarks which will more than likely be ignored by the establishment press, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in essence blamed yesterday's deadly tornado which struck Moore, Oklahoma on Republicans who have "run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings."

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said ATF Agent John Dodson had provided significant information and public testimony on the agency’s handling of the Fast and Furious probe and “was retaliated against by” U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke with the unauthorized disclosure in late June 2011 of an ATF memo the agent had drafted. In the report, the inspector general said Mr. Burke, who resigned after Fast and Furious had become media fodder, provided the memo to Fox News in violation of Justice Department policies — a disclosure that “was likely motivated by a desire to undermine” Mr. Dodson’s public criticisms. The...

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: The Obama Justice Department has seized the phone records of numbers that are associated with White House staffers and, apparently, with Fox News reporters, according to a document filed on October 13, 2011, in the case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a former State Department contractor accused of violating the Espionage Act for allegedly leaking classified information to James Rosen, a Fox News reporter.

There are countries in the world, mainly in Europe, that are presently undergoing significant cultural transformations as a result of Muslim immigration. France, Germany, Belgium and Holland are interesting examples of cases where immigration from Muslim countries, together with the Muslims’ high fertility rate, effects every area of life. It is interesting to know that there is a country in the world whose official and public approach to the Muslim matter is totally different. This country is Japan. This country keeps a very low profile on all levels regarding the Muslim matter: On the diplomatic level, senior political figures from...

Vice President Joe Biden is praising Jewish leaders for helping change American attitudes about gay marriage and other issues. … Biden says, quote, “Think—behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media, are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry.” …

An AP report via Fox Nation via claims that although the FBI has identified five men believed to have been behind the September 11 Benghazi attacks, those men remain free because President Barack Obama will not allow the military to seize them. According to the report, the FBI says it has evidence sufficient to support seizing the men as "suspected terrorists." Yet because such an action would have to be carried out by the military, Obama appears unwilling to authorize it. Therefore, for the time being, the men are free while the FBI seeks enough additional evidence to clear a...

FULL TITLE: Miami cannibal victim learning to play guitar as part of treatment a year after most of his face was chewed off in horrific attack A homeless man whose face was mostly chewed off in a horrific attack last year in Miami has learned to play guitar as he continues to receive treatment for his injuries. As the first anniversary of the attack nears, Ronald Poppo has spoken publicly for the first time. In a video released by hospital staff, Mr Poppo thanked all the people to have supported him through his difficult recovery. He said: 'I thank the...

Early returns showed Portland residents voting to keep their city the largest in the U.S. without fluoride in the water. With more than half the expected ballots counted Tuesday night, the Multnomah County election website showed the fluoride proposal failing, 60 percent to 40 percent. Voters in Portland twice rejected fluoridation before approving it in 1978. That plan was overturned two years later, before any fluoride was ever added to the water. The City Council voted last year to add fluoride to the water supply that serves about 900,000 people. But opponents quickly gathered enough signatures to force a vote...

Last week, President Obama informed the world that he had heard about the IRS’ targeting of conservatives for the first time from television reports. But apparently that revelation did not lead him to ask his staff why he didn’t know about it beforehand. At Tuesday’s press conference, White House press secretary Jay Carney said that President Obama didn’t bother to ask why he was only learning about the scandal via the media. Carney stated that Obama would not have wanted to be involved in an ongoing investigation – the administration’s usual excuse for remaining out of the loop.

But here’s why you should care — and why this case, along with the administration’s broad snooping into Associated Press phone records, is more serious than the other supposed Obama administration scandals regarding Benghazi and the Internal Revenue Service. The Rosen affair is as flagrant an assault on civil liberties as anything done by George W. Bush’s administration, and it uses technology to silence critics in a way Richard Nixon could only have dreamed of. To treat a reporter as a criminal for doing his job — seeking out information the government doesn’t want made public — deprives Americans of...

