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5/17/2013
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/about-the-authors/
Larry C. Johnson is a former analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, who moved subsequently in 1989 to the U.S. Department of State, where he served four years as the deputy director for transportation security, antiterrorism assistance training, and special operations in the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. He left government service in October 1993 and set up a consulting business. He currently is the co-owner and CEO of BERG Associates, LLC (Business Exposure Reduction Group) and is an expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, and crisis and risk management, and money laundering investigations.
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5/17/2013
Was the White House involved in the IRS's targeting of conservatives? No investigation needed to answer that one. Of course it was.
President Obama and Co. are in full deniability mode, noting that the IRS is an "independent" agency and that they knew nothing about its abuse. The media and Congress are sleuthing for some hint that Mr. Obama picked up the phone and sicced the tax dogs on his enemies.
But that's not how things work in post-Watergate Washington. Mr. Obama didn't need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he'd like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324767004578487332636180800.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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5/17/2013
Lawmakers prepared to grill the ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service as well as an IRS watchdog Friday as they seek to understand officials' motivations for the targeting of conservative groups and the failure to disclose those actions.
The hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee is likely to expand into other issues, including the disclosure of confidential IRS application forms and private tax information last year. Some lawmakers also are interested in finding out whether agency officials were influenced by political motivations, despite prior IRS denials.
Seeking to restore order at the troubled agency and gain a measure of control over the sprawling controversy, President Barack Obama on Thursday named a new acting IRS commissioner, a day after sacking the current one, Steven Miller.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323582904578487071129563856.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
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5/17/2013
President Obama, calling sexual assaults in the armed forces “shameful and disgraceful,” on Thursday backed reforms to limit the authority of commanders to overturn convictions, but he said far more needs to be done.
Pointing to congressional legislation and a review of how other countries handle sexual assaults, the president vowed to “explore every good idea that's out there to fix this problem.”
Obama didn't embrace one of the most contentious proposals, one resisted by the Pentagon — taking away commanders' decision-making authority for deciding when to order courts-martial in sexual misconduct cases.
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/military/article/Military-s-sex-scandals-shameful-4523995.php#ixzz2TYNrZtHB
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5/17/2013
The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.
Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.
Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/irs-official-in-charge-during-tea-party-targeting-now-runs-health-care-office/
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5/17/2013
The scandals roiling Washington over the past two weeks involve troubling government behavior that had been hidden—the IRS targeting of conservative groups and the Justice Department's surveillance of the Associated Press, among others. Largely overlooked amid the histrionics has been a shocker hiding in plain sight. Last week, the Obama administration moved to dramatically undermine students' and faculty rights at colleges across the country.
The new policy was announced in a joint letter from the Education Department and Justice Department to the University of Montana. The May 9 letter addressed the results of a year-long joint investigation by the departments into the school's mishandling of several serious sexual-assault cases. The investigation determined that the university's policies addressing sexual assault failed to comply with Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
But the joint letter, which announced a "resolution agreement" with the university, didn't stop there. It then proceeded to rewrite the federal government's rules about sexual harassment and free speech on campus.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323582904578485041304763554.html
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5/17/2013
A bill that would require Texas legislators to submit to drug tests and pass the results to the State Ethics Commission was voted out of the Senate Committee on State Affairs on Thursday.Senate Bill 612, by state Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr., D-Brownsville, would require state legislators to be tested for drugs the day they take office. The results would be made public only if permission is given by the legislator, and a failed test would result in no consequences.Lucio says his bill is intended to complement two other initiatives in the Legislature this session that would require drug testing among certain populations.
Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2013/05/16/mandatory-drug-tests-legislators-passes-committee/
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5/14/2013
Travis County D.A. Rosemary Lehmberg says she's seeking treatment for her behavior that led to her drunk driving arrest. She says she's leaving day to day office decisions up to her first assistant John Neal. Meanwhile, citizens calling for her to step down rally on the 12th Street Bridge saying just like other occupations, like teachers or truck drivers who can be yanked from their jobs for a D.W.I conviction, Lehmberg should not be allowed to keep her job.
Here is Lehmberg's letter of apology and explanation on her situation:
http://www.newsradioklbj.com/News/Story.aspx?ID=1960575
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5/14/2013
Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea-party-affiliated groups, the documents show.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-denounces-reported-irs-targeting-of-conservative-groups/2013/05/13/a0185644-bbdf-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html
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5/14/2013
In a sweeping and unusual move, the Justice Department secretly obtained two months’ worth of telephone records of journalists working for the Associated Press as part of a year-long investigation into the disclosure of classified information about a failed al-Qaeda plot last year.
The AP’s president said Monday that federal authorities obtained cellular, office and home telephone records of individual reporters and an editor; AP general office numbers in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn.; and the main number for AP reporters covering Congress. He called the Justice Department’s actions a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into newsgathering activities.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/under-sweeping-subpoenas-justice-department-obtained-ap-phone-records-in-leak-investigation/2013/05/13/11d1bb82-bc11-11e2-89c9-3be8095fe767_story.html
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