15Obama Appoints 'Brainy Hot Chick' with Risque Past to CIA’s No. 2 Spot, Entertained Guests on 'Erotica Night'
White House Lawyer Avril Haines Elevated to CIA Deputy Director PostOn Wednesday, the CIA announced that Deputy Director Michael Morell would be replaced by
White House lawyer Avril Haines.
It didn’t take long for media outlets to poke around and find some intriguing elements from Haines’ past. Perhaps the most odd tidbit is the notion that she once read sexy novels aloud at a bookstore she co-owned years ago. These readings would take place on designated “erotica nights.”
Since leaving behind her literary career, Haines has built up quite a fascinating and impressive resume. Before being nominated to the CIA’s number two role, she worked in the White House Counsel’s office, the Daily Beast notes, where she approved covert actions and served as a liaison between Obama and the CIA.
And a biography
presented on the FORA.tv website in 2011 read as follows:
Avril Haines is the Assistant Legal Adviser for Treaty Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. She was formerly the Deputy Chief Counsel for the Majority on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations during the 110th Congress and prior to that, Avril served as an attorney adviser and a deputy assistant legal adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where she worked on treaty affairs and the law of war (serving in Iraq for a short period).
Avril was a legal officer at the Hague Conference on Private International Law and has published in the area of private international law and international humanitarian law. Over the course of her career, she has represented the United States on delegations to the Hague Conference, the United Nations, and elsewhere. Avril clerked for Chief Judge Danny Boggs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
These impressive details aside, her activities nearly two decades ago are certainly worth noting. The
Beast provides some details:
…20 years ago, Haines opened and co-owned Adrian’s Book Café in the Baltimore waterfront neighborhood of Fells Point. She opened Adrian’s after dropping out of a graduate program in physics at Johns Hopkins University. The store featured regular “
Erotica Nights.” including dinner and a series of readings by guests of published work or their own prose, according to a 1995 report in the Baltimore Sun; couples could attend for $30, while singles paid $17. [...]
But her bookstore was hardly defined by erotica (which was shelved between self-help and parenting), stocking titles from a variety of smaller publishing houses and local authors, and offering a café. Haines was also well respected in the close-knit waterfront neighborhood of Fells Point, according to former neighbors.
One of them, long-time neighborhood fixture Steve Bunker, who has since retired to Maine, raved about Haines to The Daily Beast, saying “She’s brilliant, has a genius IQ, is easy to work with, and reliable.” He recalled going to New Year’s Eve parties with her at the
graduate program in physics then owned by her father, Dr. Thomas Haines, a liberal activist and noted chemist, on the Upper West Side of New York.
In a 1995 interview
about Adrian’s Book Café with the Baltimore Sun, Haines was candid about the popularity of the sex-themed book readings. At first, she apparently wasn’t sold on the idea of hosting erotica readings, as she viewed the theme as pornographic in nature, but after reading some stories, her views changed.
“Erotica has become more prevalent because people are trying to have sex without having sex,” she told the Sun at the time. “Others are trying to find new fantasies to make their monogamous relationships more satisfying. … What the erotic offers is spontaneity, twists and turns. And it affects everyone.”
She continued, noting that she got some push-back in the 1990s from friends who teased about the store.
“We were terrified who might show up. We thought it would be a bunch of dirty old men,” Haines also said at the time. “And a lot of our friends gave us a hard time. They said, ‘You just want a mass orgy in your bookstore.’”
Years after this intriguing career choice, it seems Haines, who is clearly well-liked by who have worked with her, will be leading one of America’s most covert agencies.
Edward Snowden: Whistleblower Comes Forward as Source of Leaks to "The Guardian"The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows
'I am not afraid, because this is the choice I've made — You can't wait around for someone else to act — I feel satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets.'
●
Q&A with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I do not expect to see home again' ●
VIDEO: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'UK's The Guardian -- The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in U.S. political history is
Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.
The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said.
Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning.
He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive organisations – the NSA.In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions," but "I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."
Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. "I don't want public attention because I don't want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing."
He does not fear the consequences of going public, he said, only that doing so will distract attention from the issues raised by his disclosures. "I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the government will demonise me."
Despite these fears, he remained hopeful his outing will not divert attention from the substance of his disclosures. "I really want the focus to be on these documents and the debate which I hope this will trigger among citizens around the globe about what kind of world we want to live in." He added: "My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them."
He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."
Three weeks ago, Snowden made final preparations that resulted in last week's series of blockbuster news stories. At the NSA office in Hawaii where he was working, he copied the last set of documents he intended to disclose.
He then advised his NSA supervisor that he needed to be away from work for "a couple of weeks" in order to receive treatment for epilepsy, a condition he learned he suffers from after a series of seizures last year.
As he packed his bags, he told his girlfriend that he had to be away for a few weeks, though he said he was vague about the reason. "That is not an uncommon occurrence for someone who has spent the last decade working in the intelligence world."
On May 20, he boarded a flight to Hong Kong, where he has remained ever since. He chose the city because "they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent", and because he believed that it was one of the few places in the world that both could and would resist the dictates of the US government.
In the three weeks since he arrived, he has been ensconced in a hotel room. "I've left the room maybe a total of three times during my entire stay," he said. It is a plush hotel and, what with eating meals in his room too, he has run up big bills.
He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden cameras from detecting them.
Though that may sound like paranoia to some, Snowden has good reason for such fears. He worked in the US intelligence world for almost a decade. He knows that the biggest and most secretive surveillance organisation in America, the NSA, along with the most powerful government on the planet, is looking for him.
Since the disclosures began to emerge, he has watched television and monitored the internet, hearing all the threats and vows of prosecution emanating from Washington.
And he knows only too well the sophisticated technology available to them and how easy it will be for them to find him. The NSA police and other law enforcement officers have twice visited his home in Hawaii and already contacted his girlfriend, though he believes that may have been prompted by his absence from work, and not because of suspicions of any connection to the leaks.
"All my options are bad," he said. The US could begin extradition proceedings against him, a potentially problematic, lengthy and unpredictable course for Washington. Or the Chinese government might whisk him away for questioning, viewing him as a useful source of information. Or he might end up being grabbed and bundled into a plane bound for US territory.
"Yes, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets," he said.
"We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be."
Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt to use all its weight to punish him. "I am not afraid," he said calmly, "because this is the choice I've made."
He predicts the government will launch an investigation and "say I have broken the Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used against anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has become".
The only time he became emotional during the many hours of interviews was when he pondered the impact his choices would have on his family, many of whom work for the US government. "The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won't be able to help any more. That's what keeps me up at night," he said, his eyes welling up with tears.
Snowden did not always believe the US government posed a threat to his political values. He was brought up originally in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. His family moved later to Maryland, near the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade.
By his own admission, he was not a stellar student. In order to get the credits necessary to obtain a high school diploma, he attended a community college in Maryland, studying computing, but never completed the coursework.
In 2003, he enlisted in the US army and began a training program to join the Special Forces. Invoking the same principles that he now cites to justify his leaks, he said: "I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression".
He recounted how his beliefs about the war's purpose were quickly dispelled. "Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone," he said. After he broke both his legs in a training accident, he was discharged.
After that, he got his first job in an NSA facility, working as a security guard for one of the agency's covert facilities at the University of Maryland. From there, he went to the CIA, where he worked on IT security. His understanding of the internet and his talent for computer programming enabled him to rise fairly quickly for someone who lacked even a high school diploma.
By 2007, the CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland. His responsibility for maintaining computer network security meant he had clearance to access a wide array of classified documents.
That access, along with the almost three years he spent around CIA officers, led him to begin seriously questioning the rightness of what he saw.
He described as formative an incident in which he claimed CIA operatives were attempting to recruit a Swiss banker to obtain secret banking information. Snowden said they achieved this by purposely getting the banker drunk and encouraging him to drive home in his car. When the banker was arrested for drunk driving, the undercover agent seeking to befriend him offered to help, and a bond was formed that led to successful recruitment.
"Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world," he says. "I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good."
He said it was during his CIA stint in Geneva that he thought for the first time about exposing government secrets. But, at the time, he chose not to for two reasons.
First, he said: "Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn't feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone". Secondly, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 gave him hope that there would be real reforms, rendering disclosures unnecessary.
He left the CIA in 2009 in order to take his first job working for a private contractor that assigned him to a functioning NSA facility, stationed on a military base in Japan. It was then, he said, that he "watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in", and as a result, "I got hardened."
The primary lesson from this experience was that "you can't wait around for someone else to act. I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that leadership is about being the first to act."
Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA's surveillance activities were, claiming "they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them".
He described how he once viewed the internet as "the most important invention in all of human history". As an adolescent, he spent days at a time "speaking to people with all sorts of views that I would never have encountered on my own".
But he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. "I don't see myself as a hero," he said, "because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity."
Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA's surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. "What they're doing" poses "an existential threat to democracy", he said.
A Matter of PrincipleAs strong as those beliefs are, there still remains the question: why did he do it? Giving up his freedom and a privileged lifestyle? "There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich."
For him, it is a matter of principle. "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to," he said.
His allegiance to internet freedom is reflected in the stickers on his laptop: "I support Online Rights: Electronic Frontier Foundation," reads one. Another hails the online organisation offering anonymity, the Tor Project.
Asked by reporters to establish his authenticity to ensure he is not some fantasist, he laid bare, without hesitation, his personal details, from his social security number to his CIA ID and his expired diplomatic passport. There is no shiftiness. Ask him about anything in his personal life and he will answer.
He is quiet, smart, easy-going and self-effacing. A master on computers, he seemed happiest when talking about the technical side of surveillance, at a level of detail comprehensible probably only to fellow communication specialists. But he showed intense passion when talking about the value of privacy and how he felt it was being steadily eroded by the behaviour of the intelligence services.
His manner was calm and relaxed but he has been understandably twitchy since he went into hiding, waiting for the knock on the hotel door. A fire alarm goes off. "That has not happened before," he said, betraying anxiety wondering if was real, a test or a CIA ploy to get him out onto the street.
Strewn about the side of his bed are his suitcase, a plate with the remains of room-service breakfast, and a copy of Angler, the biography of former vice-president Dick Cheney.
Ever since last week's news stories began to appear in the Guardian, Snowden has vigilantly watched TV and read the internet to see the effects of his choices. He seemed satisfied that the debate he longed to provoke was finally taking place.
He lay, propped up against pillows, watching CNN's Wolf Blitzer ask a discussion panel about government intrusion if they had any idea who the leaker was. From 8,000 miles away, the leaker looked on impassively, not even indulging in a wry smile.
Snowden said that he admires both Ellsberg and Manning, but argues that there is one important distinction between himself and the army private, whose trial coincidentally began the week Snowden's leaks began to make news.
"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."
He purposely chose, he said, to give the documents to journalists whose judgment he trusted about what should be public and what should remain concealed.
As for his future, he is vague. He hoped the publicity the leaks have generated will offer him some protection, making it "harder for them to get dirty".
He views his best hope as the possibility of asylum, with Iceland – with its reputation of a champion of internet freedom – at the top of his list. He knows that may prove a wish unfulfilled.
But after the intense political controversy he has already created with just the first week's haul of stories, "I feel satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets."
Edward Snowden: I mistakenly believed in Obama’s promises
By Charlie Spiering -- Edward Snowden, the self-revealed whistle-blower at the National Security Agency, explains that part of the reason he decided to come forward was because President Obama did not roll back the surveillance measures put into place by the Bush Administration.
“A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party,” Snowden said in an interview with the Guardian. “But I believed in Obama’s promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor.”Snowden acknowledged that he watched Obama struggle as he attempted to justify the surveillance programs during his press conference on Friday.
“My immediate reaction was he was having difficulty in defending it himself,” Snowden said about Obama. “He was trying to defend the unjustifiable and he knew it.”Snowden referred to a “grassroots movement” planning to take to the streets on July 4 in defense of the Fourth Amendment. The movement is called “Restore The Fourth Amendment,” and grew out of the Reddit community.
“I have been surprised and pleased to see the public has reacted so strongly in defence of these rights that are being suppressed in the name of security,” Snowden said in the interview.
The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald: I have more secrets to revealBy Charlie Spiering -- On ABC’s ‘This Week,’ journalist Glenn Greenwald explained that Americans could expect him to reveal more secrets about the government surveillance programs. Greenwald wrote two bombshell stories last week in the Guardian newspaper – one about the National Security Agency obtaining phone records from Verizon customers and one about the agency’s PRISM program. “[S]hould we be expecting more revelations from you?” asked Stephanopoulos. “You should,” Greenwald answered shortly. Greenwald remained quiet about his sources, reminding Stephanopoulos about the importance of whistle-blowers.
Booz Allen Hamilton: Edward Snowden's U.S. contracting firmBy Julian Borger -- Booz Allen Hamilton, Edward Snowden's employer, is one of America's biggest security contractors and a significant part of the constantly revolving door between the US intelligence establishment and the private sector. The current of director of national intelligence (DNI), James Clapper, who issued a stinging attack on the intelligence leaks this weekend, is a former Booz Allen executive. The firm's current vice-chairman, Mike McConnell, was DNI under the George W Bush administration. He worked for the Virginia-based company before taking the job, and returned to the firm after leaving it.programs.
Continued >>Edward Snowden Donated $500 To Ron Paul’s 2012 Presidential CampaignBy Christopher Zara -- Does NSA Whistleblower Have Libertarian Leanings? Campaign contribution records appear to show that Edward Snowden, the confessed National Security Agency whistle-blower who spoke out against government surveillance in the Guardian on Sunday, donated $500 to Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential bid. Records at CampaignMoney.com show two contributions of $250 each from an Edward Snowden with addresses in Hawaii and Maryland.
