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New defenses and distractions in the IRS scandal are going to come rolling out from the administration and its defenders like water off a duck's back. One ploy is evident in this sympathetic story from Friday's Washington Post seeking to portray the IRS Determinations Unit as a just a group of nice, non-partisan number-crunchers: The [determinations] staff member [in Cincinnati], who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said that the determinations unit is competent and without bias, that it grouped together conservative applications “for consistency’s sake” — so one application did not sail through...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Dana in Columbus, Ohio, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: (background noise) Thank you so very much. I am calling because you mentioned earlier that no liberal would dare call and say that you're right or give any sort of credence to any conservative point of view. I want to tell you that -- as a soon-to-be-40 African-American woman who has been told my entire life to vote down the Democratic Party line -- I appreciate your point of view, and I appreciate you staying firmly behind your beliefs. Because over the past...

President Obama didn’t take the bait when a reporter asked how he felt about the comparison some of his critics were making about the scandals in his administration with those that happened when Richard Nixon was in the White House. The question capped a weeklong orgy of rhetoric with Republicans assailing abuses of power at the IRS and Justice Department, and the media all but writing off Obama’s second term as a colossal management failure. Obama didn’t protest “I’m not Nixon,” which would have echoed the former president who once famously said in response to a question, “I’m not a...

<p>You may be forgiven if you missed it during last week’s tsunami of scandals, but President Obama finally let slip that he is a socialist.</p> <p>Buried in the 17th paragraph of one of those mewling New York Times pieces on the woes of Obama—can we start calling him Woe-bama yet? — appeared these two words: “going Bulworth.”</p>

A recent picture in Time magazine showed an Obama staffer leaning casually against a column in the White House portico. The caption read, “This White House chief of staff has been working to neutralize Washington’s toxic political environment.” The picture is of Denis McDonough, President Barack Obama’s new chief of staff. There is not a trace of irony in Time’s presentation, even though many Americans would wonder from which planet the editor came. The picture couldn’t have been more ironic if it had been taken in 1943 showing a German functionary at the Reichstag with a caption reading, “This official...

The thing people often forget about the story of the boy who cried wolf was that, at the end of the day, there was a wolf. For the past six years – since Barack Obama announced his presidential intentions – Republicans have been crying themselves hoarse. Obama, if they were to be believed, was a Kenyan-born communist Muslim with a forged birth certificate who stole the election by registering millions of ineligible voters. "A lot of information about Obama's background is missing," said Abigail Billings, at a meeting of a 9-12 group (organised by the conservative former Fox host Glenn...

HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher discussed the Internal Revenue Service scandal on Friday, making fun of the conservative groups who were unfairly targeted for years by the IRS. “I try to play it fair and I said before, I think there is an actual scandal with the IRS,” Maher began. “We got a hold of some of the forms [that] the IRS was making the applicants fill out, and it really does look like they were trying to search out and expose Tea Party people…” Maher then proceeded to list a number of fake questions his team concocted, beginning:...

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday said the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative organizations could be “fatal” for the Obama administration if it turns out that anyone in the White House was aware of it. Appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Krauthammer called the IRS situation “the one scandal that people have a visceral sense about” — it’s the one U.S. institution, besides the military, that can do very serious harm. Going after conservative groups based on their politics is “a violation that everybody — left or right– understands,” he added. Krauthammer urged that there’s no suggestion that Obama knew...

The Internal Revenue Service scandal may be the worst of all the current Obama administration fiascoes. It is an easily understood gross misuse of the powers of government to target opponents of the president. What is more, the administration’s supplicants in the lefty punditocracy can no longer claim this is just an IRS scandal. The Post reports: J. Russell George, the Treasury Department’s top tax watchdog, said Friday he had informed top Treasury officials starting last spring about problems related to the special attention the agency was paying some conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status. George said he shared the information...

Last year Burger King’s Summertime Menu included a Bacon Sundae but they seem intent on topping that this year with the introduction of the Burger King Rib Sandwich. An obvious copy of the popular McDonald’s McRib Sandwich, the Burger King version will be available starting May 21st through the end of the summer along with the return of a line of Memphis Pulled Pork Sandwiches and Sweet Potato Fries. The Burger King Rib Sandwich was tested in Shreveport, Louisiana and did very well there. Let’s not forget Burger King also had those Fire Grilled bone in Ribs a few years...

