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«Updated Daily« |
Wednesday May 22, 2013
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Made in the USA since 1998
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BREAKING NEWS
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IRS's Lois Lerner, whose division targeted Conservative groups for audit and unreasonable scrutiny, says she "did nothing wrong"; asserts 5th Amendment rights, refusing to testify. |
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Lerner's refusal to speak raises questions about whether her testimony would have implicated the White House, or exposed criminal activity on her part.
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TEA Party Targeting IRS Official Pleads the Fifth
FOX News
The director of the IRS division that singled out conservative groups refused to answer questions Wednesday at a House hearing on the program, as a Democrat lawmaker warned there would be "hell to pay" if the agency stonewalls Congress on its investigation. The IRS official, Lois Lerner, invoked the Fifth Amendment Wednesday as she declared she would not testify or answer questions on the advice of counsel. "I will not answer any questions or testify about the subject matter of this committee's meeting," she said. However, her statements prompted confusion in the hearing room, as she delivered a brief opening statement in which she claimed she had done nothing wrong. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, said that given her other remarks, she may have "effectively waived" her rights. After further deliberation, she was ultimately dismissed. It was an unusual start to Congress' third hearing on the controversial IRS program. Lerner has emerged as a key figure in the scandal. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), warned that if IRS officials don't start cooperating more, "it will lead to a special prosecutor" being appointed. |
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If There Was Ever a Golden Opportunity
Frank Salvato
The recent “scandals” plaguing the Obama Administration serve to illustrate that nothing lasts forever. The honeymoon with the mainstream media has ended after a record run and their steamroller approach to Washington politics has hit a “bump in the road,” and one they cannot circumvent. This moment in time presents some golden opportunities for those of us who identify it as one of vulnerability for those who quest to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” But in every golden opportunity exists some danger. And while we of the constitutional and conservative bent never cease to protest this truth, it is a truth nevertheless. We could be winning a baseball game by 15 runs in the bottom of the ninth inning and find a way to lose by 3. While all the so-called “Republican strategists” and conservative pundits debate the depth of the Obama Administration’s “evil deeds,” and while everyone in the conservative blogosphere is screeching “impeachment” at the top of their cyber-lungs, we who possess level heads; who deal in facts and realism instead of emotion and appearance, understand that the probability of impeachment is next to zero.
Benghazi: Progressives
Rewrite History in Real Time
Frank Salvato
If there was ever a moment in time when the American people could collectively glean knowledge from a “teachable moment,” the Obama Administration’s handling of the al Qaeda-related attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya is surely one. From the moment the public became aware of what can only be perceived as an act of war, perpetrated at the hands of an enemy that has officially declared war on the United States and the West, the Obama Administration – Progressives one and all – have engaged in one of their favorite tactics of political opportunism: re-writing history. In this instance, they are doing it in real time; right in front of our faces. From the moment UN Amb. Susan Rice took to the airwaves to insist that the attacks that took the lives of a US Ambassador and three of his colleagues were, in fact, not a coordinated and planned terrorist assault of a US target of interest, but, rather, a “spontaneous” uprising turned violent, spurred by a third-rate video that literally no one had ever seen, the American people were being subjected to fact manipulation for political purposes. With an election coming up, a terrorist attack did not fit the Obama Campaign’s narrative that, “Osama bin Laden is dead and al Qaeda is on the run.” If the al Qaeda was on the run on September 11, 2012, it was running forward, bayonets fixed, with death in their eyes.
Partisan Nation
Daniel Greenfield
The use of the IRS to target conservative groups should be the least surprising development in years. Not only does that sort of thing date back to Clinton and JFK, both of whom unleashed the IRS on their enemies, not to mention Nixon who never managed to pull off the things that JFK grinned, did and got away with, but there was no reason for not to do it. The two reasons not to sic the IRS on your enemies are decency and the law. Is there anything in Obama's career, including his treatment of fellow Democrats, to suggest that he cares for either one? The man in the White House clawed his way to power by stabbing his mentor in the back, leaking the divorce records of his political opponents and throwing out the votes of Democrats in Florida and Michigan to claim the nomination. And he was just getting started. In the last election, Obama urged voters to punish our "enemies." It was a window into the mindset of a man who moans and groans about partisan politics, but talks like Huey Long when he gets in front of the right audience.
