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The propellers of both engines of the Yeti Airlines aircraft that crashed in Nepal last month and killed 71 people, including five Indians, did not have power during its descent, a PTI report quoted government-appointed panel probing the aviation disaster as saying. During the analysis and investigation, the propellers of both engines were found to have gone “feathering in the base leg in the course of landing,” My Republica newspaper reported, quoting the panel. Yeti Airlines flight 691, after taking off from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport on January 15, crashed on the bank of the Seti River between the old...

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) president Grover Norquist has written a letter to several members of the NRA’s board of directors fervently denying allegations of his ties to Muslim Brotherhood leaders as “conspiracies.” Norquist is currently facing re-election for his position on the NRA’s board of directors, all while these accusations against him have come under renewed attention—and could dominate discussion of his NRA role in the coming weeks. In the letter obtained by Breitbart News, Norquist accuses Center for Security Policy (CSP) president Frank Gaffney, a former official in Ronald Reagan’s Pentagon, of being a “stalker” he has had...

Grover Norquist, who founded Americans for Tax Reform (ATR)... his connections to Muslim Brotherhood groups and individuals in the U.S. is irrefutable. One such individual is Abdurahman Alamoudi. Another is Suhail Khan, whose father helped found the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA). His mother sat on the board of a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter... Norquist helped Khan become the White House gatekeeper relative to selecting Muslim leaders who the Bush administration partnered with before and after 9/11. Those Muslim leaders belonged to Muslim Brotherhood front groups. ... Last year it was...

A heavyweight lineup of former national security officials banded together late Tuesday to accuse Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) president Grover Norquist and high-ranking GOP political operative Suhail Khan of connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. The officials authored a 45-page dossier on the issue to Cleta Mitchell, the top lawyer for the American Conservatives’ Union who in 2011 cleared Norquist of the allegations initially brought by former high-ranking Reagan official Frank Gaffney. The signatories include numerous powerful and respected former officials, including former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former CIA Director James Woolsey, former Florida Rep. Allen West, retired Army Lt....

In response to the news that Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS is funding Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) to the tune of $26 million in 2012, Tea Party Patriots National Coordinator Jenny Beth Martin told Breitbart News that Rove cannot buy his way into the conservative movement. “The old adage 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer' is more relevant in today’s political arena than ever before,” Martin said. “It is not surprising that there are groups we thought were in this fight with us have been shown to have ulterior motives."

-snip- Ball quotes two different pro-amnesty activists as part of the plan pushing for revenge: Frank Sharry of America’s Voice and Joshua Culling of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), Grover Norquist’s outfit. -snip- Ball described Culling as a “conservative,” even though it was just discovered the outfit he works for, ATR, is funded largely by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS. According to tax documents released by Crossroads, Rove’s group gave ATR $26 million in 2012. Rove is actively working against conservatives nationwide in an effort to stop the Tea Party movement. His funding of Norquist’s organization--which has supported amnesty and publicly...

Tax documents from Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS show that Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) is largely funded by Rove, ProPublica’s Kim Barker reports. -snip- On its 2012 tax return, Barker reported, the biggest grant Rove’s Crossroads GPS gave to anybody was a $26.4 million grant it gave to Norquist’s ATR for “social welfare.” -snip- ATR spokesman John Kartch and Rove spokesman Jonathan Collegio both declined to answer specific questions from ProPublica about the grant.

Americans for Tax Reform, the politically active nonprofit headed by longtime antitax activitst Grover Norquist, raised and spent nearly $31 million in 2012, according to its tax filing for the year -- a new record for the group. -snip- In addition, the vast majority of ATR's funds -- $26.4 million, or 85 percent -- came from Crossroads GPS, the 800-pound-gorilla among conservative dark money nonprofits that are highly politically active and don't disclose their donors. That means that ATR used at least a sizable portion of the Crossroads grant to fund its political ads, even given the fact that it...

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) president Grover Norquist has now turned to left-wing media to continue his smear campaign against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), a first-year senator already emerging as a leader of the Republican Party.“I have never had a criticism of Ted Cruz’s strategy because I’ve never been able to find it,” Norquist said Monday night on Sirius XM’s Standup with Pete Dominick, according to a report in The Daily Beast. Dominick is a reliably progressive radio host who hosts his show on the liberal POTUS network on Sirius XM. The Daily Beast is similarly liberal, having dropped notions...

Grover Norquist is known as an anti-tax crusader, but in the coming weeks he will be just as much a pro-immigration crusader, combatting what he calls the “bitter enders” who oppose comprehensive immigration reform. Norquist says that he’s trying to counteract the effect of “a handful of radio talk-show hosts who talk loudly.” “The bitter-enders who are still responding to radio talk-show hosts from eight years ago haven’t noticed that the world has shifted from underneath them,” he says. “The people who need cover are the guys who are still voting like they were Pat Buchanan.” Advertisement Norquist’s group, Americans...

Jihad Watch Grover Norquist aiding Iranian regime through group linked to NIAC Grover Norquist's numerous unsavory ties to jihadists and Islamic supremacists are abundantly documented in Pamela Geller's expose here. And on the House floor in October, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) said of Norquist, "Documentation shows that he has deep ties to supporters of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that are sworn enemies of the United States and our ally Israel.”  He pointed out that “around the years 2000 and 2001, Mr. Norquist’s firm represented Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was convicted two years later for his role in a terrorist...

Frank Gaffney has written in FrontPage magazine an article that is much needed and long overdue: "A Troubling Influence," about the extensive ties that conservative activist Grover Norquist has with radical Islamic elements. This is a lengthy and exhaustively documented piece about a man who has stood as a singular obstruction to efforts to alert people to the gravity of the threat from radical Islam. All of it should be read carefully, but here are a few highlights: The association between Grover Norquist and Islamists appears to have started about five years ago, in 1998, when he became the founding...

Staffers at Americans for Tax Reform, the anti-tax group run by conservative activist Grover Norquist, evacuated their building Monday morning after a bomb threat was called in, according to authorities. A spokesman for the Washington D.C. police department, Anthony Clay, confirmed to The Daily Caller that officers from the explosive ordnance division were called to the building that houses the organization’s D.C. offices shortly after 9 a.m. The employees have since been allowed to return to work, another officer told TheDC from the scene. No explosives were found, the officer said. Police had shut down 12th Street in Washington near...

Yesterday’s vote failed for procedural reasons but they cleaned it up today and nailed down a remarkably bipartisan consensus. Eyeball the roll: 38 Democrats, 33 Republicans, and both independents voted yes, with no votes coming mainly from plains-states senators eager to keep the campaign cash flowing. When you’ve got both senators from California and both senators from Oklahoma on the same side of an issue, you’re working magic, my friends. The vote also could have ramifications on future votes to reduce the deficit. Much of the GOP conference supported Feinstein’s bill even though it does not include another tax break...

Fiscal Policy: Unimpressed by data showing that businesses, jobs and people flee high-tax states, the Land of Lincoln opts to squeeze the last penny out of taxpayers with a whopping 75% income-tax increase. Illinois is one of those states losing a congressional seat as a result of the 2010 census. Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania will also each lose one. New York and Ohio will each lose two. California, despite massive illegal immigration, will fail to gain a congressional seat since statehood was granted. Meanwhile, states such as Texas will gain four and Florida two, as...

So it turns out that the cure for “epistemic closure” is great quantities of crystal meth. The things you learn from Grover Norquist. In case you missed it, Norquist came down like a runaway gravel truck on Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, a favorite around these parts. Governor Daniels’s offense was declaring himself open to the possibility that a value-added tax might be an acceptable part of a wide-ranging reform of the federal tax system. Norquist replied, in a Politico interview: “This is outside the bounds of acceptable modern Republican thought, and it is only the zone of extremely left-wing Democrats...

...Backroom Deals In the Democrats Health Care Takeover Cornhusker Kickback: Perhaps the most well known in the Senate bill, the provision, included at the behest of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), ensures that Nebraska would be the only state to have the full amount of its increased Medicaid costs paid for by the federal government. The Louisiana Purchase: The Senate bill provides extra Medicaid funding for any state in which every county has been declared a disaster area. Because of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana is the only state that would qualify for the money. The $300 million provision for Louisiana was slipped...

Union Influence: The White House picks its most frequent visitor to sit on its deficit commission. He believes in big government, in big spending, and that the workers of the world should unite. What could go wrong? Computer security firms have been known to hire the best former hackers because they know best how to stop others like them. But the appointment of Andy Stern, president of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU), to a bipartisan commission to come up with ways to deal with the rapidly rising federal budget deficit is like having a serial arsonist organize Fire Prevention...

Guest post from Americans for Tax Reform If the Senate’s schedule remains unchanged, a cloture vote on Obama's nominee to the National Labor Relations Board, Craig Becker, is expected Thursday, February 4. Such a move will disenfranchise the Senate’s newest member, Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown. Democratic leadership reaffirmed numerous times that the Senate would not vote on any health care legislation until Senator Brown is seated. Harry Reid: “We’re not going to rush into anything. We’re going to wait until the new senator arrives to do more on health care.” Jim Webb: “It is vital that we restore the respect...

Back by popular demand: Obama BINGO! To help you get through the State of the Union address on Wednesday night, Americans for Tax Reform once again presents Obama BINGO! Use the cards to check off terms and phrases likely to be used during President Obama’s State of the Union address. We've prepared four different cards this year so that you may compete with your friends and family: Obama BINGO Card 1 Obama BINGO Card 2 Obama BINGO Card 3 Obama BINGO Card 4 Good luck, and let us know how it goes! (Or for those of you in Louisiana, let...