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One of a handful of laws in the U.S. requiring private buildings to meet LEED standards, legislation passed in 2006 in Washington, D.C., may be unenforceable as currently written. According to the Washington Business Journal, the D.C. Department of Environment is working to address a complaint from the surety industry, which issues bonds that guarantee the completion of construction projects. The law mandates specific LEED standards for new construction in the city, starting with LEED Silver public buildings in 2008 and ending with LEED Certified large commercial buildings in 2012 (see EBN Vol. 15, No. 12). Developers must provide “performance...

Since D.C. officials refused to turn over any documents about their investigation and decision not to prosecute NBC News’ David Gregory, we have to depend on the Freedom of Information Act to force transparency. Mayor Vincent Gray’s office, however, responded to my request by deflecting. It turned out, he was hiding information. On March 11, I sent a detailed request to FOIA Officer Mikelle DeVillier in the Executive Office of the Mayor. I asked for all documents about Mr. Gregory’s possession of an illegal 30-round magazine. Government agencies are required to respond to a FOIA request within 15 working days. Ms. DeVillier...

Officials have agreed not to file criminal charges against a Washington D.C. man who used his handgun to kill a pit bull in order to stop it from mauling a child. Benjamin Srigley made an agreement with authorities last week which will require the 39-year-old to pay a $1,000 fine for the three unregistered firearms and ammunition that were found in his possession the day he saved Jayeon Smith from three unleashed pit bulls. During the attack, Srigley used his Ruger 9mm pistol to shoot at the animals that left Jayeon with scars on his elbow, torso and leg. “In...

Two senior White House aides knew weeks ago that a probe of the Internal Revenue Service had found that the U.S. tax agency had inappropriately targeted conservative groups, but did not tell President Barack Obama, a White House spokesman said on Monday. A Treasury Department official informed White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler on April 24 about the preliminary findings of a report that would fuel the latest in a series of scandals to confront Obama at the start of his second term. The report was issued by a Treasury inspector general on May 14, four days after an IRS official...

White Americans are more likely to see anger in the facial expressions of President Obama than non-white Americans are, according to a study from the University of Arkansas that will be published in the journal Political Psychology in July.

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McCain warns Obama-Nixon comparisons are ‘overreaching’ Monday, May 20, 2013 PrintEmail Comments (37) By: Hillary Chabot U.S. Sen. John McCain bucked the party line coming from many of his fellow conservatives this morning, saying suggestions that compare the trio of scandals gripping the White House to Watergate are “overreaching.” “I think it’s overreaching. We need a full and complete investigation and then we will decide the dimensions of it,” said McCain while campaigning for Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez in Dorchester. “It is terrible but we have to have a full investigation before we leap to conclusions.”

The White House may invoke it in its peculiar way, but its occupants only show contempt for the rule of law. Last Thursday, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) started a Twitter prairie fire with his call for people to describe #ObamacareInThreeWords. (My contribution was “Sorry, Doctor retired.”) Other gems included “Max Baucus regrets,” “A massive failure,” “Rammed down throats” and the extremely uncomfortable proof of Godwin’s Law, “Arbeit. Macht. Frei.” Liberal participation brought “Win for kids,” “Republicans suck balls,” “Republicans hate me”... --snip-- House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) hit the nail on the head in his opening...

Authorities last week made an agreement not to prosecute a Northwest D.C. man who used his unregistered handgun to kill a pit bull in order to stop it from mauling a child in his neighborhood. As part of the agreement, Benjamin Srigley, 39, was required to pay a $1,000 fine but will not have criminal charges filed against him for the three unregistered firearms and the ammunition that investigators found in his possession, said Ted Gest, a spokesman for the office of the attorney general.

Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator has reviewed the White House logs looking for a relationship between meetings listed there and the timeline found in the Inspector General’s report on the targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups issued last Tuesday. Lord’s work represents yet another example of alternative media scooping a lazy or negligent establishment press. What Lord has found is that President Barack Obama met with the President of the National Treasury Employees Union Colleen Kelley, on March 31, 2010. The NTEU is “the 150,000 member union that represents IRS employees along with 30 other separate government agencies.”...

Why does the U.S. Constitution make no mention of education? Because the Founding Fathers understood that the education of children must be at the local level. We now stand at the edge of a cliff as the federal Common Core State Standards continues its march across the country. How did we get here? In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education blackmailed the states with stimulus money in the form of Race to the Top (RTTT) grants. If states wanted to get out from under No Child Left Behind, and wanted more funding they had to agree to adopt the Common...

When the Justice Department began investigating possible leaks of classified information about North Korea in 2009, investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material.

