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The dam protecting the IRS scandal began to crack today when Lois Lerner, the IRS official who announced, and apologized for, the improper singling out of conservative-leaning organizations by IRS employees under her command, announced through her criminal defense lawyer that she will not testify as scheduled tomorrow before the House Oversight Committee. Rather, she will assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. This marks a milestone in the IRS investigation. It can now be taken as more or less established that crimes were committed by Obama administration employees. LernerÂ’s lawyer tried to minimize the significance of her invoking the...

This is just outrageous - like the rest of Stephen Miller's testimony yesterday. Reuters: "Republicans have vowed to find out who was involved, but Miller did not provide much of a road map." "Who is responsible for targeting these individuals?" asked Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican. "I don't have names for you," Miller responded. "Republicans accused him of dodging their questions." "I'm hearing, 'I don't know, I don't remember, I don't recall, I don't believe,'" said Representative Dave Reichert of Washington. "You don't even know who investigated the case, but yet you say it was investigated." "Democrats seemed more...

GOP Rep.: White House ‘Hand-Selected’ Benghazi E-Mails By Andrew Johnson May 16, 2013 10:03 AM Representative Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) said the White House e-mails about Benghazi that were released last night were “hand-selected” to leave out other important documents. “I know absolutely, for total certainty, this is just but a small smidgeon of what they have,” Chaffetz said. There are 25,000-pages worth of documents, he said, but the White House released only100 total pages. “The White House has hand-selected these,” he added.

Corruption: The inspector general's report on the IRS targeting of conservatives makes it seem like a case of bureaucratic bumbling. But the more we learn, the more it looks like a concerted effort to hobble Obama's political foes. 'Inappropriate criteria," "insufficient oversight" and "lack of managerial review." That's what led the IRS to target hundreds of conservative groups for intrusive, costly and lengthy scrutiny during their application for tax-exempt status, according to the IG report released on Tuesday. In other words, it wasn't a politically motivated attack on conservative groups during a presidential campaign. It was just a case of...

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Did you know that consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in the U.S. -- which can be found in a plethora of cookies, candies and fast-foods -- has increased by a a whopping 10,673 percent between 1970 and 2005? So reports the USDA Dietary Assessment of Major Trends in U.S. Food Consumption report. Are you one of millions, who, according to the USDA report, consume one-quarter of your calories from added sugars, most of which comes from high fructose corn syrup, as mercola.com pointed out? Meanwhile, have you heard about the a recent study, which reveals that a diet...

Another day, another one of my Benghazi Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests has been denied—this time from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). As previously reported, the CIA also denied my Benghazi FOIA request. Recall it was on September 11, 2012 when Ambassador Christopher Stevens, information management officer Sean Smith, former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, were murdered by terrorists. President Barack Obama with then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, former CIA chief, the ‘celebrated,’ philandering General David Petraeus, the brains behind the failed counter-insurgency policy called COIN in Afghanistan that is...

AUSTIN, Texas – Parents of school children across Texas now are gaining access to a previously secret public school curriculum, according to an announcement from a state lawmaker. The CSCOPE program, an online offering that until now has prohibited, under penalty of law, teachers from sharing the lessons with parents, stirred up controversy because of its various lessons – some that were taken offline after the questions arose. Among those issues were that the curriculum at one point taught the Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism and Christians were cannibals, and forced students to draw a socialist flag...

In his recent inaugural address, President Obama promised that “we will respond to the threat of climate change, ..... But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet…” When pressed on the specifics of what the president means to do on climate, his spokesperson replied: “We...

Will this finally be enough to break the Obama administration's hold over Senate Democrats when it comes to the Hagel nomination? Chuck Hagel has refused to disclose to the Senate Armed Services Committee the sources of his foreign funding over the last five years. Is Chuck roast? (Hat Tip: Noah P). Republican members of the committee asked Hagel last week for information on whether any of the organizations received funding from any foreign government, individual, or corporation — a request he declined late Tuesday in a letter citing confidentiality agreements. "[T]he information you seek is legally controlled by the individual...

