Top Stories Editorials, Polls, Etc... NMJ Radio
 
Massive Loss of Life as EF4
Tornado Devastates Moore, OK
AP/FOX News
A massive tornado at least a half mile-wide with 200 mph winds churned through Oklahoma City's suburbs Monday afternoon, killing at least 51 people, including at least 20 children, and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled inside. Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office, said early Tuesday that 51 people were confirmed dead, at least twenty of them children. She said officials could see as many as 40 additional fatalities. Local news reports, citing officials, also say the death toll could top 90. KFOR reports that the current death toll is 91, but that number is not yet confirmed. The storm decimated scores of buildings in Moore, a community of 41,000 people about 10 miles south of Oklahoma City. Block after block lay in ruins. Homes were crushed into piles of broken wood. Cars and trucks were left crumpled on the roadside. More than 120 people were being treated at hospitals, including about 50 children.
Report: New Benghazi Whistleblowers
Have Game-Changing Info
PJMedia.com
More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former US diplomats who spoke with PJ Media. These whistleblowers, colleagues of the former diplomats, are currently securing legal counsel because they work in areas not fully protected by the Whistleblower law. According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really transpired in Benghazi that are potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The former diplomats said the new revelations concentrate in two areas -- what Amb. Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi and the pressure put on Gen. Carter Ham, then in command of US Africa Command and therefore responsible for Libya, not to act to protect jeopardized US personnel.
IRS’s Lerner Had History of Harassment at FEC
The Weekly Standard
Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency's growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS's Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS harassed hundreds of conservative and TEA Party groups for over two years, Lerner has been criticized for a number of untruths--including the revelation that she apparently lied about planting a question at an American Bar Association conference where she first publicly acknowledged IRS misconduct. Still, Lerner has her defenders in the government and the media. The trouble with this defense is that, prior to joining the Internal Revenue Service, Lerner's tenure as head of the Enforcement Office at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was marked by what appears to be politically motivated harassment of conservative groups.
Group Fighting Voter Fraud
Caught in IRS Scandal Snare
The Washington Times
A Texas group dedicated to combatting voter fraud applied for tax-exempt status in 2010 and has suffered three years of delays, been through four different IRS agents, undergone six FBI inquiries and submitted thousands of pages of documentation -- and its still hasn't been approved. True the Vote is just one of the dozens of groups caught up in the IRS plan to give extra scrutiny to conservative groups in the 2010 and 2012 elections. As Congress delves into the question of whether the burgeoning scandal was bureaucratic malfeasance, as the IRS now acknowledges, or a more sinister political witch hunt, as some Republicans believe, True the Vote's experience is poking holes in the IRS' version of events, and lending credence to the nefarious explanations. In one example, the IRS asked other Texas-based TEA Party groups what their relationship was with True the Vote.
Obama Brother Tax-Exempt
Foundation Doesn't Exist
The Daily Caller
The "charity" run by Pres. Obama's half-brother that was fast-tracked for IRS tax-exempt status is based at a Virginia UPS store, according to its website. The organization's IRS filings list another Virginia address that is actually a drug rehab center where the foundation does not appear ever to have been based. The Barack H. Obama Foundation is run by Abon'go "Roy" Malik Obama, the half-brother of Barack Obama. The foundation was speedily approved for IRS exemption by Lois Lerner, the IRS senior official at the center of the targeting of conservative organizations that have waited over two years to receive tax exempt status. The charity was even given retroactive tax-exempt status despite never having bothered to apply for it. And its history of soliciting donations before receiving tax-exempt status was apparently overlooked.
Indiana A.G. Probing Privacy
Breach of 'Obamaphone' Users
FOX News
The Indiana attorney general's office confirmed it is investigating a security breach in which Social Security numbers and other personal information were posted online for roughly 44,000 low-income Americans who applied for a federal program that provides discount Internet and phone service. The program was nicknamed the "Obamaphone" during the 2012 election, though it actually started long before Pres. Obama took office. Indiana reportedly has the highest number of applicants, roughly 17,400, who were signed up by TerraCom Inc. and the affiliated YourTel America Inc. Applicants from at least 26 states were exposed to the security breach. In addition to the application forms, 127,000 supporting documents such as scans or photos of food-stamp cards, driver's licenses, tax records, pay stubs and parole letters also were available online.
