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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." The legislation, which would authorize the shipment of arms and military training to rebels "that have gone through a thorough vetting process," passed in a bipartisan 15-3 vote. Paul offered an amendment that would strike the...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved far-reaching immigration legislation that gives a chance at citizenship to millions living in the country illegally.</p> <p>The 13-5 vote clears the bill for a Senate debate expected to begin early next month.</p>

FReeper I_be_tc issued a challenge a few weeks ago for 300 FReepers to donate $100 or more to help bring our quarterly fundraiser to a successful completion. We've had over 150 FReepers meet the challenge so far since it was issued. It's now been suggested that we set this up as a permanent effort and publish a "300 Club" roster periodically similar to our Monthly and Dollar-a-Day club lists. I think this is a great idea and may help our fundraisers go faster and may help put FR on more of a sound predictable financial footing. If you would like...

Carney: White House, Treasury strategized how to tell public By Justin Sink - 05/21/13 02:47 PM ET Officials in the White House discussed how and when the Internal Revenue Service would tell the public that the agency had targeted political groups, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday. Carney said that Mark Childress, the White House deputy chief of staff, twice spoke with officials at the Treasury Department about the strategy for revealing conservative targeting. Childress and the Treasury officials discussed the possibility that Lois Lerner, the IRS official who oversaw the agency's tax-exempt organization, would reveal that an...

With his estimated wealth exceeding $200 million, Albert Arnold Gore has come a long way from the time he began a career in government politics. But it hasn’t all been a green path. He can thank some earlier events for paving over muddy ground, a time when his father, Al Gore Sr. met Occidental Petroleum’s CEO Armand Hammer at a cattle auction in the 1940s. When zinc was discovered on some of Gore’s land,

Over 150 conservative leaders, groups and grassroots activists have signed an open letter opposing the Senate immigration reform bill. “We write to express our serious concerns regarding the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill, S. 744. We oppose this bill and urge you to vote against it when it comes to the Senate floor,” the letter to be released Tuesday and obtained by The Daily Caller reads. ”No matter how well intentioned, the Schumer-Rubio bill suffers from fundamental design flaws that make it unsalvageable. Many of us support various parts of the legislation, but the overall package is so unsatisfactory that...

The Senate immigration bill’s authors acknowledged Tuesday that their legislation does not require illegal immigrants to pay all back taxes, saying it would be too difficult to make them ante up everything they might owe. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who is chief sponsor of the bill, said illegal immigrants by definition are living in the shadows, and requiring them to reconstruct their pay history could be tough — and potentially keep many of them from legalization. “We all realize that the system is broken. We all realize that people did wrong things. And the goal is...

Protesters in Cincinnati Denounce IRS By Dionne Searcey CINCINNATI—About 300 people gathered Tuesday for a short, angry rally outside the federal building here that houses the unit of the IRS embroiled in a scandal over workers improperly scrutinizing the charity applications of politically conservative groups. Holding signs that said “Internal Rigging Service” and “Tyranny” and shouting chants of “You work for us!” and “IRS! KGB!” the group included many members of the local Tea Party organization who demanded punishment for those who were involved. “Heads have to roll here,” said one protester, Kevin Tinsley, who works in advertising sales and...

Sharyl Attkisson, the Emmy-award winning CBS News investigative reporter, says that her personal and work computers have been compromised and are under investigation. "I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months but I'm not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today as I've been patient and methodical about this matter," Attkisson told POLITICO on Tuesday. "I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public."

In progress. As I am writing this, they are just doing opening remarks.

Passing the buck is nothing new in government. But when four Americans are dead, the secretary testified to a certain version of events to Congress, and an independent report was allegedly not independent, we are in different territory. The gross incompetence that led up to the deaths of four Americans is inexcusable, but so was the mismanagement of the State Department. Under Clinton, critical memos never reached the secretary and the steps taken after the fact look a lot like an all-out effort to shield her from blame. Isn’t it time to get her back under oath?

Since Hillary Clinton last came up to Capitol Hill, we’ve learned senior State Department officials sought to scrub references to terrorism from the infamous Benghazi talking points to insulate Foggy Bottom from political criticism — citing concerns of their “building’s leadership” to justify the demands. The rising temperature of the scandal means it’s possible that Hillary could be asked to return and testify again. If she comes back, she had better be prepared, says House Oversight and Government Reform chairman Darrell Issa. “We are interviewing lots of people, most of them under oath,” Issa says, describing the “methodical” approach his...

Live broadcast of hearings... Alerted by Michelle Malkin.