Lois Lerner, the IRS head of exempt organizations division, will invoke the fifth amendment this week rather than answer questions about the recent IRS scandal, according to a letter sent to Congress by her attorney.

President Barack Obama's former chief of staff, Jack Lew, the current treasury secretary, said today at a Capitol Hill hearing that he was aware "questions had been raised" about the IRS when he was at the White House:

A vomitous human being. This is really the only way to describe one Lizz Winstead, the co-creator of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. She’s also the author of following tweet that went out to her 75,000 followers not long after a two-mile-wide tornado destroyed the town of Moore, Oklahoma. Among the 51 dead (the death toll as of 11:40 PM EST Monday) are a reported 20 children–many of whom died at an Elementary School in town–along with mothers, fathers, whole families. Some may be buried alive The IRS targeted conservatives. God is doing the same with this tornado. Get it?...

The studio space at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. is changing hands, Broadcasting & Cable’s John Eggerton reports. Next month, ABC’s “This Week” will vacate the space and return to the network’s Washington bureau, and Al Jazeera America will move in. ... Al Jazeera America, which B&C reports will have both office space and editing facilities in the Newseum, is preparing for its launch later this year. The network recently hired Adam May, a local reporter from Baltimore, as a D.C.-based national correspondent.

MOSCOW – A delegation of American lawmakers will travel to Russia next week in part to investigate last month’s Boston Marathon bombings, ABC News has learned. The group, led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., wants to find out why a 2011 Russian request that the United States investigate Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspected Boston bombers, did not raise more red flags. The Russians offered a vague warning that Tsarnaev planned to link up with extremist groups abroad, but an FBI investigation yielded no evidence to support those claims at the time. The lawmakers also want to know why subsequent...

You know, a White House that just got exposed for spying on journalists probably should be doing some bridge-rebuilding, especially for an administration who needs a friendly media as much as this one does. What’s the worst possible way to get back in the media’s good graces? Accusing them of being conspiracy nuts for asking about Kathleen Sebelius’ fundraising for ObamaCare, starting with CBS’ Major Garrett, who just got done fronting the Benghazi e-mail defense demolished by Glenn Kessler today.

Snip: We have been importing jihadists for years now with Muslim immigration programs under the Refugee Resettlement program, diversity visas and religious visas. The Refugee Council USA says: “The U.S. has historically maintained a policy of admitting refugees of special humanitarian concern into the country.” Yet what that means in practice is very different from what most Americans would expect. It’s always a shock to people when they first find out how Refugee Resettlement works. Instead of giving refuge to the religious minorities that are persecuted, oppressed and subjugated under the Shariah, we are opening the floodgates to Islamic supremacists...

Well, you know how it is. When a reporter misbehaves, an administration sometimes has to call his parents…or, just seize their phone logs. Bret Baier revealed Tuesday that, according to Department of Justice documents, one of the numbers listed in DOJ’s demands “also relate to James’ parents’ home in Staten Island.” I can’t yet find a Fox follow-up story on the revelation, but the Staten Island area code, 718, shows up twice in DOJ’s filing in the Stephen Jin-Woo Kim case. The documents are posted here by the New Yorker.Here is the “Special Report” panel discussion that ends with Baier’s...

A recent military report on sexual assault in the military shocked many in Washington and around the nation, but a leading expert on military personnel revealed the prevalence of men assaulting other men is one of the major headlines in this study. The extended analysis of the report first appeared in Monday’s edition of the the Washington Times. The Defense Department survey of sexual assault in the military during fiscal 2012 estimated 26,000 assaults took place in the armed forces. Nearly 3,000 of them were formally reported. Just more than 6 percent of women reported being victims of assault and...