According to Diane Abbott, Britain is facing a crisis of masculinity. In a speech made on Thursday under the auspices of the thinktank Demos, the shadow health minister warned of a generation of angry, inarticulate young men who had no idea of their role in society. Raised on a diet of pornography and consumerism, they were "caught between the stiff-upper-lip approach of previous generations" and the "pornified ideals" of a youth culture that featured Viagra as a party drug and promoted sexism and homophobia.More prone to depression and less well educated than young women, and perhaps jobless despite a degree,...

It's often been said the Internal Revenue Service is the most feared bureaucracy in the United States. Little wonder. As the agency openly proclaims on their own website, concerning what actions they might take if your taxes are unpaid: We could seize and sell property that you hold (such as your car, boat, or house), or we could levy property that is yours but is held by someone else (such as your wages, retirement accounts, dividends, bank accounts, licenses, rental income, accounts receivables, the cash loan value of your life insurance, or commissions). You could even wind up in jail...

It eventually comes down to who — who at the IRS was responsible for targeting conservative and Tea Party groups for special scrutiny. Because, after all, you can’t put a “system” in jail. You can’t put a report in prison. You can’t indict a department for corruption. At the end of the day it’s people who are responsible for using the enormous powers of the Internal Revenue Service to go after other people and groups because of their political beliefs. U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) told the tale of one of his constituents who applied for tax-exempt status for her...

From The White House web site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/ "There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov." Yes, you read that correctly. The Orwellian White House wants to silence the opposition...

The United States House of Representatives has issued the first-ever spousal ID to the partner of an openly homosexual Congressman, reports state. Philip Frank, the significant other of Representative Mark Pocan of Madison, Wisconsin was issued the ID recently, granting him recognition as being the spouse of the Congressman, as opposed to a guest. Frank and Pocan were “wed” in a Canadian ceremony in 2006, but the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) only recognizes marriage as being between a man and a woman. In the past, homosexual partners of federal lawmakers have been issued a designee ID as opposed...

As June approaches, get ready for the official celebration of “Gay Pride Month” by US embassies abroad. If sodomy and same-sex marriage are constitutional rights, what is their relationship to American foreign policy? Despite the tremendous controversy regarding these issues within the United States, the Obama administration has gone ahead and placed them at the center of US diplomacy. Why? In Libido Dominandi, E. Michael Jones wrote that the rationalization of sexual misbehavior “could only calm the troubled conscience in an effective manner when it was legitimized by the regime in power… [which] went on in the name of high...

At a dinner not long ago someone described the wonders of a new product which uploaded your vital signs to the Cloud, a process that was so much more accurate than having to take it yourself and write it down on a piece of paper. It’s a great idea and there are an increasing number of such services which plan to offer that feature such as this, which proclaims “doctors can now establish online CarePods™ to assemble extended care teams, share medical records, collect and analyze real-time clinical information, and coordinate treatment plans with patients, their families and health providers.”...

A well-known Southern California lawyer is famous for his menacing legal threats sent on behalf of celebrity clients. But attorney Martin D. "Marty" Singer crossed the line into making an "extortion" attempt in 2011 when he sent a demand letter to a client's business partner, a state-court judge ruled after the recipient sued over the missive. In addition to demanding a forensic accounting and the return of money that allegedly had been embezzled, Singer also threatened in the letter, which attached a copy of a draft civil complaint, to reveal information about the partner's claimed use of company resources for...

Retiring early can make you depressed and unhealthy, as well as poor, according to a new study by the Institute of Economic Affairs, a British think tank. The IEA looked at micro-level data from 11 countries on the physical and mental health of retirees. Here were some of the report’s findings: – Retirement increases the probability of suffering from clinical depression by about 40 per cent – Retirement increases the probability of having at least one diagnosed physical condition by about 60 percent – Retirement increases the probability of taking a drug for such a condition by about 60 per...

Former presidential contender John Edwards has reactivated his license to practice law and is setting out on the speaking circuit. The two-time presidential candidate and former North Carolina senator is scheduled to appear June 6 at a private retreat in Orlando, Fla., for lawyer clients of the marketing firm PMP. A records check with the N.C. State Bar shows Edwards has also reactivated his license to practice law, which had been inactive for more than a decade.....