A California tea party group sued the Internal Revenue Service on Monday, saying it was among the conservative organizations the federal government targeted for special scrutiny because of its political positions. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, seeks the certification of a class action, which could open the floodgates for as many as 300 other right-wing groups to join the legal effort. NorCal Tea Party Patriots, based in Colfax, California, told the court that the IRS discriminated against it because of the beliefs of its members, subjecting it to 'a lengthy and costly delay in recognition of...

“I’m offended by a government who convenes a hearing to bully an American success story.”

AP:A Treasury official says the department told the White House twice that the IRS was preparing to make public its targeting of conservative political groups. The official said Monday that Treasury told the White House in late April about a possible speech in which IRS official Lois Lerner would make a public apology... SNIPWaPo:SNIP The Treasury Department was informed on three separate occasions that the IRS planned to disclose that it targeted conservative groups for scrutiny, and on one occasion, Treasury expressed concern about the nature of the disclosure, a Treasury official said on Monday night. In all cases, the...

The state's regional Education Service Centers no will longer issue lesson plans - and will forbid their use after Aug. 31 - for a popular online curriculum system that became a lightning rod for conservatives who criticized it as anti-American, legislators announced Monday. The move is expected to leave school districts across the state, including some in the greater Houston area, scrambling to replace CSCOPE, as the program is called, before the start of next school year.

President Obama believes in the public sector. He thinks it should be made ever more expansive and entrusted with ever more complicated tasks. Its unions should be powerful. It should be hailed by all the great and good, and attract the nation’s best and brightest. This is how the president portrays the public sector at a level of glittering generality. Then there’s the reality of all that government that is too big for him to monitor, the workings of which he learns about only when he reads the newspapers and watches TV. There’s the incompetence, the dishonesty and the self-justification....

Monday afternoon, ABC News released a chilling report that details what journalists have faced while trying to get some answers from the Cincinnati IRS office, which is where a majority of the Tea Party targeting took place. According to ABC, an "armed uniform police officer with the Federal Protective Service" "escorted" reporters through the public building. ABC says if the intent wasn't to "scare off" employees who might talk, "it was the effect."

"Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don’t matter." -- Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning “We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” -- Ayn Rand One of the most disturbing things about...

The SenateJudiciary Committee voted Monday to allow illegal immigrants who get legal status to begin collecting tax-welfare payments, as the panel spent a fourth day working through amendments to the massive immigration bill and party-line splits began to emerge. In one major change, the committee voted 17-1 to make a third drunken-driving conviction a deportable offense for the newly legalized immigrants if at least one of those offenses occurs after they are approved for legal status. But immigrant-rights groups called that a rollback of due-process rights for the immigrants and said a drunken-driving incident shouldn’t cost someone a chance at...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) demanded information about conservative groups’ college-aged interns, prompting outrage from one of the country’s top conservative activist organizations and leading one former intern to wonder whether his family’s pizza parlor would be endangered. The IRS requested, in an audit, the names of the conservative Leadership Institute’s 2008 interns, as well as specific information about their internship work and where the interns were employed in 2012, according to a document request the IRS sent to the Leadership Institute, dated February 14, 2012. The IRS requested: “Copies of applications for internships and summer programs; to include: lists...

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...

Nearly two-thirds of campaign contributions from IRS employees go to Democrats.NTEU president Colleen Kelley The IRS may be “an independent enforcement agency with only two political appointees,” in the words of White House press secretary Jay Carney, but its employees are represented by a powerful, deeply partisan union whose boss has publicly disparaged the Tea Party and criticized the Republican party for having ties to it. The White House continues to insist that profound incompetence, not partisan malice, led the IRS to single out conservative groups applying for nonprofit status. If the testimony of acting commissioner Steven Miller is true,...

Just how extreme is the pro-abortion group NARAL? The organization is now on record opposing a new bill in Congress that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy because scientific evidence shows unborn babies feel pain by at least 20 weeks. Why does NARAL oppose a modest ban on late-term abortions? Its president Ilyse Hogue wraps the opposition in language about women’s rights and claims banning late-term abortions will drive up illegal abortions that hurt women. (Never mind that Kermit Gosnell went from the back alley to main street and killed and injured women in legal late-term abortions). “We...

MOORE, Oklahoma - Several children have been pulled out of the rubble alive at a school in an Oklahoma City suburb. An Associated Press photographer saw several children being pulled out of what was left of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., on Monday after a massive tornado hit the region. Rescue workers lifted children from the rubble before they were passed down a human chain and taken to a triage center set up in the school's parking lot.