Wimps v. Barbarians
Thomas Sowell
An all too familiar scene was enacted on the campus of Swarthmore College during a meeting on May 4th to discuss demands by student activists for the college to divest itself of its investments in companies that dealt in fossil fuels. As a speaker was beginning a presentation to show how many millions of dollars such a disinvestment would cost the college, student activists invaded the meeting, seized the microphone and shouted down a student who rose in the audience to object. Although there were professors and administrators in the room -- including the college president -- apparently nobody had the guts to put a stop to these storm trooper tactics. Nor is it likely that there will be any punishment of those who put their own desires above the rights of others. On the contrary, these students went on to demand mandatory campus "teach-ins," and the administration caved on that demand. Among their other demands are that courses on ethnic studies, and on gender and sexuality, be made a requirement for graduation.
Obama Admin. Wrongly Advocates
Islamist Interpretation of Islamophobia
Dr. Walid Phares
The State Department issued a report denouncing what it called "a spike in anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe and Asia." It said that "Muslims also faced new restrictions in 2012 in countries ranging from Belgium, which banned face-covering religious attire in classrooms, to India[,] where schools in Mangalore restricted headscarves." The State Department report confuses religious persecution, which is to be condemned, with politicization of religions, which is a matter of debate and includes strategies of which the US government should not be a part. If countries ban the right to pray, broadcast, and write about theology -- any theology -- this would be against human rights. But Belgium and India do not ban religions per se. In fact, they are more tolerant regarding diverse religious practice than most of the members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The Obama administration is not criticizing secular European and Asian governments for deciding to ban prayer or theologically philosophical dissertations, but rather criticizing these countries for banning the hijab or niqab in public places.
Whither the Chilean Model?
Fernando Menendez
Chile, once a model of what free markets can do to promote prosperity and lift millions out of poverty, was a poster boy of economic liberalization in Latin America. But today's Chile is experiencing a period of political stagnation that could put its progress in peril. During the 1970s the copper-rich nation fell into economic chaos under the socialist Allende regime, its economic performance stifled by massive nationalizations, expropriations, and price controls. Allende was toppled by a military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet and the country became an international pariah. A group of economists from the Catholic University of Chile labored to promote a series of reforms to unleash the productive power of Chile's millions. After the Pinochet regime reluctantly adopted the reforms, markets put goods on the shelves, exports increased and economic growth reduced the poverty rate by some 40%-50%. Millions of Chileans were lifted out of poverty. In 1990, democratically-elected President Patricio Aylwin continued with the economic reforms. Today Chile has an unemployment rate of 6.4% and poverty a rate at 15.1 in 2012, both among the lowest in the region.
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▪ TEA Party Targeting IRS Official Pleads the Fifth
▪ Obama Oblivious, Inner-Circle Plotted How to Manage IRS Scandal
▪ Attkisson’s Computers Compromised
▪ Senate Panel OKs ‘Benefits’ for ‘Newly’ Legal Immigrants
▪ Texas Drops ‘Anti-American’ CSCOPE Lesson Curriculum
▪ Vermont Governor Signs ‘Death With Dignity’ Measure
▪ Anti-Sharia Law Heads to State House Floor
▪ Iran, Hezbollah Increasing Support for Syria’s Assad
▪ Bloomberg to Cabbie: ‘I’ll Destroy Your F*&kin’ Industry’
▪ Massive Loss of Life as EF4 Tornado Devastates Moore, OK
▪ Report: New Benghazi Whistleblowers Have Game-Changing Info
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Iran, Hezbollah Increasing Support for Syria’s Assad
The Jerusalem Post
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday Iran and its militant Shi'ite Lebanese ally Hezbollah were "propping up" Syrian Pres. Bashar Assad and giving him increasing support. "It is very clear that Syrian regime is receiving a great deal of support, increasing support in recent months from outside Syria from Hezbollah and Iran. This is a regime that is increasingly dependent on external support," Hague said in a news conference with his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh. "The regime is being propped up by others outside, further undermining its legitimacy. It also shows that is a crisis that is increasing the threat to regional stability." Speaking before a meeting of the Friends of Syria alliance in the Jordanian capital, Hague said Britain would urge international powers to set a date for an international conference to try to end the two-year conflict engulfing Syria.