At his Arizona State University commencement speech last Wednesday, Mr. Obama noted that ASU had refused to grant him an honorary degree, citing his lack of experience, and the controversy this had caused. He then demonstrated ASU's point by remarking, "I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. . . . President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS." Just a joke about...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official who apologized for targeting conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny is married to an attorney whose firm hosted a voter registration organizing event for the Obama presidential campaign, praised President Obama’s policy work, and had one of its partners appointed by Obama to a key ambassadorship. IRS Exempt Organizations Division director Lois G. Lerner, who has been described as “apolitical” in mainstream press coverage of the IRS scandal, is married to tax attorney Michael R. Miles, a partner at the law firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. The firm is based in Atlanta but has...

Saratoga Springs Mayor Mia Love has declared she wants another shot at the congressional seat occupied by Democrat Jim Matheson. The announcement that she wanted a rematch came during an afternoon speech Saturday to several thousand delegates at the Utah Republican Party’s annual organizing convention. “You and I have some unfinished business with Jim Matheson,” Love said during her speech, which was met with loud cheers and resounding applause.

The audience rose to its feet after Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Penn.) chided Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller about the Internal Revenue Service’s treatment of taxpayers at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday. The hearing focused on the agency’s targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, including those with names that included “tea party” or “patriot.” “You get a letter from you folks, or a phone call, it’s with terror that you look at it, and now this kind of reconfirms that—you know what—they can do almost anything they want, to anybody they want, anytime they...

On Thursday, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) lashed out at Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), calling her recent comments regarding Fast and Furious "mind-numbingly stupid," and suggested she "schedule an appointment" with a doctor. On Thursday, Pelosi claimed that the contempt vote against Attorney General Eric Holder was part of a grand conspiracy to undermine his fight against voter suppression. “This is no accident. It is no coincidence. It is a plan on the part of the Republicans,” Pelosi said. “It’s really beneath the office of a member of Congress to say something that outrageous, and the fact that she was...

Michelle Obama criticizes the worship of celebrities, sports stars By Emily Goodin - 05/17/13 02:06 PM ET Michelle Obama on Friday urged black youth to stay in school instead of dropping out to become a "baller or a rapper." The first lady, speaking to graduates at Bowie State University, a historically black college, criticized the worship of sports stars and celebrities. "Today, instead of walking miles every day to school, they’re sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV," she said of black youth. "Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader,...

Indiana has just given every state that agreed to adopt Common Core national education standards and tests a lesson in prudent governance. On Saturday, Governor Mike Pence (R) signed the Common Core “Pause” bill into law, halting implementation of Common Core until state agencies, teachers, and taxpayers better understand the implications of Common Core adoption. Indiana law now requires that the Common Core standards be evaluated and compared to existing state standards, and that a cost assessment be conducted by the state’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) before implementation moves forward. It’s something every state that adopted Common Core...

Fewer groups sought recognition as 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations that year than in 2009, according to the Treasury Department.A number of people have sought to explain the IRS targeting of Tea Party, patriot, and 9/12 group applications -- as well as those from other conservative groups -- for "specialist team" treatment (mainly delays and excessive and inappropriate questions) in 2010 by pointing to the Citizens United decision that year allowing for unlimited, undisclosed fundraising by such groups. That's the explanation IRS official Lois Lerner gave a week ago when she first revealed that the agency had improperly handled a slew...

The IRS under the Obama administration painted targets on the backs of conservatives beginning in 2010, and ousted acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller apologized to the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday. But members on both sides of the aisle were furious, and castigated him for the mismanagement and political gamesmanship the IRS engaged in on his watch. Texas Republican congressman Kevin Brady had the harshest criticism for Miller. ‘Is this still America?' he asked him.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama, seeking to regain his footing amid controversies hammering the White House, named a temporary chief for the scandal-marred Internal Revenue Service Thursday and pressed Congress to approve new security money to prevent another Benghazi-style terrorist attack.

<p>With the White House facing increasing flak from Republicans over several bubbling scandals, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Republicans are exploiting the matters in order to tarnish a “great” and “visionary” president.</p> <p>The California Democrat told reporters Thursday that Republicans have overly hyped the 2012 Benghazi attacks, the Justice Department’s snooping of The Associated Press and the IRS scandal, among other issues, in order to distract the public from their failed economic plans.</p>

The recent scandals that have rocked the White House represent Americans’ worst fears about big government: Your government is spying on you; your government is targeting you; and your government is lying to you. Americans should be outraged, but they should not be surprised. It would be wrong to view the controversy over the IRS scandal as a typical Republican vs. Democrat squabble. The IRS is a powerful agency that can influence nearly every decision Americans make through its authority to tax and regulate. The IRS grows stronger and more powerful the more the federal government spends and borrows. Organizations...