DETROIT-Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan urged Detroit’s pastors and majority black population Friday to join him in an effort to buy neglected properties and take other steps to help revitalize the struggling city where the movement started more than 80 years ago. The fiery orator offered few specifics in a speech to the Detroit City Council, but made plain his displeasure with Gov. Rick Snyder’s decision to appoint an emergency financial manager. He likened the takeover to buzzards circling over a carcass. “The city abandoned, crime and violence rampant, and the governor has seen fit to take away the...

James C. Goodale, the so-called “father of reporters’ privilege” and the author of a new book called Fighting for the Press (CUNY Journalism Press, 255 pp., $20), was in his office at the Debevoise & Plimpton law firm, where he’s a partner, comparing Barack Obama to Richard M. Nixon. “Nixon and Agnew were like listening to a Fox News program all day long, every day,” he said. “In their eyes, the Eastern establishment press were against them and they were against it and they were going to destroy it as best they can.” But, he said, “Obama has all these...

Suicide rates are tied to the economy. The Boston Globe reported in 2011: A new report issued today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that the overall suicide rate rises and falls with the state of the economy — dating all the way back to the Great Depression. The report, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that suicide rates increased in times of economic crisis: the Great Depression (1929-1933), the end of the New Deal (1937-1938), the Oil Crisis (1973-1975), and the Double-Dip Recession (1980-1982). Those rates tended to fall during strong economic times...

There was a running joke in the fall of 2008 that John McCain should simply re-air Hillary Clinton’s “3 a.m. phone call” ad, which highlighted Barack Obama’s lack of experience and meager knowledge of world affairs, and just tack on “I’m John McCain, and I approve this message” at the end of the ad. The point was that thanks to the bitter primary battle between the Clintons and Obama, Democrats had already developed the most effective lines of attack against Obama, and Republicans needed only to nod their heads in agreement. Something similar is taking place amid the several Obama...

On behalf of Tea Party, Patriot groups, 9/12, liberty activists, and the American people, we are calling for anyone and everyone to protest the IRS’ complete abuse of power on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 at noon local time. Right now we are determining the best locations to host these rallies, so please let us know if you are available to go and where you are located. We will use the information to identify the closest IRS offices so that we get the most patriots to each location. IRS Protests The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is out of control and we...

In the wake of one of the worst abuses of government power in recent history, many are rushing to frame the Internal Revenue Service scandal as simply an attack on conservative activists. That view risks creating a partisan political football and misses a fundamentally scarier abuse that exceeds the scandals of Watergate or any other prior government abuse. The IRS has admitted that since May 2010 it targeted grassroots-conservative organizations that had applied for tax-exempt status, unfairly subjecting them to rigorous scrutiny due to their political leanings. Such groups were told they were required to comply with IRS requests, no...

Republican lawmakers are launching an investigation into claims that the Environmental Protection Agency, while giving preferential treatment to environmental groups, made it harder for conservative groups to obtain government records. “According to documents obtained by the Committees, EPA readily granted FOIA fee waivers for environmental allies, effectively subsidizing them, while denying fee waivers and making the FOIA process more difficult for states and conservative groups,” wrote Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Darrell Issa and Sens. David Vitter, Chuck Grassley and Jim Inhofe in a letter to the EPA. Citing a report by The Daily Caller News Foundation, Republicans are asking the...

First Lady Michelle Obama has expanded her anti-obesity campaign to museums, enlisting them to offer “healthy food options,” and change their menus. Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative is now calling for museums, zoos, gardens, science and technology centers to “join the call to action,” to decrease obesity among children. The first lady is recruiting these institutions to join the “Let’s Move! Museums and Gardens” project because of their power to “influence real and sustained behavior change” on the eating habits of kids. “With their impressive reach and great potential for impact, museums and gardens can launch community efforts to create...

Treasury has not one, but at least two departments tasked with keeping an eye on the IRS. We’ve heard from Treasury’s Inspector General already in his report released this week. Now, the IRS Oversight Board has chimed in. The Oversight Board is a nine-member independent body charged to oversee the IRS in its administration, management, conduct, direction, and supervision of the execution and application of the internal revenue laws. The Secretary of Treasury and the Commissioner of Internal Revenue are members of the Board. Today the IRS Oversight Board released this statement: The IRS Oversight Board is deeply troubled by...

Such are the quirks and foibles of the super-rich that even outwardly simple occasions, such as the celebration of a 60th birthday, can turn into rather complicated productions. Take Cherie Blair’s arrangements to mark her husband Tony’s 60th earlier this month. Knowing how keen he is to stave off the advancing years, she hired an Italian-based ‘detox chef’ to prepare an unimpeachably healthy dinner for the group of family and friends she flew to Europe to mark the event. Then, she engaged the same chef to rustle up another menu of plain, if pricey, offerings for a dozen guests at...