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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.
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Anti-Sharia Law Heads to State House Floor
WRAL.com
The latest version of a bill intended to protect the constitutional rights of North Carolinians from "foreign laws" is on its way to the House floor after a contentious hearing in the House Judiciary Committee. House Bill 695, entitled "Foreign Laws/Protect Constitutional Rights," is the most recent iteration of legislation intended to keep courts from recognizing Islamic Sharia law in North Carolina. Similar measures have been filed or considered in more than 30 other states, but only a few states have voted them into law. The first version of the legislation was passed by ballot initiative in Oklahoma. It specifically named Sharia and was promptly blocked by a judge who declared it unconstitutional because it singled out a religion. Since then, newer versions of the measure in states from Arkansas to Florida have been more carefully worded.
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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.
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Obama Oblivious, Inner-Circle Plotted How to Manage IRS Scandal
McClatchy Newspapers
Weeks before the world, and apparently Pres. Barack Obama, heard about the details of the IRS scandal, top people in his administration started planning how to stage-manage the release of the information. Senior aides in the White House, the Treasury Department and the IRS debated the best way to tell the public what surely would ignite a storm of criticism, the coming report that the IRS earlier had targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny. The plan eventually chosen: the "incredibly bad idea" of secretly planting a question in the audience when an IRS official spoke on May 10. The evolving story of how the administration planned to tell the country about the explosive IRS scandal was revealed in more detail Tuesday. At the same time, Congress learned that it likely will not hear anything from a key player in both the scandal and the way it was revealed.
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Senate Panel OKs ‘Benefits’ for ‘Newly’ Legal Immigrants
The Washington Times
The Senate Judiciary 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 citizenship. Overall, the committee continued to maintain the delicate balance struck by the "Gang of Eight" senators who negotiated the 867-page bill, including quick legal status for illegal immigrants.
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Texas Drops ‘Anti-American’ CSCOPE Lesson Curriculum
TheNewAmerican.com
A highly controversial school curriculum used in much of Texas known as "CSCOPE," which came under relentless assault from activists and parents who said it was promoting "progressive" anti-American and anti-Christian propaganda, was dealt a major blow by policymakers this week. However, despite media reports and legislators heralding the death of the divisive educational program, major elements remain in place. Still, the news was lauded as a victory for common-sense education. The CSCOPE program was touted online by its developers as a "customizable, online curriculum management system" for Texas schools. Despite being used in more than two thirds of state school districts, the scheme largely flew under the radar, until a broad coalition of concerned parents, teachers, political activists, TEA Party groups, and others eventually cried foul.
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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. More than 120 people were being treated at hospitals, including about 50 children.
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Attkisson’s Computers Compromised
Politico.com
Sharyl Attkisson, the Emmy-award winning CBS News 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 said Tuesday. "I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public." In an earlier interview with WPHT Philadelphia, Attkisson said that though she did not know the full details of the intrusion, "there could be some relationship between these things and what's happened to James [Rosen]," the FOX News reporter who became the subject of a DoJ investigation after reporting on CIA intelligence about North Korea in 2009.