Outspoken gay former Congressman Barney Frank was in San Francisco this week and told a gathering of the Commonwealth Club that while he won’t consider a presidential run, he predicted the U.S. could have a gay president in 20 years. Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, has never shied from speaking his mind, and he held forth on a wide range of topics during an interview with gay radio reporter Scott Shafer of KQED. The audience of over 500 people, including former Ambassador James C. Hormel and his partner, Michael Nguyen, gave Frank a standing ovation as he stepped to the stage....

<p>The International Monetary Fund on Monday said the United States was getting carried away with a government austerity drive, offering some of the institution's bluntest criticism yet of Washington's rush to cut its budget deficit.</p> <p>Despite high unemployment, Washington is on track to slash its budget shortfall this year by the most in nearly a half century.</p>

The devastation is incredible. The Weather Channel is carrying local news from a helicopter. i can only pray the kids had been released before then.

The Justice Department spied extensively on Fox News reporter James Rosen in 2010, collecting his telephone records, tracking his movements in and out of the State Department and seizing two days of Rosen’s personal emails, the Washington Post reported on Monday. In a chilling move sure to rile defenders of civil liberties, an FBI agent also accused Rosen of breaking anti-espionage law with behavior that—as described in the agent's own affidavit—falls well inside the bounds of traditional news reporting. (Disclosure: This reporter counts Rosen among his friends.) UPDATE: Fox News responds with a blistering statement that asserts Rosen was "simply...

Signaling that it intends to conduct an aggressive investigation into how the Internal Revenue Service targeted certain conservative-leaning groups, the Senate Finance Committee has asked the agency’s outgoing acting commissioner to document any communications with top Obama administration officials about the unfolding scandal. Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), who lead the Finance Committee, wrote to Steven T. Miller on Monday making 41 specific requests for information. They include documentation of all attempts to elicit information from groups seeking tax-exempt status; a list of all the words and phrases used to target applicants for additional scrutiny; how...

Michael Steinbach, former head of the FBI’s counterterrorism division and now special agent in charge of Miami, told over 30 congressional staffers in March of 2012 that, contrary to the White House's classification, the bureau does not refer to the Fort Hood shooting as "workplace violence." As head of the FBI counterterrorism division, Steinbach oversaw the investigation into the mass murder at Texas Army base. Steinbach made this claim during an unclassified counterterrorism briefing on Capitol Hill.

The U.S. Attorney in Arizona violated Justice Department policy by providing Fox News with information apparently aimed at undercutting the credibility of a federal agent who helped reveal the botched arms-trafficking probe called Operation Fast and Furious, the Justice Department's inspector general said Monday. There was substantial evidence in the 2011 incident that then-U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke's motive for disclosing a memo by federal agent John Dodson was retaliation, the inspector general's report said. In testimony to a House committee just two weeks earlier, Dodson had raised serious concerns about Operation Fast and Furious. In Dodson's memo, which was eventually...

joseph curl�@josephcurl8m CIA source says Fox News scandal the "4th Shoe"; says it goes much deeper; says WH also sitting on "something" that has top aides terrified.

About three weeks ago, FReeper I_be_tc issued a challenge for 300 FReepers to send in 100 bucks to help us reach our goal. One hundred forty-four FReepers have met the challenge so far. If 300 FReepers come through, this FReepathon will be over soon!! Join the "300 Club" today!! Click the link above to meet the challenge!! Or by mail to: Free Republic - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA - 93794 Thank you very much, I_be_tc!! Thank you all very much!! FReepers ROCK!!

Howard Wolfson, the 2008 communications director for Hillary Rodham Clinton, has said he will not return for a 2016 presidential campaign. Neither, for that matter, will Neera Tanden, the campaign’s policy director. Ditto for Mark Penn, the chief strategist, and Patti Solis Doyle, the embattled campaign manager. As core members of a dysfunctional “Team of Rivals,” these top advisers were seared, scattered and, to different degrees, forged by the 2008 experience. Haunted by the failures in management and messaging, they have worked hard to get over their shattered White House dreams and rejection by a Democratic base enamored with Barack...

The Justice Department obtained a portfolio of information about a Fox News correspondent's conversations and visits as part of an investigation into a possible leak, The Washington Post reported Monday -- in the latest example of the government seizing records of journalists. The information follows the charge that the department secretly obtained two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists as part of a separate leak probe. In the case involving Fox News' James Rosen, a government adviser was accused of leaking information after a 2009 story was published online which said North Korea planned to respond to looming...