Chris Matthews’ toxic anti-conservative vitriol has spread onto other MSNBC shows, infecting them with his slanderous language. It is no secret that Matthews opposes the Tea Party as extremists, often times accusing them of outright racism towards President Obama. Appearing on PoliticsNation with racist host Al Sharpton, Chris Matthews disgustingly claimed that a full 10-20 percent of this country: [w]ant this president to have an asterisk next to his name in the history books that he really wasn't president… They can't stand the idea that he is president. And a piece of it is racism. Not that somebody in one...

The D.C. Council is considering requiring people to purchase liability insurance before they can get a license to own a gun. The bill would mandate that prospective gun owners maintain at least a $250,000 policy. The policy would cover damages from negligent acts or intentional acts that aren’t undertaken in self-defense. A handful of states are considering similar measures, but none has passed such a law....

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years. According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval. Lerner also appears to have broken with the norms of tax-exemption approval by granting...

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — The U.S. Navy is putting underwater drones through wartime-style drills as part of international mine-clearing exercises in the Persian Gulf following similar maneuvers by Iran. The U.S.-led exercises, which began last week, include operations by the unmanned SeaFox devices, which are equipped with sonar and an explosive charge designed to shoot and destroy mines. It is part of the Navy's plans to increasingly deploy automated surveillance and protection systems, including aerial drones. Navy commanders insist the exercises, comprising more than 41 nations, are not intended solely against possible Iranian threats. But Iran has previously warned it...

Officials in Washington are using dirty tactics to hide the investigation and decision not to prosecute David Gregory of NBC News for illegally possessing a “high-capacity” magazine in the District of Columbia.As I wrote in February, my requests to the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and the Office of Attorney General (OAG) to turn over the documents in Mr. Gregory’s case were ignored. I finally had to use a Freedom of Information Act request, but the attorney general and police only turned over public documents. So I wrote separate extensively-detailed FOIA request to the attorney general, MPD and Mayor Vincent Gray....

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday "House Republicans have truly lost their minds" under a popular definition of insanity. Reid, speaking of House GOP leaders' plan to hold a 37th vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act -- commonly known as "Obamacare" -- cited a statement often attributed to Albert Einstein, that insanity is defined as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.""If that's true, the House Republicans have truly lost their minds," Reid said in a speech on the Senate floor.Noting that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said after the 2012...

Call The Rush Limbaugh Show program line between 12 Noon and 3PM Eastern Time at: 1-800-282-2882 E-mail Rush: ElRushbo@eibnet.com Fax Rush at: 212-445-3963 Write a letter to Rush and mail it to: The Rush Limbaugh Show 1270 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Join This Ping List Now! Click Here To Join this Ping List! Image by Cool Text: Free Logos and Buttons - Create An Image Just Like This

President Obama is a "strong defender" of the First Amendment and a "firm believer" that the press should not be blocked in its reporting, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday, but the Justice Department must also be able to investigate criminal activity.

The town is turning on President Obama — and this is very bad news for this White House. Republicans have waited five years for the moment to put the screws to Obama — and they have one-third of all congressional committees on the case now. Establishment Democrats, never big fans of this president to begin with, are starting to speak out. And reporters are tripping over themselves to condemn lies, bullying and shadiness in the Obama administration.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday approved President Barack Obama’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Libya, a post that has been vacant since insurgents attacked the diplomatic mission in Benghazi last September, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. With little discussion, the panel on a voice vote approved Deborah Kay Jones, a career diplomat who has served in Kuwait, Argentina, Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the committee, praised Jones and spoke of the imperative of filling the job amid increasing lawlessness in Libya. On Monday, a deadly car bomb exploded near a...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) reacted to Republican outrage at the IRS targeting of conservative groups Tuesday, saying that when the Internal Revenue Service targeted liberal organizations, “we didn’t hear a single Republican grandstand the issue then.” “It wasn’t long ago that the IRS inappropriately targeted the NAACP, Greenpeace, and a California church which was really progressive, called the All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif. It was interesting. At that time, we didn’t hear a single Republican grandstand the issue then. Where was their outrage when groups on the other side of the political spectrum were

The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt status was pending.

Huddling with A-list celebrities and top re-election donors, President Barack Obama bemoaned the partisan forces that have stymied compromise in Washington as he raised campaign cash for Democrats in New York. At a cozy suppertime fundraiser Monday, Obama said he had hoped his election in 2008 might “break the fever” of partisanship and gridlock that has stood in the way of his agenda. When those hopes proved unfounded, he looked to his re-election, believing a second consecutive victory might deliver the final blow. “It’s not quite broken yet,” Obama said to laughter from some of the 60 donors who gathered...

Cleta Mitchell, one of Washington’s most respected elections attorneys, told Newsmax she has tangible proof that high-ranking IRS officials in Washington were fully aware of the agency's campaign to target conservative groups for heightened scrutiny, despite their denials. And she thinks the president knew about the practice too. If proven, she said, it could be an impeachable offense. Mitchell, in an interview with Newsmax TV on Tuesday, said she was told by a Cincinnati IRS agent that applications by two of her conservative clients were being processed by—and would ultimately be approved or denied—in Washington. She said she also is...