May 22, 2013 Wednesday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time   Reading 1 Sir 4:11-19 Wisdom breathes life into her childrenand admonishes those who seek her.He who loves her loves life; those who seek her will be embraced by the Lord.He who holds her fast inherits glory;wherever he dwells, the LORD bestows blessings.Those who serve her serve the Holy One;those who love her the LORD loves.He who obeys her judges nations;he who hearkens to her dwells in her inmost chambers.If one trusts her, he will possess her;his descendants too will inherit her.She walks with him as a strangerand...

Ladies and gentlemen, a bad lip reading of the Walking Dead. "The Walking (And Talking) Dead" — A Bad Lip Reading of The Walking Dead

All Democrats on the committee, along with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and gang of eight Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), voted in favor of the bill, which will now go to the Senate floor. The crowd in the room erupted into applause when the final vote tally was read, rising to their feet and chanting "Yes we can!" then "Si se puede!"

SEOUL — As South Korea marks the 33rd anniversary of a citizen's uprising, there are questions about whether North Korea secretly attempted to stir social turmoil at the time. A former commander of U.S. Forces Korea, retired Army General John Wickham, Jr., says it is “plausible” North Korea may have tried to take advantage of unrest in the South during the 1980 uprising, but that he never saw evidence of that. Wickham, who subsequently served as U.S. Army chief of staff, recalls that he and then-U.S. Ambassador William Gleysteen had “limited intelligence on sources of unrest and activity” in Gwangju,...

QuestionS to ask IRS executive Lois Lerner so she can plead the 5th. 1. Which color M&Ms are your favorite? 2. Do you have any tattoos and can you show them? 3. Boxers or briefs? 4. Larry, Moe or Curly? Does Shemp count? 5. Star Trek or Star Wars? 6. 1+1 = ??? 7. If a drug dealer holds up a liquor store for $50 and gets ten years in the state pen, how much should Jon Corzine get for stealing 1.6 billion at MF Global??? 8. Is "green" the new red? 9. Have you seen the birth certificate of...

If you weren't excited from the explosions-filled Man of Steel movie trailer before, after seeing this final trailer that teases General Zod threatening Earth, you will be. It shows more of the conflict of the film and reveals even more insane action sequences. In the trailer, which is probably the final one before the movie releases next month on June 14, you hear Michael Shannon as General Zod demand that Kal-El surrender himself or Earth will suffer consequences. This is going to be a good one, huh. [WarnerBros]

President Obama loves leaks, despises whistleblowers By Jeff Bachman - 05/21/13 02:30 PM ET With the revelation that the Department of Justice secretly obtained two months of The Associated Press’ telephone records and used security badge access records to track James Rosen’s visits to the State Department, along with a warrant to search Rosen’s personal emails, there has been a rush in the mainstream media to declare the DOJ’s actions to be part of what they claim to be President Obama’s aggressive pursuit of those who would leak secret information to the press. For example, The Washington Post describes the...

CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19) - The claim that the ongoing IRS scandal is limited to low level employees is falling apart. The six Cincinnati workers we have identified, who sent scrutinizing letters to conservative groups with words including "patriot, liberty, tea party or 9-12" in their names are Mitchel Steele, Carly Young, Joseph Herr, Stephen Seok, Liz Hofacre and a woman identified only as Ms. Richards. But was all of this done at the hands of a small group of Cincinnati employees working together? During Friday's congressional hearing, that appeared to be the theme. Now, that explanation just became less likely....

"Some people dislike gays. Others dislike guns. We should not base our laws on personal dislikes," reads one adA new campaign cropping up around Washington state is intended to strike a chord with gay and lesbian gun owners by comparing gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination.The illustrated posters feature slogans like, “We won our right to marry, now it’s time to defend our right! And we sure as hell aren’t going to take shit from homophobes in the process!� and, “Some people dislike gays. Others dislike guns. We should not base our laws on personal dislikes.�A QR code on the ads...