NMJRadio...Analysis & News from Beyond the Headlines
Thousands of French Households Taxed at 100 Pct.
CNBC/Yahoo.com
More than 8,000 French households' tax bills topped 100 percent of their income in 2012, according to a French newspaper report. Citing data from France's finance ministry, the business newspaper Les Echos reported on Friday that in addition to those taxed at over 100 percent last year, almost 12,000 households paid taxes worth more than 75 percent of their 2011 income and that a further 9,910 households were taxed at more than 85 percent of their income. The paper said this was due to a one-off levy imposed on the 2011 incomes of households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million). President Francois Hollande's government back-tracked in 2012 over a proposed 75 percent tax rate on earnings over 1 million euros that he had pledged to introduce when he came to power.
Online Jihadi Publications Luring American Teens
ClarionProject.org
Terror analyst Raffaello Pantucci of the Royal United Services Institute says al-Qaeda cells are encouraging radicalized individuals in the West through the internet. Al-Qaeda has developed a new tactic which essentially teaches that even if it cannot take lives directly, it wants to inflict economic and financial losses on the United States and the West generally. This is "Open-source jihad as they call it, in which individuals are very much empowered or the emphasis is on them to launch attacks where they can on targets that they specifically identify using materials on hand," Pantucci said. Pantucci says the challenge for intelligence services is that so-called "lone wolves" may not be detected by traditional means such as monitoring communications. "They don't necessarily set these trip wires off. And so therefore intelligence agencies aren't able to rely on that," he said.
US Military Braced for Surge
in Taliban 'Insider' Attacks
Washington Free Beacon
Taliban insurgents recently vowed to carry out new "infiltration" attacks aimed at killing and demoralizing US, allied, and Afghan military forces as part of the spring military offensive. The expected increase in what the Pentagon calls "insider" attacks by Taliban sympathizers or infiltrators followed an April 27 statement by the Islamist terror group. It was the first time the Taliban identified insider attacks as a key tactic. US military officials have said the Taliban shifted to insider attacks as US and allied forces became more adept at countering improvised explosive devices--deadly roadside bombs that have killed and injured hundreds during the 12-year war. Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Bill Speaks said the military is aware of the threat. From 2007 to 2011, 42 insider attacks resulted in 69 coalition deaths Speaks said,. A total of 34Americans were killed by the method last year.
Top Obama Lawyer Knew of IRS Targeting in April
The Hill
Pres. Obama's top lawyer was notified in April that the Treasury Dept.'s inspector general had finished an audit of the IRS and uncovered the targeting of conservative groups. The Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday that a senior administration official said White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler learned about the inspector general's conclusions during the week of April 22, including that IRS agents had directed unfair scrutiny towards TEA Party groups and others who were seeking tax exemption. Obama press secretary Jay Carney had previously acknowledged that the counsel's office knew that the audit had been completed in April. The report that White House lawyers may have known the report's findings weeks before they became public will likely fuel GOP questions about when other senior administration officials first learned about the scandal.
Lawmakers to Investigate EPA FOIA Obstruction
The Daily Caller
Republican lawmakers are launching an investigation into claims that the Environmental Protection Agency, while giving preferential treatment to environmental groups, made it harder for conservative groups to obtain government records. "According to documents obtained by the Committees, EPA readily granted FOIA fee waivers for environmental allies, effectively subsidizing them, while denying fee waivers and making the FOIA process more difficult for states and conservative groups," wrote Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Darrell Issa and Sens. David Vitter, Chuck Grassley and Jim Inhofe in a letter to the EPA. Citing a report by The Daily Caller News Foundation, Republicans are asking the EPA to hand over all Freedom of Information Act fee waiver requests, responses to requests, and FOIA officer training materials since the beginning of the Obama administration.

For all the latest headlines, breaking news and researched analysis, logon to The New Media Journal
NewMediaJournal.us

Copyright © 1998-2013 The New Media Journal