Continued >>NSA Leaker: I Had Authority 'To Wiretap Anyone'By Tony Lee -- Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old who leaked information about the NSA's data surveillance programs, said he had the authority to wiretap even the president's email if he had a personal email address. In an interview with Glenn Greenwald the UK Guardian posted on Sunday, Snowden said while the NSA surveillance programs were at first more narrowly tailored, the agency now "specifically targets the communications of everyone" and stores them because "it's the easiest and most efficient" way to achieve their ends. He said he had the authority to wiretap nearly everyone in the United States.
Continued >>William A. Jacobson: Snowden Job?It seems that nothing is ever as it seems. It may be that Edward Snowden is what he seems to be — an Obama-supporter who, despite barely gaining a GED, managed to work his way into sensitive technical positions at the CIA, NSA and private contractors, and then became disillusioned that abuse of individual privacy he witnessed under the Bush administration was not cured and if anything worsened under Obama, and who, despite four years of Obama-rule in which to leak embarrassing documents, waited until late May 2013 in which to take and then dump on Glenn Greenwald a treasure trove of seemingly embarrassing documents which allegedly show a massive data-mining operation and desire to control all the world’s information.
Continued >>Snowden Drops Out of Sight, Faces Legal BattleBy John Whitesides - A contractor at the National Security Agency who leaked details of top-secret U.S. surveillance programs dropped out of sight in Hong Kong on Monday ahead of a likely push by the U.S. government to have him sent back to the United States to face charges.
Edward Snowden, 29, who provided the information for published reports last week that revealed the NSA's broad monitoring of phone call and Internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook, checked out of his Hong Kong hotel hours after going public in a video released on Sunday by Britain's Guardian newspaper.
The disclosures by Snowden have sent shockwaves across Washington, where several lawmakers called on Monday for the extradition and prosecution of the ex-CIA employee who was behind one of the most significant security leaks in U.S. history.
There were some signs, however, that Snowden's stance against government surveillance and his defense of personal privacy was resonating with at least some Americans.
Supporters flocked to Snowden's aid on the Internet - more than 25,000 people signed an online petition urging Obama to pardon Snowden even before he has been charged. A separate effort on Facebook to raise funds for Snowden's legal defense netted nearly $8,000 in just a few hours.
Continued >>Santa Monica Shooting Suspect Identified as John Zawahri
John Samir Zawahri (Born 06/08/1989)
This 2006 picture of John Zawahri was taken when he was a junior at Santa Monica High School.LA Times -- The gunman accused of killing four people in a Santa Monica shooting rampage Friday was apparently angry over his parents' divorce and had some mental health issues in the past, a law enforcement source told The Times.
The suspect was identified by five law enforcement sources in Washington and Los Angeles as
John Zawahri, in his 20s.Other sources with knowledge of the investigation said detectives believe the shooting was sparked by a family dispute of some kind but emphasized that the investigation was still in its early stages.
The suspect's past mental health issues occurred when he was juvenile, the law enforcement source said, but no further details were offered. The sources all spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing.
These sources said the alleged gunman's first victims were his father and brother, whose bodies were found in a burning home.
One thing the investigators were trying to figure out is why the suspect wanted to be driven to Santa Monica College, where he was ultimately killed by police.
Continued >>Cincinnati IRS Employees: Washington IRS Lawyer Carter Hull Oversaw Targeting of Conservative Groups
IRS Agent: 'I won't let Obama throw me under the bus!'By Patrick Howley -- A Washington IRS attorney named
Carter Hull closely oversaw the targeting of conservative nonprofit groups and suggested questions that IRS employees could ask of conservative and Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt nonprofit status,
according to interviews that two IRS employees gave with congressional investigators.
“I was essentially a front person, because I had no autonomy or no authority to act on [applications] without Carter Hull’s influence or input,” said
Elizabeth Hofacre, an employee of the Cincinnati IRS office, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal.
Hofacre’s office, which oversaw tax-exempt applications, reportedly requested help from the agency’s Exempt Organizations Technical unit in Washington, D.C. in 2010 to deal with an influx of new applications from Tea Party groups.
IRS attorney Hull sent Hofacre
additional information request letters [
pdf] that he’d already sent to two tea party groups and instructed her to use them as a “foundation to prepare and review” cases and prepare her own letters to new applicants.
As The Daily Caller has reported, at least five different IRS offices in Cincinnati, Ohio; Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; Laguna Niguel and El Monte, California; improperly demanded extensive information from conservative groups applying for tax-exempt nonprofit status between 2010 and 2012. The IRS demanded copies of training materials distributed by conservative groups, as well as
personal information on college interns and even the contents of a religious group’s prayers.
One employee of the agency’s Cincinnati office told congressional investigators last week that Washington was “basically throwing us underneath the bus.”
Carter Hull, who is a co-author of a 1995 chapter [
pdf]
on scrutinizing 501(c)(5) labor unions in the construction industry, lists his residence as Silver Spring, Maryland on his Facebook page.
Hull could not be reached for comment by The Wall Street Journal, which viewed transcripts of the IRS employees’ interviews Wednesday.
Who is Carter Hull?
'I love to target Tea Partiers!'By Carol Platt Liebau -- Last night, the
Wall Street Journal reported on transcripts of congressional interviews with IRS employees. In them, the name "Carter Hull" -- an IRS lawyer in Washington -- surfaces as someone in DC who oversaw the targeting in Ohio and even suggested some of the questions used to harass conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Here is a technical instruction document Hull co-authored, and his name appears as the author of articles and e-books on tax matters.
Here is his Facebook page.
He is a graduate of a private Quaker school -- and I would guess from his age and his attendance at a private boarding/day school that he attended boarding school back in an era when that experience was largely reserved for young people from fairly affluent circumstances.
This is also a person obviously of some experience and knowledge with the tax law, who would have clearly known the targeting operation was wrong.
No doubt we will all be learning more about Mr. Hull soon.
Breaking! Carter Hull Suddenly Retires to Spend More Time with His FamilyCarter Hull, the Washington-based IRS lawyer who oversaw targeting of conservative groups beginning in 2010, will retire this summer. Hull was fingered in interviews with two IRS employees as the overseer of the agency’s improper targeting of conservative groups beginning in 2010.
Continued >>IRS Employees: Washington D.C. Told Us to Target Tea Party
IRS Agent: 'Washington, DC wanted some cases . . . I sent seven'By David Freddoso -- Since the IRS targeting scandal began, top IRS brass has maintained that this very politically convenient suppression of conservative non-profit groups’ applications was the work of a few low-level employees in the Cincinnati IRS office. But those provincial IRS employees have offered a very different story under questioning from the House Oversight committee staff.
House Oversight chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.,
posted partial transcripts today from two of the interviews, in which all names are redacted. Although the Cincinnati employees’ denials should be taken with a grain of salt (like all the other IRS officials’ denials), these two interviews both point the finger back at the IRS in Washington — which is consistent with other accounts that both the conservative and mainstream press has unearthed.
One of the low-level employees said that the Washington office was “basically throwing us underneath the bus” for an operation they had ordered and directed. And an employee described as being more senior said that he viewed the entire project as unfair and was so worried about being blamed for it later that he actually applied for another job in the summer of 2010. “I didn’t want my name in the paper for being this rogue agent for a project I had no control over,” the more senior employee said.
This should make for some good hearings in the near future. Below is the partial transcript released by the committee:
Q: Did he give you any sort of indication as to why he requested you to do that? […]
A: He said Washington, D.C. wanted seven. Because at one point I believe I heard they were thinking 10, but it came down to seven. I said okay, seven.
Q: How did you decide which seven were sent?
A: Just the first seven.
Q: The first seven to come into the system?
A: Yes.
Tax Collectors 'Lived It Up' on Taxpayers Dime — Spent $50M on Conferences and Meetings in 3 YearsBy Rick Moran -- A Treasury Department Inspector General's report expected to be released tomorrow will reveal that the IRS spent about $50 million on conferences and meetings over the last two years.
The conference spending included $4 million for an August 2010 gathering in Anaheim, Calif., for which the agency did not negotiate lower room rates, even though that is standard government practice, according to a statement by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Instead, some of the 2,600 attendees received benefits, including baseball tickets and stays in presidential suites that normally cost $1,500 to $3,500 per night. In addition, 15 outside speakers were paid a total of $135,000 in fees, with one paid $17,000 to talk about "leadership through art," the House committee said.
The new acting commissioner, Danny Werfel, released a statement on the forthcoming report criticizing the Anaheim meeting. "This conference is an unfortunate vestige from a prior era," Werfel said. "While there were legitimate reasons for holding the meeting, many of the expenses associated with it were inappropriate and should not have occurred."
Continued>>Unsurprisingly IRS Admits Whopping 88 Employees Were Involved in 'Anal Examinations of Perceived Enemy' Conservative Groups
Ignores Deadline as Scandal Extends Well Beyond the 'Mistakes By a Few Low Level Bureaucrats'!The Internal Revenue Service has told House GOP investigators they have identified 88 IRS employees who may have documents relevant to the congressional investigation into targeting of conservative groups, according to a congressional source familiar with the investigation.
The IRS asked these employees to preserve all the "responsive documents" on their computers, and it has been in the process of collecting it all to comply with congressional requests for information. The IRS missed its May 21st deadline to turn over documents to the House Ways and Means Committee. The same source said the IRS argues it missed its deadline because of the scope of documents it is collecting.
The request for documents was a bipartisan one, but Republicans are privately preparing to seize on the fact that if nearly 90 IRS employees may have been somehow involved in this targeting, it is evidence that the controversy extends well beyond the mistakes by a few low level employees.
However, with no documents in hand, there is no way to know how many of the employees being asked to preserve documents were truly involved in the activity in question. The IRS, in a statement to CNN, said the large number reflects its effort to ensure they are as responsive as possible to the Congressional requests.
"The IRS and Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel are moving aggressively and taking the data requests very seriously. As a precautionary measure, the IRS is casting a wide net to capture any potentially related materials. Our goal is to be exceedingly thorough during this process to ensure we identify any and all pertinent records," the IRS statement said.
"The IRS has received numerous congressional requests involving an extensive set of questions and calls for data. Responding to these requests is a top priority for us. We have been in contact with committee staff, and we continue to provide them updates as we diligently work through these requests."
Susan L. Anderson, Wife of Former IRS Chief Douglas Shulman Campaigned for Obama, Questioned Mitt Romney's Taxes
Susan L. Anderson - Left-Wing Activist with "Public Campaign"By Kerry Picket -- Former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman is under fire from Congress for his agency's targeting of Tea Party and other conservative organizations. Shulman himself is under suspicion for his
numerous visits to the White House compared to other administration officials. Additionally,
Shulman's wife Susan L. Anderson reportedly works for the Washington D.C. based liberal organization
"Public Campaign".
In fact, according to Anderson's
Twitter feed, she worked on the Obama campaign:
En route to airport after working 3 days 4 OFA, MiL just asks me If I know abt the Chrysler ads :)
#Obama2012 — Susan Anderson (@slandersonwdc)
November 4, 2012Anderson tweeted about spending time with union members during the campaign.
After spending the day in East Dayton w/union folks working 4 Obama, this America's Future GM retirees' ad rings rather false.
#Obama2012 — Susan Anderson (@slandersonwdc)
November 4, 2012The wife of the then Commissioner of the IRS also
tweeted about Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's taxes:
Ha! "@
ivanthek: If Romney loses the election, I bet he can file an amended return and claim the deductions he didn't claim.” — Susan Anderson (@slandersonwdc)
September 21, 2012Reid calls on Romney to reveal his taxes - “@
tpm: Romney calls on Reid to reveal his source:
tpm.ly/QBWise” — Susan Anderson (@slandersonwdc)
August 7, 2012Romney in class by himself - see @
sunfoundation charts comparing Romney's tax returns to other presidents.
bit.ly/LQegqf” — Susan Anderson (@slandersonwdc)
July 26, 2012Folks go to Caymans to dodge taxes or dive reefs - wanna bet what Mitt was doing there?
tinyurl.com/7zhlvtp — Susan Anderson (@slandersonwdc)
January 19, 2012In this tweet she makes an innocuous reference to her husband, Douglas Shulman.
I have no idea what my husband is saying but all these tax + finance reporters are nodding their heads.
#taxday — Susan Anderson (@slandersonwdc)
April 6, 2011Anderson took part in protests as well, according to her Twitter feed. She called on her Twitter followers to protest Karl Rove and his American Crossroads group. She also called for protesters to take action with the Wisconsin unions in DC.
Join me @ 14 and NY Ave in DC for
#takeback12. Confront Karl Rove + American Crossroads.Rebuild the American Dream. — Susan Anderson (@slandersonwdc)
June 20, 2012Karl Rove, Crossroads, Get Money Out!
#fairelections #rebuildthedream twitter.com/slandersonwdc/… — Susan Anderson (@slandersonwdc)
June 20, 2012Join me @today's
#WIUNION protest in DC - look 4 Adam's sign::
twitpic.com/4a30cp — Susan Anderson (@slandersonwdc)
March 16, 2011Anderson's group,
"Public Campaign", describes itself as, "a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to sweeping campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics."
"Public Campaign" is laying the foundation for reform by working with a broad range of organizations, including local community groups, around the country that are fighting for change and national organizations whose members are not fairly represented under the current campaign finance system. Together we are building a network of national and state-based efforts to create a powerful national force for federal and state campaign reform.
During a Congressional hearing, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ)
questioned Shulman if he knew how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had information in supporting a July 2012 claim that Romney had not paid taxes for the last ten years. Shulman appeared not to know how or why Senator Reid made such a claim.
Occupy IRS: Susan L. Anderson Joined 'Occupy Wall Street' in 2011By Kerry Picket --Susan L. Anderson, wife of embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, was a supporter of, and active participant in, the Occupy Wall Street movement, attending and promoting Occupy DC in Oct. 2011.
In the fall of 2011, during the height of the global Occupy protests, Anderson tweeted out to her followers:
Jobs on Main Street, not on K-ching Wall Street! #takeback11 #ows #occupydemocracy
http://yfrog.com/o0crsizj 12:20 PM - 5 Oct 2011 — Susan Anderson
At Larry Lessig teach-in @ #occupydc. Will intro him tonight on his new book on how big $ threatens our #republic @ GW Law #OWS 5:46 PM - 18 Oct 2011
— Susan Anderson
DC, good morning! Come down to the Mall and tell your 99% story! pic.
http://twitter.com/82lo24w7 9:16 AM - 6 Dec 2011 — Susan Anderson
IRS Chief Douglas Shulman Visited White House More Than Any Other Cabinet Member — 157 TIMES!
By Rick Moran -- Former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman viisted the White House at least 157 times during the Obama administration, according to logs obtained by the
Daily Caller.An analysis by The Daily Caller of the White House's public "visitor access records" showed that every current and former member of President Obama's Cabinet would have had to rack up at least 60 more public visits to the president's home to catch up with "Douglas Shulman."
The visitor logs do not give a complete picture of White House access. Some high-level officials get cleared for access and do not have to sign in during visits. A Washington Post
database
of visitor log records cautions, "The log may include some scheduled visits that did not take place and exclude visits by members of Congress, top officials and others who are not required to sign in at security gates."
The White House press office declined to comment on which visits by high-ranking officials do and do not get recorded in the visitor log, but it is probable that the vast majority of visits by major cabinet members do not end up in the public record.
Nevertheless, many visits by current and former cabinet members are in the logs, and the record depicts an IRS chief uniquely at home in the White House.
Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama's friend and
loyal lieutenant, logged 62 publicly known White House visits, not even half as many as Shulman's 157.
Former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, to whom Shulman reported, clocked in at just 48 publicly known visits.
Former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton earned a cool 43 public visits, and current Secretary of State John Kerry logged 49 known White House visits in the same timeframe, when he was still a U.S. senator.
Shulman has more recorded visits to the White House than HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (48), DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano (34), Education Secretary Arne Duncan (31), former Energy Secretary Steven Chu (22) and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates (17) combined.
The Daily Caller's analysis includes current, former and presently-nominated members of Obama's Cabinet.
After Shulman, Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank (86), Asst. Attorney General Thomas Perez (83) and Penny Pritzker (76) -- Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary -- have the most publicly known White House visits.
Incredible. And what does Shulman say about the topics that were discussed at those meetings?
"Um, the Easter Egg Roll with my kids," Shulman replied. "Questions about the administrability of tax policy they were thinking of; our budget; us helping the Department of Education streamline application processes for financial aid."
How many dozens of visits did Shulman have after he found out about the IRS targeting of conservative groups?
"Is it really believable that someone who had a Wall Street career before coming to Washington five years ago was so politically naïve that he didn't see the potential for scandal in that information and give the White House a heads-up?" Commentary's John Steele Gordon wondered Tuesday.
If you were the head of an agency that was doing something you know your boss would approve of - if only in private - wouldn't you brag about it to him and get a good chuckle about the discomfort visited upon your boss's political enemies?
Give Shulman immunity and let him tell a congressional committee what he told the president about the IRS scandal - and when he told him.
Bush Fault! In 1998 Bush Appointed IRS Commissioner Shulman Who Is a Partisan Democrat HackFederal Election Commission records show that former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, on whose watch the agency’s targeting of conservative groups began, is a donor to the Democratic party. Shulman made a $500 donation to the Democratic National Committee in October 2004, when George W. Bush was campaigning for reelection against then–Massachusetts senator John Kerry. At the time, Shulman was serving as executive vice president of the National Association of Securities Dealers, a private regulatory agency that monitors Wall Street transactions. In 2008, Bush appointed Shulman to lead the IRS, serving under then treasury secretary Hank Paulson. According to the Treasury Department inspector general’s
Continued >>Shulman’s Wife Works for Liberal Group "Public Campaign" Fighting Open Campaign SpendingFormer Internal Revenue Service commissioner Douglas H. Shulman, a frequent White House guest during the period when the IRS was targeting conservative nonprofits, is married to the senior program advisor for Public Campaign, an “organization dedicated to sweeping campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics.”
Continued >>Scandals Be Damned! Ambitious Obama Is 'Movin' On Up' to SecGen of the United Nations in 2016
South Korea's Ban Ki-moon's two terms will end December 31, 2016 — leaving Obama with 10 months to angle for the SecGen position. And maybe with a little luck or fraud Obama will become the first Supreme Ruler of the New Global Union.By James Lewis -- Washington rumor has it that Obama wants to be U.N. Secretary General.There are several reasons that make that likely, and if it's true, it throws new light on a lot of Obama's oddities -- including his Royalty Bows, his Apology Tours, his Muslim Sellout, and the Benghazi Cover-Up.
But first -- why would Obama be planning to become the chief of the U.N. before he has even finished his second term?
(1) OBAMA'S UNBOUNDED EGOIn three and a half years, Obama will be out of a job. He is 50 now and wants to soar to greater heights, because that's what matters more than anything else in his life.
What's better to Obama's Napoleonic self than being U.N. Sec Gen? He is a man who wants to be worshiped by the world, and the path to that goal is clear. It is also an opportunity to carry out his internationalist and pro-Muslim convictions.
Personalities like his need the excitement of taking big risks for big gains. Obama's slogan "the audacity of hope" comes from Napoleon's general, who described his war strategy as "Audacity, audacity, always audacity!" Alinsky's Rules advise: "Always act outside of the experience of the enemy." It now looks like Obama has never won a single clean election, because he has always violated the rules. He always gambles, and as long as his opponents play by the rules, he wins.
Mitt Romney is a good and decent man, and IRS intimidation of political enemies is just not his way. Knowing that, the Obama campaign violated the rules deliberately, cynically, and with malice aforethought. It worked.
(2) OBAMA'S INTERNATIONALIST IDEOLOGYThe Communist anthem is The Internationale. When Obama gave his big speech in Berlin even before the first inauguration, his first words were "Citizens of the world!" That was meant as Marxist symbolism. All the leftists in the world cheered themselves hoarse.
Berlin was Marx's city, the capital of the Prussian Empire that was the model for the Communist Worker's Paradise, to be guided by the new Prussian Junkers, the Communist Party. "Citizens of the world!" was an echo of "Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!"
The American media didn't bother to tell us that, but they knew. They knew.
Obama constantly pulls stunts with obvious Marxist overtones. His inner circle laughs at his audacity, and he likes to clown it up for Valerie Jarrett, Michelle, Ayers, and Axelrod.
Obama is a trickster, power-hungry, insatiable, and sociopathic. His enemy is us, or what Jeremiah Wright would call "middleclassness," the values that most of us try to live by.
As a European Socialist, Obama does not believe in the U.S. Constitution. His appointees have no conscience about violating the Constitution, as is obvious from today's news about fundamental IRS violations, fundamental invasion of news reporters' privileges under the First Amendment, and fundamental violations of the ethics of combat commanders -- leaving soldiers under fire to the tender mercies of a vicious enemy.
Obama is audacity man -- violating decent values is his specialty. Bill and Hillary found that out when he played the race card against them at the 2008 Democratic Convention. Democrats always play the race card, but never against each other. In 2008, Obama violated that rule, and he got away with it.
(3) BUTT-KISSING TYRANTSIf Obama wants to run for U.N. SecGen after 2016, he needs two things: a U.S. nomination by a Democratic president and a majority vote in the U.N. General Assembly.
Let's say Hillary gets elected in 2016, as Democrats now are hoping. She nominates Obama to be U.N. SecGen, to rousing cheers from the New York Times and Washington Post, the U.K. Guardian, and Workers' World. Now Obama needs a majority of U.N. General Assembly votes.
By butt-kissing every throwback tyrant in sight, Obama is buying U.N. votes for himself. Obama's public bows to throwbacks like Saudi's King Abdullah and the emperor of Japan are not just another weird thing about this guy. They are strategic, with the purpose of lining up support for the future.
There are 57 Muslim states. (Remember Obama's slip of the tongue when he talked about "all 57 states"? He wasn't thinking about Heinz 57 flavors. He was thinking about Muslim states.)
Europe is the home of imperialist socialism. The European Union is the successor to the Soviet Union, run by an appointed political machine just like the USSR. Obama is a EuroSoc, and he will get enthusiastic support from there.
South America will vote for him, because he is actively supporting leftist regimes below the border. Obama's recent trip to Mexico was full of bowing and scraping to Mexico's tender feelings about losing Texas and California in the 19th century. Blowing open the border is just another favor Obama is doing for Latin America.
If you combine his unbounded ego with his penchant for audacious trickery, it becomes clear why Obama would want to be U.N. Secretary General. To U.N.-worshipers, the SecGen is the basis for a world presidency. Even if it remains a weak position, it could be a wonderful bully pulpit for Obama's endless speech habit. It would crown Obama's life achievements and allow him to crow over the United States with its old-fashioned constitution designed to limit the powers of such as The Trickster.
President Obama could have used the
Benghazi attack on 9/11 last year to look like the commander in chief, a role he loves to play. He could have allowed Air Force jets to strafe and bomb the gaggle of Ansar al Shari'a gunmen who overran the compound and killed what are now admitted to be six Americans, including Ambassador Stevens.
■
BENGHAZI: This might have been Obama's Heroic Capture of bin Laden — Part 2.
When Obama skips a chance to boast and strut on the stage just before an election, we have to wonder why. He is not usually shy about putting himself in the limelight. Michael Barone and Charles Krauthammer believe that
Benghazi was covered up because Obama and Hillary were afraid to admit that al-Qaeda wasn't dead -- that AQ is very much alive, and dangerous as a snake.
On 9/11 last year, there were not one, but two simultaneous assaults on American targets: the Cairo Embassy and the
Benghazi compound. The front pages that day showed the black AQ flag flying over a burned part of the U.S. Embassy. Double-simultaneous assaults are an al-Qaeda signature, as we know from 9/11/01, when the Pentagon was assaulted simultaneously with the Twin Towers. Double-bomb attacks spell AL-QAEDA.
Everybody in the Muslim world understood that on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11/01, AQ was telling the world it could strike us at any place and time. Bin Laden may be dead, but jihad keeps marchin' on.
Benghazi was a secret CIA operation to smuggle arms from Libya to the "Free Syrian Army," consisting of radical Islamists. Stevens was at the arms compound in
Benghazi to direct a large arms shipment. He was the Libya expert who helped to overthrow Gaddafi in the first place. Now he was shipping Gaddafi's armaments to overthrow Bashir Assad in Syria.
The United States was apparently acting in collusion with radical Muslim factions, probably including al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (the Mediterranean coast of North Africa). We know that Stevens even hired another jihadist faction to guard the CIA compound. Early
Benghazi reports showed that they magically disappeared on the day of the attack, as did the Libyan police. Our loyal Libyan allies.
Obama was therefore directly colluding with al-Qaeda, the enemy that destroyed the Twin Towers on 9/11/01. AQ is a big part of the "Free" Syrian Army that is trying to destroy Assad, because Assad is a Shi'ite who runs a secular Baathist regime. One of our friendly radical Islamist groups, Ansar al Shari'a, simply decided to send a bloody message to America that day by killing Stevens and burning the annex.
The strategic purpose of the "Free Syrian Army" is to cut the Shi'ite Crescent running from Iran through Syria to Lebanon.
We are involved in a proxy war between Iran and the Sunni Arabs. We are now supporting the Sunni maniacs against Iran's maniacs. That is what Benghazi was about.One can make a case for pitting Sunnis against Shi'ites. But Obama knows perfectly well that after Assad, Syria will be run by another set of murderous fanatics. Collusion with radical Muslims is standard in this administration. That is completely, profoundly cynical, or it is simply aiding the enemy.
There are many reasons for that collusion, but protecting the United States is not one of them. The policy of appeasement and treachery protects radical Islam and endangers the West. However, if Obama wants to be SecGen of the United Nations in four years, there is an extra reason to buy votes in the Middle East.
None of this should ever become public knowledge, as far as Obama and Hillary are concerned. Benghazi therefore had to be covered up at any price. With Obama, personal ambition and political moves always go together. Conservatives, beware.Who's the Crook? Barack Milhous Obama or Richard Milhous Obama. Confused? . . . Both!
By Rick Jensen --
The cover-up is worse than the crime. The crime is so heinous it requires a cover-up.
Now, heads are rolling as President Obama throws more supporters under a bus convoy.The first was a fake, as Obama grandly displayed the “forced resignation” of acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller. Since he was already going to retire, the timing worked well, unless any reporters found out.
They did.
Within hours, the nation learned that Mr. Miller had already planned his June resignation well in advance of any public controversy. Two low level employees whose crime is reportedly following orders have been allegedly reprimanded in some quiet manner.
Then Joseph Grant, commissioner of the agency’s tax exempt and government entities division, announced he will retire on June 3. As part of his duties, Grant oversaw the IRS division that illegally targeted tea party groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. Grant was only there for a few days. His predecessor escaped to run the Obamacare IRS office, where she’ll use her skills to protect the privacy of all Americans as she did with the dissident groups named “Tea Party,” “Patriot” and “taught the Constitution.”
The next one is former IRS Tax Exempt Unit Chief Lois Lerner, infamously in charge of the unit that illegally targeted conservative non-profit applicants.
She has chosen to “plead the fifth” at Congressional hearings investigating the depth and breadth of this administration’s use of the I.R.S. as a political weapon of harassment and intimidation.
Lerner joins such notables as convicted Republican political felon Jack Abramoff, mobster Joe Bonanno, former Clinton crony Webb Hubbell, psychic fraudster Miss Cleo and Soviet spy Ethel Rosenberg in the rogues gallery of those who “take the fifth” for fear that telling the truth would cause each person to incriminate themselves.
Stunningly, there are Democrats still defending the Nixonian tactic of terrorizing innocent Americans with the threat of debilitating their lives with the most feared agency in the U.S. Government, the IRS.Donna Brazile, a powerful Democratic Party operative you’ve likely seen on TV, wrote an amazingly puerile attempt to deflect attention from two of the current Obama administration scandals. She writes, “… two ‘scandals’ — the IRS tax-exempt inquiries and the Department of Justice’s tapping of reporters’ phones — have become lynch parties. And the congressional investigation of Benghazi may become a scandal in itself.”
Will Americans believe the new Administration slogan that the President isn’t a crook, he’s just incompetent? Or will there be traction to the epithet, “Richard Milhous Obama?”* Continued >>ABUSE OF POWER: The Dots Already Lead to Obama In the IRS Scandal!
Investor´s Business Daily Editorial: Any scandal investigation that expects a "Eureka!" moment, a White House e-mail, or Oval Office smoking gun will be misguided. In fact, the dots are already connected directly to the president.
Barack Obama is not foolish enough to have a tape recording system hidden in his desk. And his administration staff are not careless enough to send one another incriminating e-mails.
If the president was behind the IRS unlawfully harassing conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, we can be sure the communications were all sotto voce and in persona, like any good Chicago political operator.
But as the Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel reminds us in her column
"Conservatives Became Targets in 2008," Obama's campaign was demanding the Justice Department criminally prosecute conservative groups with 501(c)4 tax-exempt status. Then, last year, President Obama's re-election campaign "targeted private citizens who had donated to Romney groups."
The chief operative? Longtime Democratic Party lawyer
Robert Bauer, general counsel for Obama's presidential campaigns, White House general counsel during Obama's first term, Democratic National Committee general counsel, and the Democrats' counsel in President Bill Clinton's Senate impeachment trial. And, not least, husband of Democratic political strategist
Anita Dunn (
In 2009 speech she declared Mao Tse Tung her "favorite philosopher"), White House communications director in Obama's first term, and now an MSNBC contributor.
Bauer is author of
"Soft Money, Hard Law: A Guide to the New Campaign Finance Law," and serves on the American Bar Association's Advisory Commission on Election Law.
When you've got a legal Rottweiler like Bauer setting the cutthroat example to one and all within the Obama administration regarding the wishes of the president, does anyone really think he — or others in the administration — needed marching orders when it comes to the government's attitude toward opponents of Obama's ideology who were seeking tax-exempt status?
Does anyone really think Obama had to tell Bauer — or anyone else in the administration — if it was OK to, as John Dean once indelicately put it, "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies"?
The climate of hate for Obama's political enemies was well established among those around him even before he became president.
It's clear the president, without having to utter a word, approved all along the idea of going after them.
White House Counsel Robert Bauer — Architect of IRS Abuse?
Bauer is my name — vote fraud is my game!By J. Christian Adams -- When the FBI finally fires up its criminal investigation of the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, there is one person the special agent in charge better be sure to interview — former White House Counsel Robert Bauer. The FBI may discover the whole IRS mess leads through the land of campaign finance “reform” and an obsession with speech regulation, an obsession shared by Bauer.
Any criminal investigation identifies for further scrutiny those with motive, opportunity, and means, and Bauer deserves no quarter from FBI investigators on those three counts.
The CrimesWithout any doubt, crimes were committed by IRS employees, not the least of which was the fact that IRS employees disclosed confidential information from IRS forms to the political enemies of the groups seeking tax-exempt status.
For example, Cindy Thomas, the Cincinnati unit manager for exempt organizations at the IRS, illegally released the tax applications of nine separate conservative organizations to the left-wing group ProPublica. The IRS claims that Thomas’ illegal release of private tax information was an “accident,” but the excuse is absurd.
Thomas wasn’t the only IRS employee leaking the tax information of conservative groups to their enemies. Pro-marriage groups found their confidential information in the hands of gay marriage advocacy organizations.
The FBI can start by finding out whether Thomas and her fellow IRS travelers in fact released the private information. If the FBI says Thomas cannot be prosecuted because she claims it was an accident, then Congress needs to step in and impose mandatory minimum prison sentences for any IRS employee that releases private information, accidental or not.
The bigger question the FBI must get to the bottom of is
who hatched the policy of targeting Tea Party groups that led to these crimes? For that they should turn back to Robert Bauer.The MotiveRobert Bauer had the motive to direct IRS policy against Tea Party groups. He is a longtime opponent of First Amendment freedoms and an advocate of government-speech regulation. He also can’t stand the work the Tea Party is conducting to monitor and eradicate voter fraud, work the Republican Party and national campaigns have utterly failed to perform.
During the 2008 election, while representing the Obama campaign, Bauer sent a
threatening letter to the Justice Department demanding criminal investigations of people who had the audacity to speak about voter fraud. Bauer even singled out Sarah Palin in the letter. Anyone who “developed or disseminated” information about voter fraud, to Bauer, deserved the heavy boot of a criminal investigation. Read the
letter; it reveals a nasty, thuggish, and lawless attitude toward political opposition.
To Bauer, those merely speaking about voter fraud were worthy of criminal investigation. Sound familiar?
Hindsight reveals why Bauer was so agitated.
Two Obama campaign staffers,
Amy Little and Yolanda Hippensteele, later pleaded guilty to voter fraud. We also know, courtesy of John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky, that a Minnesota election for U.S. Senate was
decided by voter fraud in 2008. And who can forget
Melowese Richardson, the Obama activist and poll official in Ohio who said on camera that she voted multiple times for President Obama in 2008? I could go on and on with multiple examples of voter fraud from 2008 where candidate Obama was the beneficiary.
No wonder Bauer was so anxious back in 2008 to shut everyone up.
Fast forward to 2012. Again, Mr. Bauer was up to his old tricks in his second stint as Obama campaign counsel, this time targeting Tea Party groups fighting for election integrity. Bauer and his campaign hench-lawyers called state election officials, seeking to unleash state criminal investigations of Tea Party groups working for election integrity. I have spoken with state election officials in at least three states which describe Obama campaign efforts to prompt state officials to target Tea Party groups.
I’m happy to share with the FBI special agents the names of those states if Mr. Bauer won’t.
Bauer even published
this memo, specifically targeting True the Vote with outright lies so egregious he should be ashamed of himself.
After the Obama campaign voter fraud of 2008, in 2012 Bauer was anxious to remove election integrity groups from the polls as observers. If the IRS couldn’t slow the Tea Party watchdogs down, Bauer threatened them in other ways.
If the FBI special agents interview Mr. Bauer, it won’t be hard to conclude he had the motive to launch the Tea Party shakedown.
The MeansPresident Obama’s campaign counsel certainly had the motive to target the Tea Party, but did Bauer have the means as campaign counsel? Remember, Bauer served as White House counsel from November 2009 to June 2011, right during the time this IRS shakedown was hatched.
Anybody who has worked in the White House will tell you that the White House counsel enjoys a position of power like few others. They can make things happen with a phone call. One former West Wing staffer told me that “any department’s staff who received directions from Bauer would think they were getting directions from the president. The White House counsel has the power to make policy with a phone call.”
Something important happened two months after Bauer became White House counsel — the Supreme Court decided
Citizens United vs. FEC, a decision that caused the left to go batty. They feared the decision might cost them the White House. President Obama boorishly (and inaccurately) addressed the decision in the
2010 State of the Union.The FBI special agents should ask Bauer some simple questions: With whom did you speak at the IRS about conservative and Tea Party groups post-Citizens United? Did you direct anyone on your staff to do the same? Did you hear about anyone speaking with the IRS about Tea Party groups? Who hatched the IRS harassment, which started on your watch? Did you meet with Doug Shulman any of the
157 times he visited the White House, and did you discuss exempt status of conservative groups?
The OpportunityThe FBI agents might ask Bauer why a parade of Citizens United-obsessed speech-regulation zealots visited the West Wing just before the Tea Party shakedown went into effect.
Tova Wang, of the leftist Soros-funded group Demos, visited the White House and met with Bauer’s staff on June 2, 2010. In fact she hovered around the White House on multiple occasions during the critical time period the IRS policy was being crafted.
Perhaps she was there for the Easter Egg roll. Perhaps not. Either way, the FBI can ask.
Notorious speech-regulation advocate
Richard Hasen also visited the White House and met with White House Counsel Robert Bauer on June 24, 2010. (See
this
absurd screed at Slate saying the post-Citizens United world is “worse than Watergate.” Freedom just rubs some people the wrong way.)
Perhaps Hasen was at the White House with Bauer to watch the longest match in Wimbledon history which occurred that day.
Perhaps not, especially since he previously met with
Nicholas Colvin in the White House Counsel’s office on June 21 and 23. Again, the FBI can find out if they ask.
Bauer or his staff met with a number of other ivory tower academics and activists interested in controlling free political speech through the spring of 2010. These also include the noisy reformer
Meredith McGehee.
We don’t yet know who engineered the illegal, criminal, and disgusting IRS shakedown of Tea Party and conservative groups. But one thing is certain: Robert Bauer had the motive, the opportunity, and the means to do it. The good folks at the FBI are now busy preparing names of people to interview. They better not leave Mr. Bauer off the list, or his stream of visitors.
The parties better not coordinate stories ahead of time. These days, I hear the Justice Department has adopted an aggressive approach to email and phone records, at least for Fox News.
Tyrant Obama Won't Let Up! Appoints 'Vote Fraud Perpetuator' Robert Bauer to Co-Lead Voter CommissionBy Laurel Conrad -- The co-chair President Barack Obama appointed Tuesday to help lead the Presidential Commission on Election Administration,
Robert F. Bauer, said during the 2012 election
that voter ID laws are a Republican tactic to suppress lawful votes.During the 2012 election, the Obama team tapped Bauer to lead the legal teams for the campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Among his initiatives: fighting voter ID laws enacted by a number of states in an effort to combat voter fraud. During his time as the team’s organizer, Bauer told the Associated Press that he believes that the GOP is enlisting these new laws to impede the right to vote.
“The Republican Party and their allies have mapped out their vote suppression campaign as a response to our success in 2008 with grass-roots organization and successful turnout,” Bauer said. “This is their response to defeat: changing the rules of participation so that fewer participate.” Before his work on the campaign, Bauer served as Obama’s general consul from 2009 to 2011. The White House announced the appointment of ten individuals to the commission, which
was formed “to identify non-partisan ways to shorten lines at polling places, promote the efficient conduct of elections, and provide better access to the polls for all voters.” Leading the commission alongside Bauer is Co-Chairman Benjamin L. Ginsberg.
Bauer’s co-chairman, Ginsberg, is the former consul to Republicans George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. His legal advice helped Bush win the Supreme Court case Florida decision that sent him to the White House. It is unclear exactly how much power the commission will have to implement these voting reforms.
OBAMAGATE: Voters Stupidly Voted For Obama Twice and Got 'Saul Alinsky' — And America's Paying A Helluva Price!
Level of Corruption is So High Right Now It's Like
Saul is Running the White House From the Grave!By Rachel Alexander -- With three full-blown scandals currently surrounding the Obama administration, there are too many “-gates” to name just one. There is the cover-up of the fatal Benghazi terrorist attack, the IRS targeting conservatives, and the Justice Department spying on members of the press. The level of corruption is so high right now it is like Saul Alinsky is running the White House.
Alinsky, the radical activist who wrote "Rules for Radicals", which he dedicated to Satan, taught the radical left to use dishonest tactics in order to achieve their agenda – “by any means necessary.” He advocated lying and harassing those with opposing viewpoints.
Don't forget about me, my Wellesley thesis was on Saul. (click for Hillary pic enlargement)
Both Obama and Hillary Clinton were deeply influenced by Saul Alinsky. Alinsky biographer Sanford Howitt has said Obama's 2008 election campaign was influenced by Alinsky, and that Obama followed in his footsteps as a community organizer.Alinsky's son David
wrote in an article that appeared in the Boston Globe, “Obama learned his lesson well. I am proud to see that my father’s model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we his approach his 100th birthday.” Obama
revealed a few years ago that his years training as a community organizer at Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation, “gave him the best education of his life.” He has
quoted Alinsky in speeches.
Four Americans died during the Benghazi attacks, and it is now coming out that the White House knew the embassy needed more security, and knew terrorists were targeting it, but did nothing. Three whistleblowers have come forward, in spite of being threatened with demotions, to tell Congress that the administration knew at the time of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's public comments that the Benghazi terrorist attack was connected to terrorists, and they in fact deleted out those references in her talking points, revising them 12 times. One of the whistleblowers, Gregory Hicks, who was the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya during 2012, is a Democrat, not exactly someone who has anything to gain for partisan reasons.
A second scandal is the revelation that the IRS
targeted conservative groups with "Tea Party," "patriot," “We the People,” or “Take Back the Country” in their names, and "nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution.” Pro-life organizations and generous contributors to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign were also
targeted. 75 applications for 501(c)(4) status, almost all from conservative and tea party groups, were set aside for detailed review and required to provide unusual information, like donor lists. Conservative writer Peggy Noonan
notes some of the overreaching, prying questions that were asked: What are you thinking about? Did you ever think of running for office? Do you ever contact political figures? What are you reading? One Tea Party organization responded by sending the IRS a copy of the U.S. Constitution.
Those targeted included
James Dobson, the well-known Christian author and radio host who has been vocal in his criticism of Obama. Billy Graham, the world-renowned evangelist who is now 94 years old, was audited after he endorsed Mitt Romney. On top of that, the IRS
released confidential information about the conservative groups to the George Soros funded liberal media outlet ProPublica.
The head of the IRS division that targeted conservative groups, Sarah Hall Ingram,
received more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012, most of it during the time her office was targeting conservatives.
Although Obama has denounced the IRS targeting, forcing the resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller and a top deputy six days after the scandal broke, it is hard to believe that he was not involved with it. Obama believes Saul Alinsky tactics are brilliant. If you think that Obama was not involved with the targeting of conservative groups, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.
The third scandal that has arisen is the discovery that the Justice Department conducted a broad search of telephone records from the Associated Press, in search of a government employee who leaked information to the press about the CIA’s disruption of a Yemen-based terrorism plot. Unlike previous Justice Department policy, the government did not bother giving the press a chance to negotiate or dispute the subpoenas in advance.
Attorney General Eric Holder insisted that it was one of the most serious leaks he had ever seen, and that is why regular procedures were not followed. But it is coming out that the investigation was done in response to Republicans accusing the administration of purposely leaking defense information to the press in order to make Obama look better, and it was the seventh time the administration had undergone an investigation like this. Even the liberal Washington Post
editorialized that this was six investigations too many, especially considering the cost. The Justice Department essentially disregarded the First Amendment in order to fight with Republicans, not due to a security threat.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) calls the IRS problem worse than Watergate. Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan
believes it is the biggest scandal since Watergate. Sen. James Inhofe is suggesting impeachment. Mike Huckabee is predicting Obama may not serve out his full term. The mainstream liberal media is actually upset about two of the scandals. The Washington Post
editorialized that Benghazi is nothing, whereas the other two scandals are serious.
Republicans must be careful how they go about investigating the scandals, or it could backfire on them. Political columnist Chris Adamo
warns, “Americans should remember how successfully Hillary Clinton was able to generate a 'scandal overload' and by constantly changing the subject, managed to protect the thoroughly compromised administration of her husband, Bill Clinton, from any repercussions for his malfeasance and innumerable violations of the law.”
Washington Times columnist Eric Golub advises Republicans not to try and impeach Obama. He
warns, “The left needed and tolerated the Clintons, but they worship Barack Obama...As a supporter of the 1998 impeachment and a believer in the rule of law, there comes a time to admit that many leftists are above the law.” Golub believes that eventually the American public will become tired of Obama, similar to “Clinton fatigue,” which ruined Al Gore's chances of winning the presidency.
Conservative-leaning reporter Major Garrett, who left Fox News for CBS, provides this candid analysis, "The White House believes its greatest ally in all these scandals are Republicans that overreach and they will try to exploit that to the maximum whenever they can."
How serious are the scandals, is Obama really complicit in some of the most corrupt actions ever undertaken by a president? Look at one of the tactics recommended by his mentor Saul Alinsky. Alinsky describes in Rules for Radicals how he organized a union protest on July 14th. After the organizers had chosen the date – selected because it was the one day the labor unions had no scheduled meetings – Alinsky was asked by a reporter if they had picked that date because it was Bastille Day. Caught by surprise, but realizing he had lucked into a windfall, Alinsky answered, "Not at all. It is fitting that we do so and that's why we did it." He then informed all the speakers to mention Bastille Day in their speeches. Alinsky proudly provides this to the world as an example of justifying lying in order to achieve your means.
We now have pretty overwhelming evidence that Obama is part of serious wrongdoing. But will he ever be held accountable, or have Alinsky's methods become the law?
When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you —
you know your nation is doomed. ~ Ayn Rand'Holder the Corrupt' OK'd Search Warrant for FOX Reporter James Rosen's Private Emails
By Michael Isikoff -- Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.
The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists.
"I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable," Obama said. "Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs."
Rosen, who has not been charged in the case, was nonetheless the target of a search warrant that enabled Justice Department investigators to secretly seize his private emails after an FBI agent said he had "asked, solicited and encouraged … (a source) to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information."
Obama's comments follow a firestorm of criticism that has erupted over disclosures that in separate investigations of leaks of classified information, the Justice Department had obtained private emails that Rosen exchanged with a source and the phone records of Associated Press reporters.
Continued >>BREAKING: DOJ Confirms 'Holder the Corrupt' Personally "Vetted" James Rosen WarrantBy Guy Benson -- A damaging Friday news dump before a holiday weekend? Who could have seen
that coming? Dump away,
Justice Department:
Fox News reporter whose report on North Korea prompted a leak
investigation. In a statement emailed to Reuters, the department said the search warrant for the reporter's email account followed all laws and policies and won the independent approval of a federal magistrate judge.
We're apparently supposed to feel better about everything because the DOJ "followed all laws and policies" and secured their warrant from a judge. That would be the same warrant that designated journalist James Rosen as a potential "criminal co-conspirator" in order to keep it secret. Details about the breadth of the investigation continue to emerge. Via The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza, another
eye-opening scoop:
The Obama Administration fought to keep a search warrant for James Rosen’s private e-mail account secret, arguing to a federal judge that
the government might need to monitor the account for a lengthy period of time... Continued >>Obama Orders 'Holder the Corrupt' to Investigate 'Holder the Corrupt' Regarding LeaksBy Jonathan Karl -- President Obama is a little uneasy with the way journalists have been dragged into the Justice Department’s aggressive pursuit of national security leak investigations. In fact, he has ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a 45-day review of the department’s guidelines on the issue.
That bit of news was buried in the middle of the president’s hourlong speech today at National Defense University.
“Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs,” President Obama said. “Our focus must be on those who break the law.”
And then the news:
“I have raised these issues with the attorney general, who shares my concern. So he has agreed to review existing Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters, and will convene a group of media organizations to hear their concerns as part of that review. And I have directed the attorney general to report back to me by July 12th.”
Continued >>Benghazi Investigation Deepens: Lawmakers Seek Interviews of 13 Officials Involved
By Stephen F. Hayes -- As the investigation into the Obama administration’s handling of the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi intensifies, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are seeking to conduct transcribed interviews with thirteen top State Department officials in the coming weeks in order to learn more.
Those named in the letter include a wide range of current and former State Department personnel, from senior advisers to Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton to mid-level career officials with responsibility for diplomatic security.
Among those officials: Jacob Sullivan, then deputy chief of staff and director of policy planning (and currently national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden);
Victoria Nuland, then State Department spokesman;
Raymond Maxwell, deputy assistant secretary of state for near east affairs;
Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management; and
Eric Boswell, former assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security.
In a letter dated May 17, 2013, Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry to request formally that Kerry make these current and former State Department employees available.
Continued >>CBS' Intrepid Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Says Her Computers Have Been Compromised
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 said on 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 intrustion, "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 Justice Dept. investigation after reporting on CIA intelligence about North Korea in 2009.On Sunday,
The Washington Post reported that the Justice Dept. had searched Rosen's personal e-mails and tracked his visits to the State Dept. The court affadavit described Rosen as “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator" of his government source, presumably because he had solicited classified information from that source -- an argument that has been heavily criticized by other journalists.
Attkisson told WPHT that irregular activity on her computer was first identified in Feb. 2011, when she was reporting on the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal and on the Obama administration's green energy spending, which she said "the administration was very sensitive about."
Attkisson has also been a persistent investigator of the events surrounding last year's attack in Benghazi, and its aftermath.UPDATE: The Justice Dept.
now tells POLITICO that it is not responsible for the irregular activity: “To our knowledge, the Justice Department has never ‘compromised’ Ms. Atkisson’s computers, or otherwise sought any information from or concerning any telephone, computer, or other media device she may own or use," Dean Boyd, a Justice Dept. spokesperson, told POLITICO on Tuesday night.
Obama's Top Witch Lois Lerner Invokes Fifth Amendment Regarding Tea Party Intimidation
“I have not done anything wrong,” she said. “I have not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS laws or regulations and I have not given any false information to this or any other committee.”Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) was applauded at a congressional hearing Wednesday, after he objected to Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner pleading the Fifth Amendment and refusing to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
After invoking her right to avoid self-incrimination, Lerner, the head of the tax-exempt division of the IRS, was dismissed from the hearing, which is examining the agency’s inappropriate targeting of conservative groups.
After giving a brief
opening statement -- in which she said she did nothing wrong -- then refusing to answer any questions, Lerner was dismissed by Committee Chairman Darryl Issa (R-Calif.), who said he had “no choice” but to respect her constitutional right. Gowdy objected.
Documents Confirm: The Lovely Lois Lerner Directly Participated In Persecution of Tea Party Groups
By Guy Benson -- Not to fear, America — she's been placed on "
administrative leave," a terribly severe form of discipline that's effectively
tantamount to paid vacation. At this week's House Oversight Committee hearing, Lerner (
sort of) invoked her fifth amendment rights and refused to answer any questions.
She claimed she's done "nothing wrong," which explains why she's reportedly
refusing to resign. Question, though: Might Lerner be a relatively innocent patsy in all of this (a la the
Benghazi scapegoat)? Er, probably not, via
National Review:
A series of letters suggests that senior IRS official Lois Lerner was directly involved in the agency’s targeting of conservative groups as recently as April 2012, more than nine months after she first learned of the activity.Lerner, the director of the IRS exempt organizations office in Washington, D.C., signed cover letters to
15 conservative organizations currently represented by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) between in March and April of 2012.
Continued >>BOMBSHELL: Lois Lerner Sued Christian Coalition In Largest FEC Action in History — Then Was Promoted to IRS Where She Targeted ConservativesUnder the direction of Lois Lerner, the Federal Election Commission
sued the Christian Coalition in the 1990s. She harassed the Christian Coalition for three election cycles. She lost her case. Lerner even asked one conservative during the case if Pat Robertson prayed over him. (Sound
familiar?)
These actions landed her at the IRS where she used the same tactics against conservatives and Christians – only on a much larger scale.
500 conservative and Christian groups were illegally targeted by the Obama IRS during her tenure. For
twenty-seven months the Obama IRS refused to approve any Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status. At the same time the Obama IRS approved dozens of progressive applications.
●
More on Lerner's History of Harassment from the Weekly StandardBy Mark Hemingway -- 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. Shortly after the scandal broke, The Daily Beast published an article headlined
"IRS Scandal’s Central Figure, Lois Lerner, Described as ‘Apolitical.'" Insisting Lerner, and the IRS more broadly, were not not politically motivated has been a central contention of those trying to minimize the impact of the scandal.
The trouble with this defense is that, prior to joining the IRS, 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.
Lerner was appointed head of the FEC's enforcement division in 1986 and stayed in that position until 2001. In the late 1990s, the FEC launched an onerous investigation of the Christian Coalition, ultimately costing the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours in lost work. The investigation was notable because the FEC alleged that the Christian Coalition was coordinating issue advocacy expenditures with a number of candidates for office. Aside from lacking proof this was happening, it was an open question whether the FEC had the authority to bring these charges.
James Bopp Jr., who was lead counsel for the Christian Coalition at the time, tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD the Christian Coalition investigation was egregious and uncalled for. "We felt we were being singled out, because when you handle a case with 81 depositions you have a pretty good argument you're getting special treatment. Eighty-one depositions! Eighty-one! From Ralph Reed's former part-time secretary to George H.W. Bush. It was mind blowing," he said.
Continued >>Lois Lerner’s Admission of IRS’s Inappropriate Behavior Was Pre-Planned Public DisclosureLast week,
Lois Lerner, head of the tax exempt division of the Internal Revenue Service dropped a bombshell: The IRS had been applying extra scrutiny to conservative groups claiming tax exempt status.
The revelation came seemingly out of the blue, in response to a question during a panel at an American Bar Association conference, leaving the audience baffled, according to reports.
As it turns out, it was not a spontaneous revelation. The question, said outgoing IRS Commissioner
Steven Miller in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee Friday, was planted, as part of a prepared strategy for the IRS to release this information to the public.
Under questioning from Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, Miller said it was a “prepared Q and A,” and the question, which came from tax lawyer Celia Roady had been discussed in advance as well.
Later, Miller, questioned by Rep. Peter Roskam, explained that the disclosure had been made to coincide with the conclusion of the inspector general’s report.
Continued >>Broader Harassment: IRS Sought to Impose Gift Tax on Conservative "Freedom Watch" DonationsBy Carol Platt Liebau -- As this post from yesterday pointed out, it's hardly news to those who read the IRS IG report that Americans were targeted by the IRS -- not just based on membership in the "Tea Party" or "9/12" -- but based on their political sympathies generally. Last night, the
Wall Street Journal reported on another example of this phenomenon. Apparently, an
IRS probe of "Freedom Watch" began in (surprise!) the unit headed by Lois Lerner (still enjoying a full-pay and full-benefits vacation, courtesy of the taxpayers she harassed). According to the WSJ: In February 2010, the same month the tea-party targeting
Continued >>The Devil in Charge During the Tea Party Targeting Now Runs IRS' Obamacare Nightmare
ABC News is reporting that the woman who was the head of the tax-exempt organizations division of the IRS during the time conservative groups were targeted is now director of the IRS' ObamaCare office. You can't make this stuff up.
So who is
Sarah Hall Ingram? Well, she was appointed as Commissioner of the Tax-Exempt and Government Entitles Division of the IRS in 2009. Before that, she was the deputy commissioner, and before that, she was Division Counsel/Associate Chief Counsel for that division. She began her career with the IRS in 1982, in the Tax Litigation Division.
Continued >> ●
UPDATE: IRS Tax Exemption/Obamacare Exec Got $103,390 in Bonuses; Did Obama OK Them? -- Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012.
Stolen Election: Obama Regime Knew and Hid IRS Scandal 5 Months Before Election
Activating Their Voter Fraud Operation Probably Wasn't NeededIn no uncertain terms and with no hedging, The New York Times
reports that the Obama administration was aware of the fact that the IRS was targeting Tea Party groups as far back as June of 2012. The Treasury Department's Inspector General confirmed that he told senior Treasury officials in June of 2012, a full five months before Election Day:
The Treasury Department’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s screening of politically active organizations seeking tax exemptions, disclosing for the first time on Friday that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.