The United States is sending a force of 200 Marines supported by two aircraft to Italy as a precaution against unrest in Libya. The force would deploy in case of an attack similar to the one on the US consulate in Benghazi last year. On Wednesday Italy’s Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said that the Marines were being transferred to Sigonella air base in Sicily. "It is taking place in accordance with bilateral agreements," Bonino told a joint session of the House and Senate foreign commissions. "This is a reinforcement for the security of US personnel in Libya or for possible...

As Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy emerged from the IRS hearings in Congress on Friday, he was overheard to say, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." OK, so I am mixing metaphors.  But, that famous statement from the architect of the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack is the most descriptive quote I can think of for what happened in the Longworth Building in Washington, D.C. this past week.  The Democratic Party, and especially the outgoing Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, must be wondering if...

A detailed fact-check published Monday tore into an IRS official's claim that the agency's scrutiny of conservative groups started in response to an influx of nonprofit applications, showing the practice started well before the forms started flooding in.

<p>Gangs of youth apparently angered by the police shooting death of an elderly man have hurled rocks at police and set cars and buildings on fire in a Stockholm suburb, forcing the evacuation of an apartment block.</p> <p>Police spokesman Lars Bystrom says around 50 youths were involved in the riots early Monday in the suburb of Husby, west of Stockholm.</p>

National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley (in tan jacket) leads a protest earlier this month. About 250 Federal workers massed in Federal Plaza in Manhattan May 7 to protest the sequester cuts. (The Chief) This explains things… President Obama met with anti-Tea Party IRS union chief Colleen Kelly in the White House the day before the agency targeted Tea Party. The Spectator reported: “For me, it’s about collaboration.” — National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley on the relationship between the anti-Tea Party IRS union and the Obama White House Is President Obama directly implicated in the IRS scandal?...

The IRS scandal is becoming more insane by the minute.  After the testimony on Friday from the Inspector General and the now “retiring� acting IRS Commissioner, Steven Miller, things couldn’t be more convoluted.  First of all, Obama came out and said that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had “demanded the resignation� of Miller, when in fact, Miller was due to leave his post by June of this year.  So there was no “resigning� going on, and he will leave with all of his benefits intact.  Wow!  No accountability, no answers, no penalties. Next we find out that during the four year...

The UK Independence Party — the anti-European Union, tough-on-immigration party that has bedeviled Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative party in recent years — is riding high following its best-ever showing in nationwide elections. As sure as night follows day, when UKIP does well it means the issue of Britain’s relationship with the EU is pushed to the top of the political agenda.UKIP secured 23% of the national popular vote in local government elections earlier this month, just two points behind the Conservatives. The left-wing Labour party came in narrowly ahead with 29% — a pitiful showing...

Fewer groups sught recognition as 501 (c)(4) social welfare organizations that year than in 2009, according to the Treasury Department. ...

Daniele Perazzi, president of the Italian Perazzi Shotguns firm, was taken into custody yesterday by Adams County Deputies [see update, below] along with several prototype shotguns. The executive was picked up in the parking lot of the Denver Merchandise Mart, hosting the high-end Colorado Gun Collectors show this weekend, after a taxi driver, likely reacting to a suspicious activity reporting outreach program conducted by law enforcement, told authorities he thought he could be transporting an armed “foreign speaking” terror suspect. “He loaded prototype shotguns into the cab on the way to the Merchandise Mart,” gun rights activist and newly-elected National...

The IRS scandal keeps getting closer and closer to the top of the White House food chain as Obama officials desperately try to spin their way out of mounting evidence and foul play. The Wall Street Journal is reporting President Obama's top attorney knew about the IRS targeting weeks ago before news broke, but of course, Obama still didn't know about it until he learned about it "from the news." The White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House...

I mentioned the other day that the Justice Department's secretive snooping on AP reporters was not just a personal violation of privacy, but in fact a threat to their ability to do their jobs and a threat to everyone's ability to report on the Obama administration. Gary Pruitt, AP's CEO confirmed on CBS Face the Nation Sunday that in fact, his organization is already finding government sources are more reluctant to talk to them now because of what happened.

Don’t stand down. Stand up and let the IRS know we won’t roll over. Tuesday. At your local IRS office. Be there. Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft has details:PROTEST THE CORRUPTION – PROTEST THE CRIMINAL OBAMA IRS Thanks to Barack Obama the Tea Party is once again outraged and motivated. The Tea Party Patriots 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.