It is hard to admit that one of the most cartoonish and self-aggrandizing figures in recent political memory actually could have been a contender at one time, but I am now willing to cede that point. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin actually could have been, at the very least, a respected political figure over the course of the last decade, but she has squandered any capital or potential she may have had by being a rudderless buffoon. The only reason this comes to light again is because Palin is polling ahead of two other candidates for a potential open Senate...

Tea Party leaders from around the country gathered in Washington Thursday to vent outrage at the Internal Revenue Service for targeting them and other conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt-status and threatened to sue the agency for damages. "They lost membership and donations, they missed the election cycle, they missed key moments, they were not able to bring speakers in," Jordan Sekulow, a lawyer representing Tea Party organizations, told reporters outside the Capitol. The IRS last week confirmed that it had targeted conservative groups and the Justice Department responded Wednesday by announcing an investigation of the tax agency's practices. The IRS has...

With each passing hour, it becomes more and more clear that the truth was concealed from the American public prior to the election about two major Obama administration scandals. Benghazi was very much in the news prior to the election. The concealment went to the culpability of the Obama administration in failing to heed warnings about security at the Benghazi consulate, the nature of the pre-planned al-Qaeda attack, the scrubbing of the talking points used by Susan Rice, the failure to go to the aid of Americans in trouble, and the claim that the attack was a result of a...

You consider yourself a law abiding citizen, and you are not starting a nonprofit organization with conservative ties. Even so, you may be a candidate for a tax audit—and you may have no clue what you have done to warrant the attention of the IRS. The nation's tax collectors have long made it a practice to look for discrepancies, omissions and suspicious activity to uncover tax evasion and fraud. And lately, the IRS has expanded its monitoring to include social media. The agency now keeps an eye out for online discussions about nonpayment or underpayment of taxes, and even sale...

So says Ezra Klein, who may turn out to be one of the stupidest people ever to be given column inches in a printed medium of any variety. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) After reading Klein’s desperate attempt to map onto reality his own desires, written in the form of a serious news piece, I’m tempted to say something like “fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” But then, the movie that comes from is, like, 35-years old. And back then, slave owners were still running things, and men in tri-cornered hats were acting all pissy and dumping perfectly...

No one can deny that Barack Obama is a highly skilled politician, at least by the measure of election outcomes. His record is undefeated, save for an ill-advised 2000 primary challenge to an entrenched incumbent congressman. His 2008 presidential victory, after a fraction of a term in the U.S. Senate, was especially dazzling. It disproved those who said that Hillary Clinton was invincible, that a left-wing Democrat couldn't win, and that America wasn't ready for a black president. No one can deny that Lance Armstrong and Mark McGwire were highly skilled athletes. But their accomplishments are forever tainted by their...

Speaking at Ohio State University this month, Barack Obama urged students to pay no attention to those paranoid types who "incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity." Oddly enough, in recent days the most compelling testimony for this view of government has come from the president himself, who insists, with a straight face, that he had no idea that the Internal Revenue Service had spent two years targeting his political enemies until he "learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this." Like you, all he knows is...

Eventually the media will be sufficiently distracted by Team Obama to go cover other issues, so here’s an idea how the GOP can keep the Obama IRS Scandal in the news: Start parading the victims of the IRS witch-hunt before the cameras. Think about it. Whenever the Democrats want to push an issue, be it gun control, immigration reform, women’s issues or healthcare, what do they do? They find “victims” to use in tear-jerking fashion in order to advance their agenda. Consider who Victim Number One in their contrived War on Women was. Out of thin air they found a...

The City of Philadelphia shut down a career fair for ex-offenders today after an unexpected crowd of thousands showed up, résumés in hand. There were lots of disppointed job seekers and potential employers this morning. The city was expecting about 1,000 people to show up, but about three times that number were standing in a line that wrapped around the Municipal Services Building, across from City Hall. And when someone jumped the line, order collapsed. There was no yelling, no shoving — just 3,000 people all trying to get into the job fair at once....

Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller and J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, testified today at the House Ways and Means Committee hearing. Top IRS official Steven Miller told the committee, “I cannot reply to a specific case.” Miller wouldn’t say who was responsible in targeting conservative individuals. Commissioner Miller just dropped this line, “I don’t think targeting is wrong.”(VIDEO-AT-LINK) UPDATE: Later in his testimony Miller admitted that progressive groups were not targeted.