We still don’t know for sure what the President knew or when he knew it, but this does confirm that the administration was aware of the fact that Obama's political enemies were under fire by the IRS and covered that fact up during an election year.
As Lisa Meyers of NBC News
told "Morning Joe" today, "Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."
The first time President Obama was asked when he found out about the IRS scandal, he told the media that he learned of the news last Friday, the same way the rest of us did -- from the news media.
Continued >>All the President’s Concealers Tainted the 2012 Election . . . Ya Think Election Should Be Voided!By William A. Jacobson -- With each passing hour, it becomes more and more clear that the truth was concealed from the American public prior to the election about two major Obama administration scandals.
Benghazi was very much in the news prior to the election. The concealment went to the culpability of the Obama administration in failing to heed warnings about security at the Benghazi consulate, the nature of the pre-planned al-Qaeda attack, the scrubbing of the talking points used by Susan Rice, the failure to go to the aid of Americans in trouble, and the claim that the attack was a result of a YouTube video.
That concealment, which now has been
exposed in part (much information still has not been released), helped Obama out on an issue which was very much a part of the campaign, and allowed Obama to rebound in the second and third presidential debates after a disastrous first debate put the election outcome in doubt.
The Benghazi concealment allowed the media and the Obama campaign to get away with distractions such as whether Mitt Romney should have issued a press statement, and whether Obama’s generalized non-specific use of the term “
acts of terror” constituted an admission that the Benghazi attack was terrorism. These distractions, rather than the administration’s defalcation of duty, worked to Obama’s great advantage.
The other concealment went to an even more explosive issue, the
deliberate and concerted targeting by the IRS of Tea Party and conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, and
leaks of information about conservative groups.
The stories now are legion, and growing, of IRS stall tactics and inappropriate delving into religious and political beliefs, and the identification of persons with whom the groups interacted. No such targeting took place as to liberal and progressive groups. This targeting was known to senior IRS officials long before the election, but was kept quiet in a variety of ways (including denying such documents existed in response to a
FOIA request) until after the election.
That the IRS sought to break the scandal through a
planted question and answer at a Bar Association event speaks volumes to the consciousness of guilt.
The IRS targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups not only advantaged supporters of Obama, it kept out of the public domain a very potent issue which would have driven a massive anti-Obama turnout among Tea Party and conservative voters generally unenthused about Mitt Romney.
In each of these concealments, it appears that the dirty work was done by agencies
under the control of the Obama administration.
The Next Shoe? Did Holder Justice Department Also Tap House of Representatives Cloak Room Phones?
That’s the revelation made by
California Congressman Devin Nunes, who sits on the House Ways And Means Committee on Hugh Hewitt’s Show Wednesday night. Here’s the key part of that transcript:
Hugh Hewitt: The idea that this might be a Geithner-Axelrod plan, and by that, the sort of intimation, Henry II style, will no one rid me of this turbulent priest, will no one rid me of these turbulent Tea Parties, that might have just been a hint, a shift of an eyebrow, a change in the tone of voice. That’s going to take a long time to get to. I don’t trust the Department of Justice on this. Do you, Congressman Nunes?
Devin Nunes: No, I absolutely do not,
especially after this wiretapping incident, essentially, of the House of Representative. I don’t think people are focusing on the right thing when they talk about going after the AP reporters. The big problem that I see is that they actually tapped right where I’m sitting right now, the Cloak Room. Continued >>Benghazi ‘Hand-Selected’ Emails Directly Contradict White House Claims as Expected
By Stephen F. Hayes -- The documents, first reported by THE WEEKLY STANDARD in articles
here and
here, directly contradict claims by White House press secretary Jay Carney and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the revisions of those talking points were driven by the intelligence community and show heavy input from top Obama administration officials, particularly those at the State Department.
The emails provide further detail about the rewriting of the talking points during a 24-hour period from midday September 14 to midday September 15. As THE WEEKLY STANDARD previously reported, a briefing from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shows that the big changes came in three waves – internally at the CIA, after email feedback from top administration officials, and during or after a meeting of high-ranking intelligence and national security officials the following morning.
Continued >>George Soros Gave $6.1 Million to Groups Pressuring IRS to Target Conservative Nonprofits
Hungarian Puppet Master George Soros (aka Schwartz György)With Soros funding, anything is possible. The growing scandal where the IRS unfairly targeted politically-conservative groups can be traced back to a lobbying effort begun by George Soros-funded liberal groups in 2010, after the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.
The talking points of these groups then bounced around a carefully created progressive "echo chamber," until they eventually made their way into established media outlets. Key IRS policy changes about how it investigated conservative groups took place soon after it received three separate letters sent by Soros-funded liberal organizations.
Several Soros-funded groups including the Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, the Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones and Alternet have worked to pressure the IRS to target conservative nonprofit groups. The subsequent IRS investigation flagged more than 100 tea party-related applications for higher scrutiny, including applications that included the words "Tea Party" and "patriot."
Continued >>Leftist ProPublica Group Received Confidential Docs From IRS 'Democrat Activists'The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica
says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt status was pending.
The commendable admission lends further evidence to the lengths the IRS went during an election cycle to silence tea party and limited government voices.
ProPublica says the documents the IRS gave them were “not supposed to be made public”:
The same IRS office that deliberately
targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica
late last year... In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made
six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)
The group says that "no unapproved applications from liberal groups were sent to ProPublica.”
According to Media Research Center Vice President for Business and Culture Dan Gainor, ProPublica’s financial backers
include top progressive donors:
ProPublica, which recently won its second Pulitzer Prize, initially was given millions of dollars from the Sandler Foundation to “strengthen the progressive infrastructure”–“progressive” being the code word for very liberal. In 2010, it also received a two-year contribution of $125,000 each year from the Open Society Foundations. In case you wonder where that money comes from, the OSF website is www.soros.org. It is a network of more than 30 international foundations, mostly funded by Soros, who has contributed more than $8 billion to those efforts.
On Friday, the House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to hold a formal hearing on the IRS conservative targeting scandal. IRS Commissioner Steve Miller and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George are slated to testify.
●
UPDATE: Here’s the Much-Anticipated IG Report on the IRS’ Political Targeting -- “Ineffective management” is to blame for the Internal Revenue Services’ political targeting of conservative groups, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s year-long investigation into the matter. The TIGTA report found that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” to scrutinize conservative groups and allowed said criteria to remain in place for at least 18 months.
●
UPDATE: Watchdog Report Describes Massive Delays as IRS Slow-Walked Tea Party Groups -- A newly obtained watchdog report described how the "inappropriate" IRS program that flagged conservative groups for extra scrutiny led to massive delays, with some organizations stuck waiting years to find out about their applications. The findings were contained in a highly anticipated and highly critical inspector general's report.
Government Obtains Wide AP Phone Records in ProbeWASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.
In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.
ContinuedAP CEO's Gary Pruitt Letter to Eric HolderMay 13, 2013
Attorney General Eric Holder
Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Dear General Holder:
I am writing to object in the strongest possible terms to a massive and unprecedented intrusion by the Department of Justice into the newsgathering activities of The Associated Press.Last Friday afternoon, AP General Counsel Laura Malone received a letter from the office of United States Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. advising that, at some unidentified time earlier this year, the Department obtained telephone toll records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to the AP and its journalists.
The records that were secretly obtained cover a full two-month period in early 2012 and, at least as described in Mr. Machen’s letter, include all such records for, among other phone lines, an AP general phone number in New York City as well as AP bureaus in New York City, Washington, D.C., Hartford, Connecticut, and at the House of Representatives. This action was taken without advance notice to AP or to any of the affected journalists, and even after the fact no notice has been sent to individual journalists whose home phones and cell phone records were seized by the Department.
There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.
That the Department undertook this unprecedented step without providing any notice to the AP, and without taking any steps to narrow the scope of its subpoenas to matters actually relevant to an ongoing investigation, is particularly troubling.
The sheer volume of records obtained, most of which can have no plausible connection to any ongoing investigation, indicates, at a minimum, that this effort did not comply with 28 C.F.R. §50.10 and should therefore never have been undertaken in the first place. The regulations require that, in all cases and without exception, a subpoena for a reporter’s telephone toll records must be "as narrowly drawn as possible.’’ This plainly did not happen.
We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news. While we evaluate our options we urgently request that you immediately return to the AP the telephone toll records that the Department subpoenaed and destroy all copies. At a minimum, we request that you take steps to segregate these records and prohibit any reference to them pending further discussion and, if it proves necessary, guidance from appropriate judicial authorities. We also ask for an immediate explanation as to why this extraordinary action was taken, and a description of the steps the Department will take to mitigate its impact on AP and its reporters.
Given the gravity of this situation, I look forward to your prompt response.Sincerely,
Gary Pruitt
IRS-THUGGERY-GATE Grows!
Wider Problems Found at IRS — Targeted Conservative Groups That Opposed Obama's Tyranny
WALL STREET JOURNAL -- The Internal Revenue Service's scrutiny of conservative groups went beyond those with
"tea party" or "patriot" in their names — as the agency admitted Friday — to also include ones
worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and even ones that lobbied to "make America a better place to live," according to new details of a government probe.
The investigation also revealed that a high-ranking IRS official knew as early as mid-2011 that conservative groups were being inappropriately targeted—nearly a year before
then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told a congressional committee the agency wasn't targeting conservative groups.
Tax-exempt groups organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code are allowed to engage in some political activity, but the primary focus of their efforts must remain promoting social welfare.
Previously: ●
IRS Apologizes for Scrutiny of Conservative Groups ●
IRS Apologizes for Improper Scrutiny of GOP GroupsThe new disclosures are likely to inflame a widening controversy over IRS handling of dozens of applications by tea-party, patriot and other conservative groups for tax-exempt status.
The details emerged from disclosures to congressional investigators by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The findings, which were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, don't make clear who came up with the idea to give extra scrutiny to the conservative groups.
The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax exempt status. John McKinnon reports on the News Hub.
The inspector general's office has been conducting an audit of the IRS's handling of the applications process and is expected to release a report this week. The audit follows complaints last year by numerous tea-party and other conservative groups that they had been singled out and subjected to excessive and inappropriate questioning. Many groups say they were asked for lists of their donors and other sensitive information.
On Sunday, a government official said the report will note that IRS officials told investigators that no one outside the IRS was involved in developing the criteria the agency now acknowledges were flawed.
On Friday,
Lois Lerner, head of the IRS tax-exempt-organizations division, said the agency was "apologetic" for what she termed "absolutely inappropriate" actions by lower-level workers. She said those workers had selected some conservative groups for extra scrutiny to determine whether their applications should be approved. She said they had picked groups for extra scrutiny according to whether they had "tea party" or "patriot" in their names, among other criteria.
Ms. Lerner came to the IRS in 2001 from the Federal Election Commission, and assumed her current position in 2006. IRS officials said Sunday that Ms. Lerner wasn't available for comment, and she didn't respond to an emailed request.
GOP lawmakers stepped up their criticism on Sunday. "The bottom line is [IRS officials] used key words to go after conservatives," Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "There has to be accountability for the people who did it. And, quite frankly…there's got to be accountability for people who were telling lies about it being done."
Some Democrats also voiced criticism. "I'm concerned about that," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), also on NBC. "Somebody made the decision that they would give extra scrutiny to this particular group. And I think we have to understand why."
The IRS said over the weekend it is in the process of independently confirming the dates mentioned on the timeline of events contained in the inspector general report, "but we believe the [inspector general's] timeline is correct." The IRS said the report supports its view that its missteps weren't politically motivated and were limited to lower-level workers.
The IRS also said the report reflects that "IRS senior leadership was not aware of this level of specific details" at the time of a March 2012 hearing where Mr. Shulman denied any targeting of conservative groups. Mr. Shulman, who no longer works for the IRS, declined to comment.
The new details suggest that agency workers were examining statements in applications for tax-exempt status to determine whether groups had political leanings.
Tax-exempt social-welfare groups organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code are allowed to engage in some political activity, but the primary focus of their efforts must remain promoting social welfare. That social-welfare activity can include lobbying and advocating for issues and legislation, but not outright political-campaign activity. But some of the rules leave room for IRS officials to make judgment calls and probe individual groups for further information.
Organizing as such a group is desirable, not just because such entities typically don't have to pay taxes, but also because they generally don't have to identify their donors.
IRS officials said last week that the focused review of conservative groups was initiated by lower-level civil servants in the IRS Cincinnati office, not by political appointees in Washington, and that it wasn't politically motivated. They say it stemmed from a misguided effort to centralize review of a growing number of applications for tax-exempt 501(c)(4) status.
But questions continued to swirl about the failure of IRS officials to disclose the problems until the inspector general's report was about to become public.
The timeline contained in the draft report indicates that IRS scrutiny of tea-party and other conservative groups began as early as 2010 and came to the attention of Ms. Lerner, the head of the tax-exempt-organizations division, at least by the following year.
The report's timeline indicates that the criteria were changed to be more neutral in July 2011 after Ms. Lerner "raised concerns." The criteria for heightened scrutiny continued to evolve over the next year or so, even as complaints from tea-party groups—and questions from GOP lawmakers—mounted over IRS inquiries to various groups about their activities.
Letters from Ms. Lerner in April and May 2012 responding to questions by Republican lawmakers made no mention of the problems that had surfaced in the IRS unit.
According to the draft report, on April 24 and 25 of last year, officials in Ms. Lerner's office were reviewing "troubling questions" that had been asked of organizations, including "the names of donors."
Ms. Lerner's April 26 letter to Mr. Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said that "there are instances where donor information may be needed…such as when the application presents possible issues of…private benefit."
The report indicates that in 2010 and 2011, some IRS workers weren't just singling out groups because their names contained certain words, as IRS officials suggested on Friday, but appeared to be probing for indications of political interests or leanings.
According to the report, by June 2011 some IRS specialists were probing applications using the following criteria: "issues include government spending, government debt or taxes; education of the public by advocacy/lobbying to 'make America a better place to live'; statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run."
IRS Watchdog: Senior IRS Officials Knew in 2011 Tea Parties' Tax-Exempt Status Being TargetedThis is getting real. Yesterday it was just some “low level” employees involved. Now AP is reporting that senior IRS officials were aware of the targeting, via AP,
IRS watchdog: Senior IRS officials knew in 2011 tea parties’ tax-exempt status being targeted (h/t
@GabrielMalor):
WASHINGTON (AP) — IRS watchdog: Senior IRS officials knew in 2011 tea parties’ tax-exempt status being targeted.
(added) AP has
expanded its report now (h/t reader):
A federal watchdog’s upcoming report says senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups in 2011.
The disclosure contradicts public statements by former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who repeatedly assured Congress that conservative groups were not targeted.
On Friday, the IRS apologized for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if those groups were violating their tax-exempt status.
The Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration is expected to release the results of a nearly yearlong investigation in the coming week.
The Associated Press obtained part of the draft report.
That report says the head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups learned that groups were being targeted in June 2011. It does not say whether Shulman was notified.
Remember, you’re not paranoid, they really do hate you. At the highest levels.
As IRS admits it targeted Tea Party groups, remember IRS is Obamacare enforcer.
Hey, low-level IRS workers in Cincinnati, way to validate right-wing conspiracy theories for the rest of the century!
bigstory.ap.org/article/irs-ap…— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner)
May 10, 2013UPDATE: The AP story is
ever-expanding in its detail. H/t
Ed Morrissey on this part:
Among the other revelations, on Aug. 4, 2011, staffers in the IRS’ Rulings and Agreements office “held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue.”
On Jan, 25, 2012, the criteria for flagging suspect groups was changed to, “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement,” the report says.
Got that? The Chief Counsel knew, and in an election year the targeting expanded to groups educating people on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The Democrats and media demonized the Tea Party and Homeland Security painted smaller government groups as potential threats, and guess who gets targeted by the IRS.
IRS anti-Tea Party scandal gets real — senior IRS officials aware of targeting (Update – Chief Counsel knew and targets expanded to groups “educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights”)
ABC, CBS and CNN Top Executives All Have Siblings or Spouses Working at the White House
There's Entirely Too Damn Much 'Incestual Bodily Fluids Being Shared' in Cesspool CityCBS News President
David Rhodes and ABC News President
Ben Sherwood, both of them have siblings that not only work at the White House, that not only work for President Obama, but they work at the NSC on foreign policy issues directly related to Benghazi."
So stated political consultant and media commentator Richard Grenell on Saturday's Fox News Watch (video follows with transcript and commentary):
RICHARD GRENELL: I think the media's becoming the story, let's face it. CBS News President David Rhodes and ABC News President Ben Sherwood, both of them have siblings that not only work at the White House, that not only work for President Obama, but they work at the NSC on foreign policy issues directly related to Benghazi. Let's call a spade a spade.
Let's also show you why CNN did not go very far in covering these hearings because the CNN deputy bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is married to Hillary Clinton’s deputy, Tom Nides. It is time for the media to start asking questions why are they not covering this. It's a family matter for some of them.
JON SCOTT, HOST: So they don't want to bring embarrassment upon folks who, who they're close to?
GRENELL: Who directly are related to this story. Absolutely. They're covering for them. There's no question about it.
For the record, Ben Sherwood's sister,
Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall,
is the Special Assistant to Barack Obama.
Virginia Moseley's husband,
Tom Nides,
is the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources.
As for David Rhodes'
brother Ben Rhodes, he
is Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication.
He has a Masters of Fine Arts in fiction writing from NYU.
(LINK)He is President Obama’s deputy national security adviser
He was instrumental in fictionalizing the Benghazi talking points
He is brother of CBS News President David Rhodes (who's silencing reporting on Benghazi)
He helped write the 9/11 Commission Report.
(LINK)He is husband of
Ann Norris, senior foreign policy and defense adviser to
Sen. Barbara Boxer (who in Oct 2012, slammed Congressman Issa for Releasing Unclassified Benghazi Docs exposing the truth on Benghazi).
(LINK)As ABCNews.com
reported Friday, Rhodes was a key player in revising the White House's Benghazi talking points last September:
In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. — three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows – Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department’s concerns needed to be addressed.
“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”
After that meeting, which took place Saturday morning at the White House, the CIA drafted the final version of the talking points – deleting all references to al Qaeda and to the security warnings in Benghazi prior to the attack.
Consider, too, that CBS News executives possibly including Rhodes have allegedly
come down on their own investigative reporter
Sharyl Attkisson for "wading dangerously close to advocacy on" Benghazi.
If Attkisson gets the boot, it could very well be with a foot attached to the brother of an Obama administration official directly involved in the cover-up.
A family matter indeed.
●
UPDATE: Sharyl Attkisson in Talks to Leave CBS -- Sharyl Attkisson, the Emmy award-winning investigative reporter, is in talks to leave CBS News ahead of contract, POLITICO has learned. Sources familiar with the situation cite disputes between Attkisson and network executives, including CBS Evening News executive producer
Patricia Shevlin, as the cause for the talks.
●
Report: Tabloid TV Editor To Be Named NBC News President -- The floundering and willfully dishonest enterprise that is NBC News has apparently found its replacement for the disgraced
Steve Capus. According to The New York Times,
Deborah Turness, the current head of Britains tabloid-style ITV News, will become the next president of NBC News and the first woman to run a television news division.
●
NBC Spiked Story ID'ing Benghazi Whistleblower as Obama/Clinton Voter -- Victoria Toensing, attorney for Benghazi whistleblower Gregory Hicks, says Hicks is a Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primaries, and President Obama twice for President. Toensing also said that NBC News "spiked" the story this week, prior to Hicks' dramatic testimony before Congress.
Dinosaur Media Bombshell: Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of Terror Reference
EXCLUSIVE:
ABC News has the evidence that proves beyond any doubt that the Obama Administration lied about its involvement in editing the CIA's talking points surrounding the September 11 attack on our consulate in LibyaBy Jonathan Karl -- When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.
ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she
appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.
White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.
That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking pointsin November.
“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”
Summaries of White House and State Department emails —
some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard — show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points.
State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points:
“The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.”In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned …”
The paragraph was entirely deleted.
Like the final version used by Ambassador Rice on the Sunday shows, the CIA’s first drafts said the attack appeared to have been “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo” but the CIA version went on to say, “That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.” The draft went on to specifically name the al Qaeda-affiliated group named Ansar al-Sharia.
Once again, Nuland objected to naming the terrorist groups because “we don’t want to prejudice the investigation.”
In response, an NSC staffer coordinating the review of the talking points wrote back to Nuland, “The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a couple minor suggestions.”
After the talking points were edited slightly to address Nuland’s concerns, she responded that changes did not go far enough.
“These changes don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my buildings leadership,” Nuland wrote.
In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. — three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows – Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department’s concerns needed to be addressed.
“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”
After that meeting, which took place Saturday morning at the White House, the CIA drafted the final version of the talking points – deleting all references to al Qaeda and to the security warnings in Benghazi prior to the attack.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said none of this contradicts what he said about the talking points because ultimately all versions were actually written and signed-off by the CIA.
“The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points,” Carney said. “The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn’t the substance here.”
UPDATE:A source familiar with the White House emails on the Benghazi talking point revisions say that State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland was raising two concerns about the CIA’s first version of talking points, which were going to be sent to Congress:
(1) The talking points went further than what she was allowed to say about the attack during her state department briefings; and,
(2) she believed the CIA was attempting to exonerate itself at the State Department’s expense by suggesting CIA warnings about the security situation were ignored.
In one email, Nuland asked, why are we suggest Congress “start making assertions to the media [about the al Qaeda connection] that we ourselves are not making because we don’t want to prejudice the investigation?”
One other point: The significant edits – deleting references to al Qaeda and the CIA’s warnings – came after a White House meeting on the Saturday before Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday shows. Nuland, a 30-year foreign service veteran who has served under Democratic and Republican Secretaries of State, was not at that meeting and played no direct role in preparing Rice for her interviews.
Emails Reveal a Flurry of Changes to Benghazi Talking PointsBy Sharyl Attkisson -- As House Republicans piece together the events in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, that led to the death of four Americans, the focus has fallen on the talking points the Obama administration used to describe the attack in the days following.
The talking points were revised numerous times before United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice used them on political talk shows on Sept. 16. While the White House says the changes were merely stylistic, the changes suggest administration officials were interested in sparing the State Department from political criticism in the wake of the attack.
CBS News has learned there was a flurry of approximately 100 interagency government emails on Sept. 14 and Sept. 15 regarding the content of the talking points to be released to members of Congress regarding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others in Benghazi. The email list included officials from the White House, State Department, CIA, FBI and others reviewing the talking points..
An early set of talking points was ready for interagency review at 11:15 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 14.:
11:15 a.m. talking points: "....we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."
4:42 p.m. talking points: Changed "attacks in Benghazi" to "demonstrations in Benghazi."
Added: "On 10 September we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the Embassy [in Cairo] and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy." This news that a warning had been given was later removed.
Added: "The Agency [CIA] has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa'ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador's convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks." This news of advance warning of a threat was later removed.
Removed reference to "ties to al Qa'ida" and again changed "attack" to "violent demonstrations."
In a 6:52 p.m. email: John Brennan, then-Deputy National Security Advisor (now head of CIA) asked for removal of "the crowd almost certainly was a mix of individuals from across many sectors of Libya society."
7:39 p.m. email: State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland expressed the most sweeping concerns. "I have serious concerns about all parts highlighted below in arming members of Congress with information to start making assertions to the media that we ourselves are not making because we don't want to prejudice the investigation... Why do we want the Hill to be fingering [al-Qaeda linked] Ansar al-Sharia when we aren't doing that ourselves until we have investigation results? And the penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency [CIA] about al-Qaeda's presence and activities of al-Qaeda...[which] could be abused by members of Congress to fault the State Department for not paying attention... so why would we want to cede that, either?"
8:59 p.m. email: A facilitator of the email threads answers Nuland's concerns about "prejudicing the investigation" by stating "The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a couple of minor suggestions." Nonetheless, they remove a paragraph referring to Ansar al-Sharia from the next version.
8:59 p.m. talking points: Changed "we do know" to "there are indications that" Islamic extremists participated in the violent demonstrations."
Removed "Initial press reporting linked the attack to Ansar al-Sharia. The group has since released a statement that its leadership did not order the attacks, but did not deny that some of its members were involved. Ansar al-Sharia's Facebook page aims to spread Sharia in Libya and emphasizes the need for jihad to counter what it views as false interpretations of Islam, according to an open source study.
9:24 p.m. email: Nuland responds: "These don't resolve all of my issues or those of my building leadership. They are consulting with NSS [National Security Staff.]"
9:25 p.m. email: Jake Sullivan, then-Secretary of State Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff (now National Security Advisor for Vice President Biden) tells the group "I spoke with Tommy (Vietor-then-spokesman for the White House National Security Council)... we'll work this through in the morning."
9:32 p.m. email: Sullivan to Nuland: "Talked to Tommy (Vietor). We can make edits."
9:34 p.m. email: Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Adviser to President Obama regarding a federal agency Deputies meeting that's been called the next morning to discuss the talking points: "...we don't want to undermine the investigation...we want to address every department's equities including the State Department, so we'll deal with this at the Deputies meeting."
The CIA's legislative affairs representatives loops in then-CIA chief David Petraeus, notifying him of "major coordination problems... State has major concerns... the Bureau [FBI] cleared the points but [Ben] Rhodes said they will be reviewed in the Deputies meeting."
What We Learned This Week in a Nutshell:
5 Key Points from Benghazigate Hearing
(1) Two "stand-down" orders were given while the Benghazi attacks were in progress.
(2) The "protest" about a YouTube video was a complete fabrication by the Obama administration.
(3) Cheryl Mills, Clinton's lawyer at the State Department, told witnesses not to speak to House investigators.
(4) The diplomatic personnel on the ground acted with incredible, unheralded heroism.
(5) Democrats came to rebut the eyewitnesses with talking points.
The key question remains unanswered: What did President Barack Obama
do when he learned the consulate was under attack, and why?Text of Testimonies from Three Witnesses:Mr. Gregory Hicks -- (Testimony)
Foreign Service Officer and former Deputy Chief of Mission/Chargé d’Affairs in Libya U.S. Department of State
Mr. Mark Thompson -- (Testimony)
Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism U.S. Department of State
Mr. Eric Nordstrom -- (Testimony)
Diplomatic Security Officer and former Regional Security Officer in Libya U.S. Department of StateBlow-by-Blow: How Obama & Hillary Left Americans to Die (Excellent Summary)By Arnold Ahlert -- Wednesday on Capitol Hill, three impeccable witnesses offered the clearest evidence to date that the Obama administration’s response to Benghazi before, during and after the terrorist attack that claimed the lives of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, State Department employee Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen A. Doherty and Tyrone S. Woods, was a deadly combination of ineptitude, political calculations, and outright lying.
Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant Secretary of State for counterterrorism; Greg Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya; and Eric Nordstrom, former regional security officer in Libya, offered unshakeable testimony, despite efforts by several Democratic lawmakers to protect both the current administration and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, their party’s most viable presidential candidate for 2016. What the witnesses averred reveals a grim web of deceit likely orchestrated by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to cover up the order to ground U.S. rescue teams that could have easily saved our besieged countrymen in Benghazi. Continued >>
By Peter Schiff -- Put simply the program is built on a mountain of false assumptions and is covered by a terrain of unanticipated incentives. Any cleared-eyed observer should conclude that it is perfectly designed to raise the costs of care and wreck the federal budget. However, like just about every other complicated problem that bedevils the nation, the public has become far too caught up in the politics and has ignored the horrific details.
Victoria Brink, Cohen's Lust Interest, No Doubt! ... Lawmaker 'Stunned' To Find Out Bikini Model Isn't Love Child ... Cohen's 'secret daughter' is not his daughter, DNA test reveals ...
Read Grayson Email Here
Mohamed Says: White-Identity 'Devoid of Color' Types Have Problem With 'Black President, Brown Mexicans'
Note: Don't be deceived by Valerie's good looks.
Rep. Brenda Barton
In these two pictures it is easy to see that the signatures on the document come from different sources. The resolution on the Dunham signature (at top) is higher than the resolution of the Sinclair signature (below) which is composed entirely of "big" pixels. 
A very easy comparison illustrating that the latest Obama Birth Certificate is a manipulated forgery.
This photo was taken as Obama prepares for Islamic prayer, shortly after deciding that the White House would not be to observing our National Day of Prayer. 
They are vile propagandists masquerading as unbiased journalists, and to millions of Americans they are considered traitors for aiding and abetting Ǿbämá's Marxist agenda.
controversial "JournoList" e-mail group were activists with ties to the White House and a socialist group closely linked for years to President Obama.
I love Obama, but I ain't no jihadist!
I'm the Twerker-In-Chief and I'll twerk until I get my way!
and I didn't put gum in Peggy's pigtails either!
Detained leader Khairat Al-Shater
Mystery Grows: Michael Hastings Died Prepping Obama Exposé
When will Obama speak out about Chris' murder!?!
Even Though One Was Self-Defense and the Other Was Cold-Blooded Slaughter
Their Target Could Just as Easily Have Been a Raccoon
88 Year-Old Veteran Wounded at Battle of Okinawa Succumbs to Savage Pummeling by Feral Spokane Thugs
One Thug in Custody, Second Arrest Appears Imminent!
National Security Agency. Lawless, corrupt and dangerous to Americans — and it may be too late!
Over Benghazi, Health Care Reform, Immigration and Spying Scandals
Obama Mask Cheap - Starting at $ 9.65 - Get one before they're gone!
MOCKING BUSH: From Phillly.com article in 1994) The big white gate flew open. The bull came out bucking. The rider flopped from side to side and the bullfighters held back, letting the bull make his moves until the rider dropped off. Licciardello crouched in a heavily padded barrel, a human target should the bull decide to charge. The rodeo clown waited near the barrel, holding his big inner tube. A dummy with a George Bush mask stood beside the clown, propped up by a broomstick. (...) The clown T.J. Hawkins rolled out the big inner tube, and the bull lowered his head, shot forward and launched into the tube, sending it bounding down the center of the arena. The crowd cheered. Then the bull saw the George Bush dummy. He tore into it, sending the rubber mask flying halfway across the sand as he turned toward the fence, sending cowboys scrambling up the fence rails, hooking one with his horn and tossing him off the fence.
In a skit titled "Halloween Party," Senator Obama wore an Obama Mask himself. The November 2007 skit was a parody of "Senator Barack Obama stops by the Clintons for a Trick or Treat." He’s racist against himself! Should be fired and banned for life!!
(CNSNews.com) - Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova, who now represents one of the Benghazi whistleblowers, told a Washington radio station Monday that the real scandal in Benghazi is the theft of 400 surface-to-air missiles by some "very ugly people." The Obama administration fears those missiles will be used to shoot down an airplane or blow up one of our embassies, he said.
Valerie Jarrett — the 'Real' Commander in Chief
If justice somehow prevails, here's Hillary in 2016
Greta shows redacted pages that IRS sent the committee
Holder looking good in stripes
On Wednesday, CNN aired a portion of an interview one of the network’s reporters was able to conduct with a man accused of participating in the September 11, 2012, attack on an American diplomatic consulate in Benghazi. The individual accused of participating in that attack was not in hiding and said that American investigators were not looking for him. He does, however, deny his direct involvement in that attack.
By Jake Tapper -- CNN has uncovered exclusive new information about what is allegedly happening at the CIA, in the wake of the deadly Benghazi terror attack.
By Dean Garrison -- The Benghazi attack that resulted in the deaths of 4 Americans was, with almost 100% certainty, a planned prisoner exchange to swap Ambassador Chris Stevens for “The Blind Sheik.” It was, in my opinion, a deal between Barack Obama and Mohamed Morsi that went bad.
Fox News interviewed David Ubben at Walter Reed, showing only his blurred-out face
The journalist who has published a string of reports based on documents from National Security Agency leaker Ed Snowden claims he has evidence that "low-level" analysts have easy access to a database that lets them browse the phone, email and Internet histories of anyone.
Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel
IRS-Gate: From stonewalling Congress to Federal Election Commission collusion to harassment of already-tax-exempt conservative groups, the IRS scandal metastasizes. Someone high-up was clearly giving orders.
House Votes to Continue Collection of Phone Records of All Americans (217-205)
By Declan McCullagh -- The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.
Whitehead: "We're moving into an electronic concentration camp"
Meet the Department of Health and Human Services' "Federal Data Services Hub"
An unconstitutional government is an illegitimate government.
Obama Regime Lied for Nakedly Political Reasons
Fugitive former U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden controls dangerous information that could become the United States' "worst nightmare" if revealed, a journalist familiar with the data said in a newspaper interview.
Reggie Walton, Chief Justice of the FISA Court
Admitted Liar and Former Director of National Intelligence Testified That NSA Doesn't Collect Data on Millions of Americans
The United States bugged European Union offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday, citing NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
IRS Inspector General Russell George
Greg Roseman, Deputy IRS Director
An IRS official effectively waived her right not to testify about the tax agency’s targeting of conservative groups, a Republican-led congressional committee concluded on Friday in a vote that cleared the way for Congress to hold her in contempt.
UPDATE: While on a trip to Finland today, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters that wanted NSA Leaker Edward Snowden is still in the transit area of Moscow's airport, and thus, technically not on Russian soil. He also confirmed that Russian law enforcement will not arrest him or extradite him to the United States, saying he is "a free man," but the sooner he chooses his final destination, the better.
Documents show that discretion as to who is actually targeted lies directly with the NSA's analysts
Republicans Want to Talk to Col. George Bristol About Benghazi
Now what 'specific entity' would have the motive for such a dastardly deed?
Obama's 'Crackdown' Views Leaks as Aiding Enemies of the Regime
Late Friday, the Washington Post revealed that federal prosecutors have charged Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor behind a series of revelations about the agency's intelligence-gathering operations, with espionage.
Holly Paz, cooperating witness
HLN's Vinnie Politan asked: How would Florida State Attorney Angela Corey
White House Lawyer Avril Haines Elevated to CIA Deputy Director Post
By Charlie Spiering -- Edward Snowden, the self-revealed whistle-blower at the National Security Agency, explains that part of the reason he decided to come forward was because President Obama did not roll back the surveillance measures put into place by the Bush Administration.
John Samir Zawahri (Born 06/08/1989)
IRS Agent: 'I won't let Obama throw me under the bus!'
'I love to target Tea Partiers!'
IRS Agent: 'Washington, DC wanted some cases . . . I sent seven'
Ignores Deadline as Scandal Extends Well Beyond the 'Mistakes By a Few Low Level Bureaucrats'!
Susan L. Anderson - Left-Wing Activist with "Public Campaign"
By Rick Moran -- Former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman viisted the White House at least 157 times during the Obama administration, according to logs obtained by the Daily Caller.
South Korea's Ban Ki-moon's two terms will end December 31, 2016 — leaving Obama with 10 months to angle for the SecGen position. And maybe with a little luck or fraud Obama will become the first Supreme Ruler of the New Global Union.
By Rick Jensen -- The cover-up is worse than the crime. The crime is so heinous it requires a cover-up.
Investor´s Business Daily Editorial: Any scandal investigation that expects a "Eureka!" moment, a White House e-mail, or Oval Office smoking gun will be misguided. In fact, the dots are already connected directly to the president.
Bauer is my name — vote fraud is my game!
Don't forget about me, my Wellesley thesis was on Saul. (click for Hillary pic enlargement)
By Michael Isikoff -- Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.
By Stephen F. Hayes -- As the investigation into the Obama administration’s handling of the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi intensifies, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are seeking to conduct transcribed interviews with thirteen top State Department officials in the coming weeks in order to learn more.
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 said on Tuesday. "I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public."
“I have not done anything wrong,” she said. “I have not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS laws or regulations and I have not given any false information to this or any other committee.”
ABC News is reporting that the woman who was the head of the tax-exempt organizations division of the IRS during the time conservative groups were targeted is now director of the IRS' ObamaCare office. You can't make this stuff up.
Activating Their Voter Fraud Operation Probably Wasn't Needed
That’s the revelation made by California Congressman Devin Nunes, who sits on the House Ways And Means Committee on Hugh Hewitt’s Show Wednesday night. Here’s the key part of that transcript:
By Stephen F. Hayes -- The documents, first reported by THE WEEKLY STANDARD in articles here and here, directly contradict claims by White House press secretary Jay Carney and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the revisions of those talking points were driven by the intelligence community and show heavy input from top Obama administration officials, particularly those at the State Department.
Hungarian Puppet Master George Soros (aka Schwartz György)
WALL STREET JOURNAL -- The Internal Revenue Service's scrutiny of conservative groups went beyond those with "tea party" or "patriot" in their names — as the agency admitted Friday — to also include ones worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and even ones that lobbied to "make America a better place to live," according to new details of a government probe.
There's Entirely Too Damn Much 'Incestual Bodily Fluids Being Shared' in Cesspool City
EXCLUSIVE:
The Election's Over, Obama Won, and I'm the Next!
Ben Rhodes and Obama shown crafting routine 'Pack-O-Lies Speech'
(L to R) Azamat Tazhayakov & Dias Kadyrbayev, roommates of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
The third alleged accomplice accused of aiding Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after the Boston bombings has been identified as Robel Phillipos, reports NBC News.
Sis, how many millions will the dinosaur media charge to cover-up this one?
The Jihadi Brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev
By Arnold Ahlert -- Radio talk show host Glenn Beck is continuing to investigate Abdul Rahman Alharbi, the Saudi national initially identified as a “person of interest” in the Boston Marathon bombing atrocity.
What in the Hell Is Michelle Obama Doing Visiting Saudi That Is 'On the Terrorist Watch List'
HOLY CRAP – Saudi student Abdul Rahman Ali Issa Al-Salimi Al-Harbi was injured in the Boston Marathon Bombings.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev — Jihadi's wife/widow
Moments before he was captured by authorities Friday night, this is a surveillance image of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, as he was climbing out of the boat where he had likely been hiding for hours. It appears dummy rounds were used so Tsarnaev would use up his remaining ammo, allowing him to be taken alive.
A woman believed to be the mother of Boston bombing suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev was arrested last year for shoplifting at a Cambridge Lord & Taylor department store, according to a police briefing in the Natick Patch. Here's the June 13, 2012 report from the Natick Police: 7:42 p.m.: Loss prevention from Lord & Taylor called to report they had detained a shoplifter. Zubeidat K. Tsarnaeva, 45, of 410 Norfolk St., Apt. 3, Cambridge, was arrested and charged with larceny over $250. Continued >>
Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19 (Above right)
Watch Unhinged Obama Throw a Tantrum (1:40)
Let me see if I’ve got this right: We now know that NoKo has the capacity to put nuclear warheads on missiles (i.e. start WWIII), but Congress is focused on eliminating infringing, or as Obama says, "placing common-sense limitations on American’s 2nd Amendment rights?" I guess that makes sense.
Obama Has His Mission, but Your Mission Is to Survive, Thrive, and Prosper Despite Obama's Destruction
Cloward & Piven Strategy — Richard Andrew Cloward (1926–2001) and Frances Fox Piven (b. 1932) to bring down “the system,” destroy capitalism, and turn America into a socialist state.
Saul Alinsky (Obama’s mentor) who dedicated his book (Obama’s favorite book) to Lucifer, the devil.
President Barack Obama told Jay-Z he was worried the rapper's controversial trip to Cuba would cost him the White House ... this according to Jay-Z.
Photo similar to this was a requirement at the time
Listen to Full Interview Here: Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Lead Investigator Mike Zullo interview 4-5-2013 by WEBY Radio's Host Carl Gallups (Six 15 min. Segments - Here)
Employers added a disappointing 88,000 jobs in March, confirming fears of a slowdown in payroll growth that economists say could persist for several months. The number of new jobs is less than half what economists had forecast.
UK's The Guardian -- About one in four Americans suspect that President Barack Obama might be the antichrist, more than a third believe that global warming is a hoax and more than half suspect that a secretive global elite is trying to set up a New World Order, according to a poll released on Tuesday.
And No Acknowledgement of the Easter Bunny or White House
135th Annual Egg Roll Celebration
Obama laying a rose on comrade César Chávez's grave in 2012
The Congressional Budget Office is now projecting that the U.S. economy will never achieve full employment during the eight years Barack Obama serves as president.
Satan: "If I had a son, Obama would certainly be the one."
The number of Americans designated as "not in the labor force" in February was 89,304,000, a record high, up from 89,008,000 in January, according to the Department of Labor. This means that the number of Americans not in the labor force increased 296,000 between January and February.The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) labels people who are unemployed and no longer looking for work as “not in the labor force,” including people who have retired on schedule, taken early retirement, or simply given up looking for work.
Twice the pay for half the work — Be rich, be a bureaucrat!
According to the White House, John Brennan was sworn in as CIA Director on a “first draft” of the Constitution including notations from George Washington, dating to 1787.
Picture this circling your man cave
THE SCAR
![[SEE] timeline briefed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WnRf2aGp4Mg/UYafWcaPEuI/AAAAAAAAO2Y/d1fAkTejMI8/s1600/BenghazigateTimelineSpreadsheet780x1448.jpg){kind=link}