We can all rest a little easier this week: the country is in good hands. John Kerry has slipped into the Secretary of State slot without the U.S. missing a beat. Joey’s in Europe, further cementing relationships, and Big Guy’s got all the pressing domestic issues covered.  On the Deficit/Debt Ceiling/Budget: (“I’ve done my part, I've made proposals, it's their turn, we agree on a lot - and the American public agrees with me - more to be done, won't be easy.”) To help things along even more, yesterday BO signed legislation suspending the nation's borrowing limit until May 18,...

If the story Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is telling is correct, then the story the State Department Accountability Review Board (ARB) and the Central Intelligence Agency have told is not. If the story the State Department and the CIA have told is correct, than Gen. Dempsey is telling an inaccurate story to explain why the Defense Department sent no help to the State Department and CIA personnel who were attacked by terrorists in Libya on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11

White House says did not heavily edit talking points on Benghazi ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE | Sat Nov 17, 2012 11:25am EST (Reuters) - The White House did not heavily alter talking points about the attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, an official said on Saturday. "If there were adjustments made to them within the intelligence community, that's common, and that's something they would have done themselves," Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, told reporters. "The only edit ... made by the White House was the factual edit as to how to refer to the facility." After a...

Bloomberg News found that 19 of 20 federal agencies did not comply within 20 days to a request for travel expenses made under the Freedom of Information Act. Jim Snyder and Danielle Ivory report: “When it comes to implementation of Obama’s wonderful transparency policy goals, especially FOIA policy in particular, there has been far more ‘talk the talk’ rather than ‘walk the walk,’ ” said Daniel Metcalfe, director of the Department of Justice’s office monitoring the government’s compliance with FOIA requests from 1981 to 2007. Analysis done by the Scripps Howard Foundation reveals that President Obama’s administration granted a smaller...

In a date-redacted document, DHS claimed "Unusual and Compelling Urgency" NOT to inform the public of quantities of ammo purchased with tax money ($4.6 MILLION) for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Federal Protective Service (FPS). The original bid date was May 2012. On July 30, 2012 the award was announced for a contract, and for an undisclosed quantity of 223 62 grain duty and 223 64 grain duty. Federal Cartridge Company in Minnesota won the bid assuming any other company was allowed to bid against them. The purchased ammo is to be used...

Our self-described most transparent administration in history is at it again. The folks who claim executive privilege over documents in the Fast and Furious case yet maintain the president wasn’t involved have decided transparency is overrated. The people who meet with lobbyists in coffee shops near the White House to keep unseemly names off the official visitor logs, have decided we don’t need to know who pays for their convention. The Washington Post reports, “In its marketing materials, the party promises that the “people’s convention,”…will be the “most open and accessible ever.” But the names of donors, some of whom...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Let me see if I understand this. On the one hand, we have over here "Barack Hussein Obama! Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!" who has (with the help of his party, the Democrat Party) unleashed untold damage on America, particularly the private sector economy. We have somebody who's created a new entitlement, which is going to fundamentally forever change the relationship between citizen and government in a way never contemplated by the Founding Fathers of our country. We have rampant unemployment, underemployment -- more part-time and temporary workers getting jobs than are getting full-time jobs. We have no end...

Scoffing at a judge’s call for Barack Obama to appear in court Thursday, Obama attorney Michael Jablonski says that not only will the president not be on hand but neither will Jablonski.

Why is he doing this? Is his campaign really that incompetent? Having successfully shut down scrutiny in the primaries (but not the general election) of his Bain record with unfounded cries of “Newt’s attacking capitalism and free markets,” Romney is back to what started it all, the demand that Newt give back the money he lawfully earned through consulting with Freddie Mac. As Morrissey notes, Newt’s campaign already has diffused another line of Romney’s Freddie Mac attack, quickly asking for the release of his consulting contract before the Florida primary. Romney will go on the offensive at tonight’s debate demanding...

President Obama plans to head out on a 3 day trip arriving in Las Vegas Wednesday afternoon and staying overnight well into Thursday. That afternoon he will leave for Denver and then Detroit. The president plans to promote his State of the Union address. With this action, President Obama intends to ignore a legal judicial subpoena from the state of Georgia requesting him, by name, to appear in court January 26th 2012 at 9am in Judge Michael Malihi's courtroom. Barack Obama's attempt as a candidate to be on the state ballot in Georgia has been officially legally challenged by state...

Reporting from Florence, S.C.— Newt Gingrich on Tuesday questioned why Mitt Romney has not released his tax returns, arguing that if the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination has nothing to hide, he ought to make the documents public before South Carolina holds its first-in-the-South primary on Saturday. "Either there's nothing there, so why isn't he releasing them, or there's something there, so why is he hiding them?" Gingrich told reporters here after holding a town hall at an art gallery. "I believe we have the right to know. Therefore, he owes us the knowledge. If there's nothing there, why...

After weeks of stalling, Mitt Romney did an about-face on Tuesday and said he will release his tax returns in April and that they will show he pays close to 15 percent of his income in taxes. Romney, a multimillionaire, has been under pressure from his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination and others to release the information. He'd previously said he wouldn't release it. He suggested Tuesday that he would make public only one year's worth of information, for 2011. Speaking to reporters after a campaign stop in South Carolina, Romney said most of his income comes from investments,...

In 1968, when he decided to run for president, the only serious debate at the time was whether George W. Romney was a natural-born citizen under Article 2, Section 1, not whether or not he was a U.S. citizen. Mitt Romney, then, was born on March 12, 1947, in Detroit, Mich., to two U.S. citizen parents – George W. Romney and Lenore Emily LaFount; LaFount was a U.S. citizen, born on Nov. 9, 1908, in Logan, Utah. Interestingly, LaFount, even though she was a U.S. citizen under the 14th Amendment because she was born in the United States and considered...

(MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.) -- Amid continued pressure from his rivals to make public his tax returns, Mitt Romney said at a Republican presidential candidates debate Monday night that he will "probably" release that information in April. That timetable is in line with tradition of past nominees, who have released their information around tax day in early April. "I have nothing in them that suggests there is any problem," he said. "I'm happy to do so." Romney had said as recently as last Wednesday that he doesn't feel the need to do anything more than the law requires him to do,...

MYRTLE BEACH, SC - Texas Governor Rick Perry is demanding Mitt Romney release his tax records, warning there can't be any surprises should the GOP front-runner become the party's nominee. "Anita and I put out our taxes every year since back the 80s, and every candidate up there, they should put their taxes out, including Mitt," Perry insisted during a town hall meeting. "You know, November, or excuse me, September and October, is not the time for us to be finding out that whoops, there's something out there that is a problem. We need to know it now." Perry has...

The obstacles in Barack Obama's path to the presidency have been overcome, or covered over. Rather than merely avoiding the contentious question of Obama's "natural born" eligibility, America's academic establishment has muffled discussion on the inextricably related issue of citizenship law in our country, in the greater context of immigration reform. The first instance of academia's cloak-throwing was noted in an American Thinker article which described the revision made by Professor Larry Solum to his scholarly paper that addressed Senator McCain's eligibility, "Originalism and the Natural Born Citizenship Clause." The original version was published in 2008. Without saying it explicitly...

I noted the other day Romney’s emerging secrecy problem, including the refusal to release income tax returns even if he becomes the nominee.This is a break with standard practice for nominees, and creates a no win situation in which Romney makes his income and taxes a central general election issue or gives in and looks weak.  Or worse, we find out too late that there was a reason he resisted disclosure.In a preview of the general election, Occupy protesters have seized on the non-disclosure issue and Romney is digging in: Des Moines police today arrested a total of 10 protesters...

<p>Mitt Romney is zero for two when it comes to transparency in campaigning.</p> <p>First, Romney, breaking with the practice of previous Republican presidential candidates.....has refused to release the identities of his bundlers, the well-connected fundraisers who help the campaign haul in stacks of checks adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars....</p>

Mitt Romney said he will not release his tax returns if he wins the Republican nomination for president, a rare move for a candidate. When asked if he would, Romney, in an unaired segment of an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, said that he doesn’t “intend to” release the returns. “I doubt it. I will provide all the financial info, which is an extraordinary pile of documents which show investments and so forth,” he said, according to video provided by NBC. When Todd pointed out that Romney had asked Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to release his returns during their 1994...

This past weekend, Attorney General Eric Holder attempted to intimidate his critics by accusing them of racism. Under the Attorney General's watch more than a thousand weapons have been walked across the border by the ATF and more than 300 people are dead as a direct result. Even Holder himself admits that the 'Fast and Furious' guns will be used in more crimes. Innocents on both sides of the border have more to fear. The mixture of fear and intimidation has existed since Holder's first days in office. Who can forget his first major speech after confirmation? In that speech...

A year ago this week, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. He died protecting his country from brutal Mexican gangsters. Two AK-47 assault rifles were found at his death site. We now know the horrifying truth: Agent Terry was killed by weapons that were part of an illegal Obama administration operation to smuggle arms to the dangerous drug cartels. He was a victim of his own government. This is not only a major scandal; it is a high crime that potentially reaches all the way to the White House, implicating senior officials. It is President Obama’s Watergate. Operation...

Following a pattern established in previous hearings, today's House Judiciary Committee hearing produced fireworks from the Republicans and calls for more gun control from the Democrats. The grilling of Eric Holder climaxed at the very end of the day's proceedings, when Rep. Darrell Issa threatened the attorney general with contempt of Congress for his refusal to produce communications and logs, resulting in the embattled top law enforcement officer shooting back a line reminiscent of the McCarthy hearings: "Have you no shame?" Among some of the surprises: Holder was not sworn in as Issa had requested. Chairman Lamar Smith indicated the...

As if Congress didn’t have enough evidence that the Department of Justice has completely lost its mind, the New York Times is reporting that the Drug Enforcement Agency has helped launder “millions of dollars in drug proceeds” on behalf of Mexican drug cartels, a figure much higher than previously estimated. The Department of Justice has been under investigation by Congress for facilitating gun smuggling during Operation Fast and Furious. Fast and Furious was a gun running scheme on the US-Mexican border that’s resulted in violence and death on both sides of the border including the deaths of federal agents in...

AG Eric Holder attempts to avoid question about lying to congress. Saying that lying depends on one's state of mind. (December 8, 2011)

Wrapping himself in the mantle of Theodore Roosevelt's "National Greatness" agenda, President Obama urged the nation to stand strong and unite behind ... his umpteenth regulatory czar. Nothing symbolizes American strength and vigor more than another unaccountable Washington bureaucrat. If Richard Cordray, the stalled White House nominee to enforce the Dodd-Frank financial bureaucracy, is not approved, the wheedler-in-chief warned in Osawatomie, Kan.: "Every day we go without a consumer watchdog in place is another day when a student or a senior citizen or member of our Armed Forces could be tricked into a loan they can't afford -- something that...

The mainstream media are "protecting" Barack Obama's "unconstitutional" tenure in the White House, refusing to investigate allegations that he fails to meet the Constitution's requirement that a president be a "natural born citizen," according to flamboyant billionaire Donald Trump. In a conference call today with reporters, WND asked Trump why, if he believes defeating Obama is so significant in 2012, doesn't he use his influence to mount a formal investigation into Obama's eligibility. There have been allegations since long before Obama's election in 2008 that he is not a "natural-born citizen," a requirement imposed on no other official. Obama's critics...

It appears the GOP candidates are dropping like flies: first that one crazy guy, then Cain, and now... Mitt Romney? According to a Boston Globe article, paraphrased by Reuters, the GOP frontrunner (or is that second after Gingrich now: nobody really knows any more), spent $100,000, not of his own money but state funds, to "replace computers in his office at the end of his term as governor of Massachusetts in 2007 as part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret. When Romney left the governorship of Massachusetts, 11 of his aides bought the hard drives of their...

The first ever GAO(Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill(HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke(pictured to the right), Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an...

As expected, the Fed has just bailed out the world once again: FED, ECB, BOJ, BOE, SNB, BANK OF CANADA LOWER SWAP RATES - BBG ECB, FED other major central bank to lower the pricing of existing USD liquidity swaps by 50BPS And as we have been writing every single day, the worldwide dollar crunch is now confirmed: At present, there is no need to offer liquidity in non-domestic currencies other than the U.S. dollar And finally, a promise to bailout Bank of America when it hits $4.00 again: U.S. financial institutions currently do not face difficulty obtaining liquidity in...

Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, has asked The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to review the Obama administration’s award of a $443 million sole-source contract to a company owned by a major Democratic donor. The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that the Obama administration has taken unusual steps to procure an experimental smallpox vaccine from a company owned by a major Democratic donor despite concerns from some experts that such a drug was unnecessary and would not be effective. Citing “serious questions” about the contract, the Los Angeles Times reported that McCaskill has asked the...

The Justice Department withheld records about Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s role in healthcare reform, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said Tuesday. Smith pressed Attorney General Eric Holder to provide documents and witnesses about Kagan’s time as solicitor general and her role in preparing to defend President Obama’s healthcare reform law in court. Republicans have clamored for Kagan to recuse herself when the Supreme Court takes up a case challenging the law. Smith said in a letter to Holder that the Justice Department has refused to comply with his requests for documents and interviews about Kagan’s involvement. But...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Monday defended his administration’s efforts to cover its electronic tracks with the purchase of hard drives from state computers, saying he had no intention of providing ''opposition research teams'' with electronic communications from his term as governor. Meeting with the editorial board of the Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph, Mr. Romney was questioned about a Boston Globe story (snip) Last week, Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades accused Mr. Patrick of running a ''dirty tricks''shop for the president’s benefit and requested documents on any contact his administration has had with top Obama White House or campaign operatives.

By Bob Beauprez and Christopher JaardaThe New York Times is reporting that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will begin conducting a review of all deportation cases in the immigration courts with the goal of “halting” the deportation “of many illegal immigrants with no criminal record.“  In other words, this is a back door amnesty by a President desperate to score political points with a constituency critical to his reelection. “Many immigration offenses, including being present in the United States without legal status, are civil violations; they are not crimes,” wrote the NY Times citing communications from John Morton, Director...

REP UPTON: Last question though my time is expired. Based on what you know and what’s happened, who is to apologize for the half a billion dollars that has been out the door?

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Tuesday pressed Attorney General Eric Holder for more information about Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan's involvement with the healthcare reform law after new emails emerged showing her rooting for the law when she was solicitor general. (snip) The emails have rekindled calls for Kagan to recuse herself from ruling on the healthcare reform law next year because of a provision of the U.S. code that calls on justices to disqualify themselves when they have "expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy" while in government service.

President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., netted a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, through a loan guarantee issued by a former employee-turned Department of Energy official. It’s just one more in a string of eye-opening revelations by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his explosive new book, Throw Them All Out. The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle. Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack...

The Arizona Daily Star's Tim Stellar is reporting the federal case file against illegal Mexican bandits accused of killing Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, has disappeared. The case against the alleged killers of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry has disappeared from federal court records, apparently sealed by a federal judge. In May, federal prosecutors won an indictment against Manuel Osorio-Arellanes and others, and they announced it with a press release. Only Osorio-Arellanes’ name was visible in the indictment, but there were blacked-out words where other defendants’ names go. Osorio-Arellanes was charged with second-degree murder and was not considered the likely...

Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac received the biggest federal bailout of the financial crisis. And nearly $100 million of those tax dollars went to lucrative pay packages for top executives, filings show. The top five executives at Fannie Mae received $33.3 million in 2009 and 2010, while the top five at Freddie Mac received $28.1 million. And each company has set pay targets of as much as $17 million for its top managers for 2011. That's a total of $95.4 million, which will essentially be coming from taxpayers, who have been keeping the mortgage finance giants alive...

The ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee says the Justice Department has refused to make available 11 of 12 department witnesses called by the panel for transcribed interviews in the ongoing investigation of the botched Fast and Furious weapons operation. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said that despite the department’s promises of good-faith cooperation in the probe, only one witness has been provided so far — former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke in Arizona, who resigned in August two weeks after he ended his testimony about Fast and Furious before a House committee, during which he took responsibility for mistakes....

Holder on 'Fast and Furious': Never againBy PETE YOST - Associated Press | AP – 44 mins ago.. WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Eric Holder says an investigation of arms traffickers called Operation Fast and Furious was flawed in concept as well as in execution, never should have happened and "it must never happen again." Facing tough questioning by Senate Republicans, the attorney general said in remarks prepared for a hearing Tuesday that he wants to know why and how firearms that should have been under surveillance could wind up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. "Unfortunately, we will...