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Bloomberg to Cabbie: ‘I’ll Destroy Your F*&kin’ Industry’
The Washington Times
Mayor Michael Bloomberg cursed out the chief executive officer of a taxi company who won a court case against the city and pledged a post-mayoral revenge against the entire industry, the CEO and one witness said. "[I will] destroy your [expletive] industry," Mr. Bloomberg said to Taxi Club Management CEO Gene Freidman, The New York Post reported. He made the comments during last Thursday's game at Madison Square Garden during an impromptu meet at the 1879 Club, a witness told The Post. Mr. Friedman subsequently confirmed the exchange to The Post and added that Mr. Bloomberg also said that come January -- when his mayoral term wraps -- he would destroy "all you [expletive] guys. "It was like Gene had kidnapped his child," the witness told The Post. "He used the f-word twice."
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Vermont Governor Signs ‘Death With Dignity’ Measure
The Los Angeles Times
With the strokes from three gubernatorial pens, Vermont on Monday became the fourth state in the country to allow doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill patients. Gov. Peter Shumlin signed the measure in a state House ceremony in Montpelier, capping a decade-long effort on the issue in Vermont. Vermont is the first state to pass such a law through the legislative process. Oregon and Washington enacted their laws by referendum; in Montana, it was legalized by the courts. "This historic achievement is a political breakthrough that will boost support for death-with-dignity bills nationwide," said Compassion & Choices President Barbara Coombs Lee. The group describes itself as the nation's leading advocacy group for end-of-life decisions. The law, which went into effect Monday, allows for an end-of-life procedure with the consent of a patient's doctor.
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John Edwards Re-Emerges, Begins Public Comeback
The Washington Times
Disgraced former presidential candidate and North Carolina senator John Edwards is plotting his own comeback. The wealthy lawyer has reactivated his law license and also is hitting the speaking circuit. Mr. Edwards is scheduled to speak at a private retreat in Orlando, FL, on June 6, where he'll address fellow attorneys and marketing gurus. An itinerary for the event says the highly successful trial lawyer will speak as part of a program titled "Historic Trials of the Century." Meanwhile, his law license, dormant for more than a decade, has been resuscitated, AP reported. It's unclear whether he plans to return to the courtroom. Mr. Edwards has remained in the shadows for the past year following his acquittal on one charge of campaign finance fraud in May 2012. Other criminal counts were dismissed after a federal judge declared a mistrial in the case.
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InFocus Obama Finding Ways to Wield Power Without Executive Orders
President Obama could wind up issuing fewer executive orders than any two-term president in a century, records show. Obama has often exerted the power of his office in pursuit of his agenda, drawing charges from Republicans that he is acting like a "monarch" intent on destroying the Constitution's balance of powers. But a review of the historical record shows Obama is on track to issue roughly the same number of executive orders as President George W. Bush, and fewer than President Clinton. Comparing Obama's use of executive power to his predecessors is tricky, however, since presidents can wield their authority in a number of ways. His executive orders tell only part of the story, experts say. "They're not the only measure of presidential assertion of authority," said Kenneth Mayer, a University of Wisconsin political science professor who has studied the presidency extensively. "He's actually been pretty aggressive on a number of fronts."
The Briefing for May 20, 2013
Within the past week the Syrian military, with active combat support from as many as 7,000 Hezbollah fighters, has achieved major victories against the Rebels. These victories are a tribute to the unending massive re-supply and support Syria is receiving from Russia and Iran. The latest victory has secured an unobstructed route for Iranian and Russian supplied advanced weaponry to be transferred from Syrian to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Assad owes the Hezbollah a huge debt of gratitude. The terrorist group's support has been Assad's lifeboat. He can not refuse requests to provide Hezbollah with what it requests...Last week Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made an urgent trip to meet with Russian President Putin. Netanyahu tried to persuade Putin to curtail deliveries to Syria of some of Russia's most sophisticated weapons systems, including long range anti-aircraft missile batteries. Putin would have no part with such cooperation.
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