After years of economic dysfunction, the country has gotten used to shortages of medicines and basic food items like milk and sugar but the scarcity of bathroom tissue has caused unusual alarm. "Even at my age, I've never seen this," said 70-year-old Maria Rojas. She said she had been looking for toilet paper for two weeks when she finally found it at a supermarket in downtown Caracas. Thousands of rolls flew off the store's shelves as consumers streamed in and loaded up shopping carts Thursday morning. "I bought it because it's hard to find," said Maria Perez, walking out with...

The Islamist government of Turkey is building a 15-acre, $100 million mega-mosque in Lanham, Maryland. Prime Minister Erdogan visited the site on May 15 in a ceremony that was attended by the leaders of two groups linked to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. Also present was the Maryland Secretary of State, representing Maryland Governor and likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, Martin O’Malley. The mega-mosque is called the Turkish American Culture and Civilization Center and, according to the Muslim Link, it “will likely become the largest and most striking examples of Islamic architecture in the western hemisphere” when it is finished...

Fuzzy, I have Sergio Garcia on line one, he wants to know what he's gotten himself into now.Ewan Murray with what figures to escalate the Sergio-Tiger spat into a full-fledged controversy and some rough times for Sergio if Fuzzy Zoeller's past use of a similar joke is any barometer. The Spaniard was on stage at the European Tour's gala players' awards dinner, where he was questioned by the Golf Channel's Steve Sands. García, who has been embroiled in verbal battles with Woods since the Players Championship at Sawgrass this month, was asked in jest if he would have the...

In Milwaukee, the homicide rate for black residents is 27.9 per 100,000 compared to 9.7 for Latinos and 1.7 per 100,000 white residents. Of known 2011 homicide suspects in Milwaukee, 93 percent are black, while 4 percent are white and Latino. The city itself is 40 percent black, 17 percent Latino, and 37 percent white, according to Census figures. {SNIP} Milwaukee is among the 20 most violent cities in America. The largest number of homicides in Milwaukee occurred in the 53206 Zip Code. {SNIP} In 2011, 17 of the 86 homicides in Milwaukee occurred in 53206. Between 2005-2009, there were...

If you can believe that President Obama doesn’t know anything about his own administration, then I’m sure it isn’t hard to believe this:

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) backed down from a previous promise his spokeswoman made to Breitbart News that he would consider voting in favor of amendments to the Senate's immigration bill that would close a loophole allowing illegal immigrants immediate access to state and local welfare.

Foreign affairs Minister George Vella expresses government's concern at the instability afflicting Benghazi and the surrounding areas.Fr Alan Castillo and Fr Raghib Marzouk escaped unhurt after a bomb went off at the Catholic church in Via Torino, Benghazi, late Friday night. According to sources, a bomb was placed at the main of the church when an explosion rocked the area at around 11.30pm shattering several glass windows on the opposite side of the narrow road and also several windows in the building adjacent to the church housing the priests. Fortunately, Maltese bishop Mgr Sylvester Magro was not there as he...

Questioning “the motive and the reasoning” behind support for regime change in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Libya, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church said that Islamic fundamentalist regimes are “even worse” than authoritarian ones. Under such regimes, Christians “will be considered second class because of their religion in a country in which Islam is the only standard,” said Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako. “I think moderate Muslims should be aware and assure Christians that they, indeed, will be respected as equal citizens.” The patriarch made his remarks amid rising violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq. The nation’s...

With unrelenting determination, we should help fellow citizens understand why the concept of "one nation under God" is essential to preserving America. At an ever accelerating pace, we are tolerating one set of rules for "ordinary" citizens and a separate set of rules for "elite officials" intent on lording over the ordinary. If allowed to continue, these double standards will be the demise of our republic. America is based on a total rejection of the British caste system that respected heredity and rewarded royalty. The old adage that it's impolite to discuss religion or politics in public is a damnable...

Penguins lost the ability to fly eons ago, and scientists may have finally figured out why. A new study suggests that getting off the ground eventually just took too much effort for birds that were becoming expert swimmers.