Cleta Mitchell, one of Washington's most respected elections attorneys, told Newsmax she has tangible proof that high-ranking IRS officials in Washington were fully aware of the agency's campaign to target conservative groups for heightened scrutiny, despite their denials. And she thinks the president knew about the practice too. If proven, she said, it could be an impeachable offense. Mitchell, in an interview with Newsmax TV on Tuesday, said she was told by a Cincinnati IRS agent that applications by two of her conservative clients were being processed by — and would ultimately be approved or denied — in Washington. She...

Scandal politics are sweeping Capitol Hill. Just days after news broke that the IRS targeted conservative nonprofits, Speaker John Boehner’s House committees will morph into mock courtrooms where the White House will be the defendant in what amounts to a number of high-stakes political trials.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) says someone inside the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) leaked its confidential tax return to one of its chief political opponents, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). HRC’s president, Joe Solomonese, served as the co-chairman of the Obama reelection campaign. “There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law,” said NOM’s president Brian Brown to the Daily Caller. “The only questions are who did it, and whether there was any

Herseth Sandlin passes on Senate run, leaving Republicans with early edge to win seat. ... Democrats had targeted the onetime congresswoman, who served from 2004 to 2011, as their top recruit in a seat currently held by retiring Sen. Tim Johnson. Even if Johnson had decided to run for another term, Republicans would have considered the solidly-Republican state one of their top pickup opportunities of the 2014 election. ... The state's former GOP governor, Mike Rounds, has already declared he will seek the Republican Party's nomination. While Rounds announced his campaign early and has high name-identification in the state, he...

“Our survival as a species is dependent on women taking charge,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) told a gathering at a campaign fundraiser earlier this month. She made the comment before introducing Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund … “I really do believe that we are at a tipping point from which there could be no turning back—a turning point that the traditional male hierarchy of the world ignores at their own peril. A peril that puts us all in the unacceptable danger—actually of extinction, so let us begin the era of the woman.” …

Federal tax revenues hit an all-time non-inflation-adjusted monthly high of approximately $406.7 billion in April, according to newly released data from the U.S. Treasury. Overall federal tax revenues in April 2013 were up 28 percent from April 2012, and individual-income-tax revenues specifically were up 36 percent. … Thanks to the record tax revenue, the federal government ran a $112.9 billion surplus in April. However, in the first seven months of fiscal 2013 (October through April), the federal government has run a deficit of $487.6 billion. …

President Obama on Thursday hailed his administration for its transparency. “This is the most transparent administration in history,” Obama said during a Google Plus “Fireside” Hangout. “I can document that this is the case,” he continued. “Every visitor that comes into the White House is now part of the public record. Every law we pass and every rule we implement we put online for everyone to see.” The president said this holds true even on the issue of the attack on a U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a controversy which he said was “driven by campaign” politics and one that...

President Obama told donors like Jessica Biel, Justin Timberlake (who was wearing hipster glasses), and Tommy Hilfiger that Washington gridlock is pretty much Rush Limbaugh’s fault on Monday evening at a fundraiser at Harvey Weinstein’s house in New York’s Greenwich Village. Obama admitted that his theory — that after the 2012 election, the Republican “fever” would break, and they’d decide to co-sign some of his agenda — was wrong. “My thinking was when we beat them in 2012 that might break the fever, and it’s not quite broken yet,” Obama said, according to the White House pool report. This is...

<p>The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Monsanto Monday over an Indiana farmer accused of having pirated the genetically-modified crops developed by the agribusiness giant.</p> <p>The high court was unanimous in its decision, ruling that laws limiting patents do "not permit a farmer to reproduce patented seeds through planting and harvesting without the patent holder's permission."</p>

<p>Karen and Billy Vaughn lost her SEAL son Aaron in 2011 in Afghanistan along with 16 other Navy SEALs. At the memorial service in Afghanistan an Islamic cleric desecrated their son and the other SEALs. Now they’re speaking out.</p> <p>On Sunday the Vaughns went on FOX and Friends. Billy Vaughn wants the Commander-in Chief, “To defend the policy that in this United states government that allows the body of a slain warrior to be desecrated and allows the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be mocked.”</p>

Despite his self-proclaimed history of mental instability and post-traumatic stress, one-time congressional candidate and perennial activist Adam Kokesh is organizing a pro-gun rally in which marchers will walk with loaded rifles into Washington from Virginia. “This is now a call for mass civil disobedience on July 4th anywhere in Washington, D.C.,” Kokesh wrote on the event’s Facebook page. “We will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny.” Kokesh, who served as a Marine artillery officer and reservist, attended Claremont McKenna...