IT GETS WORSE! The Obama IRS demanded that several Tea Party groups provide back-end access to their websites. From reliable sources: This happened to several Tea Party groups! The source has this in writing. It states they wanted access to everything the members had access to, which would be chats, email, contact information, etc. The group raised less than $600. She was targeted as early as October 2010....

Via NRO’s Andrew Johnson, Joe Scarborough isn’t the only TV show host rethinking his scorn of gun-rights advocates this week. Piers Morgan, who engaged in some of the worst demagoguery outside of the White House and Capitol Hill over the last six months on that issue, routinely derided the idea that the American government couldn’t be trusted to abide by the law and tell the truth. Now, after watching what happened at the IRS — and to the Associated Press — the CNN host admits to Penn Jillette that maybe people had a point about creeping tyranny after all: (VIDEO-AT-LINK)...

The recent spate of Washington scandals has some liberals finally confessing in public what many of them have said privately for a long time. The Obama administration is arrogant, insular, prone to intimidation of adversaries, and slovenly when it comes to seeing that rules are followed. Indeed, the Obama White House is a strange place, and it’s good that its operational model is now likely to be finally dissected by the media. Joe Klein of Time magazine laments Obama’s “unwillingness to concentrate.” Dana Milbank of the Washington Post tars him as a President Passerby who “seems to want no control...

Link only, due to copyright issues: http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/AW_05_06_2013_p58-571520.xml

The other day, I was in the middle of doing research online when I stumbled across a Planned Parenthood ad. Planned Parenthood, over the years, has run some pretty shocking ad campaigns. Without a doubt, this one is the worst I’ve ever seen: This ad proves that insanity can indeed reach new heights. Planned Parenthood recently coined its “Care. No matter what.” slogan, around the same time the abortion giant decided that claiming to be “pro-choice” wasn’t the best way to win people to their side. Now, it’s insane to claim to “care” when your work is actually killing. (Insanity...

The worst possible outcome of the IRS scandal would see it growing large enough to call the legitimacy of the 2012 election into question. Some people reading this might think it’s already reached that point. Others would say it could never reach that point. There is a case to be made that the American system would resist such an outcome, in a much broader sense than merely partisan Democrats in Washington and the media protecting Obama. Among other questions that would give us all pause: what would we do? Hold another election on short notice? Hand the Administration over to...

Many Vatican-watchers interpreted the election of Pope Francis as Rome’s counter-offensive against the rise of neo-Pentecostalism in the global South. Pentecostalism is the fastest growing sect in the Latin America, where a third of the world’s Catholics live, and is giving the established Roman Church a run for its money — so to speak. The latest figures show that the numbers of Pentecostals throughout Latin America has soared since 1970 — when they represented a mere 4 percent of the population — to nearly 30 percent. In Guatemala it is estimated that four in ten are Pentecostals. Reasons for the...

In April 2012 St. Louis News 4’s Larry Conners grilled President Barack Obama on his extravagant vacation schedule and on bullying the Supreme Court. “The economy is a big concern for folks, I mean the unemployment, trying to make ends meet, gas prices, food prices going up. Some of our viewers are complaining that they get frustrated and angered when they see the first family jetting around different vacations and so forth…” It was one of the few hard-hitting interviews the president sat through last year. On Tuesday Larry Connors revealed that after his interview with Barack Obama the IRS...

Is it right for Barack Obama to use IRS audits to punish his political enemies? As crazy as that sounds, there is a mounting body of evidence that indicates that this is actually happening. And if this can be proven, it is a much, much larger scandal than the IRS giving "extra scrutiny" to the applications of conservative non-profit groups. Let me be clear - if Barack Obama has been using IRS audits to punish his political enemies, that is an impeachable offense. Of all of the other scandals that are out there right now, this is the one that...

The Pentagon for the first time has officially recognized transgender service members in a significant step being hailed by the LGBT community. The acknowledgement came in the form of a letter to veteran and transgender activist Autumn Sandeen confirming that the Navy had updated its records to show she is a woman. While still a long way from open transgender service in the military, OutServe-SLDN, an organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender service members and their families labeled the move 'symbolic.' The letter from the Navy official, dated May 2, read: 'Per your request the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting...