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Scandal: The Justice Department says Lois Lerner, who used her IRS office to target the Tea Party, didn't waive her Fifth Amendment rights before Congress and won't be prosecuted for contempt over her missing emails. Until former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is called to testify under oath before Congress about her multiple private email accounts on a personal server kept in her Chappaqua, N.Y., home, she won't get a chance to plead the Fifth Amendment as former IRS official Lois Lerner did in May 2013 before the House Oversight Committee regarding her division's targeting of Tea Party groups.

Vice President Joe Biden once told Chinese President Xi Jinping that U.S. leaders only support human rights as a matter of political optics, and that this makes the United States no better than China, according to a new New Yorker profile of Jinping. The New Yorker relates encounters between Biden and Jinping in 2011 and 2012, when both were vice presidents of their respective nations: Biden told me that Xi asked him why the U.S. put “so much emphasis on human rights.” Biden replied to Xi, “No President of the United States could represent the United States were he not...

On top of an $18.9 million Defense Department grant doled out in Sept. 2010, the Institute received $13.6 million from the Department of Education, according to USASpending.gov. In the 2009 federal budget, another $5.8 million was appropriated through the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services. The state of Massachusetts gave the University of Massachusetts $5 million, earmarked for the Institute. As a senator in 2010, current Sec. of State John Kerry waged an unsuccessful attempt to earmark another $28.9 million for the museum ... the $18.9 million Defense Department earmark was “funneled through the Defense...

The stated mission of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute is to teach the general public about how the U.S. Senate works, so it’s fitting that the shrine to the late Massachusetts Democrat is funded, in part, by $38 million in taxpayers’ money. The $78 million combination museum and interactive civics exhibit was formally dedicated by President Obama on Monday. Besides a section honoring Kennedy’s 46-year political career, which ended with his Aug. 25, 2009 death, the Institute will offer a “Senate Immersion Module” which aims to teach visitors how the upper chamber works. (snip) On top of an $18.9 million...

<p>Hillary Clinton isn't accused of doing anything illegal in the Gawker stories. And Blumenthal's advocacy appears to have been pretty tame, consisting of passing on the statements of a third individual who, it was acknowledged openly, worked for Ivanishvili. But the White House, as Gawker notes, had rejected Clinton's efforts to hire Blumenthal in an official capacity. So you have the Secretary of State using an off-books email account to discuss national policy with someone who wasn't a government employee, was known to be disliked by the president's staff, and who might have been violating an actual law by participating in the conversation. That's probably not something Clinton is going to brag about in campaign commercials. It's also exactly the kind of foreign entanglement that critics have warned she is susceptible to—of being unduly influenced by financial connections, via the Clinton Foundation, to foreign interests. Blumenthal is a longtime Clinton-family ally and appears to have described himself as an adviser to the Clinton Foundation on more than one occasion.</p>

"An inspector general called them courageous, but Sen. Harry Reid said Friday that the government whistleblowers who accused him of using political pressure to try to win special treatment for a Las Vegas casino were “a bunch of whiners.” ........[Homeland Security Inspector General John] Roth said the special treatment was brought to his attention by more than 15 whistleblowers — an extraordinary number, in Mr. Roth’s judgment — who believed Mr. Mayorkas was caving to political pressure. “That so many individuals were willing to step forward and tell us what happened is evidence of deep resentment about Mr. Mayorkas‘ actions...

One unfortunate day in the future, America will again have a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. And when that day happens, conservatives had better start digging foxholes, because their worst nightmare will be the majority leader. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, the former hyper-partisan majority leader (and present minority leader) announced yesterday that he will retire at the end of his term in 2017. He named Chuck Schumer, D-New York, as his heir apparent. As a Westerner from a blue state that could flip to red at any time, Reid was forced to take account of libertarian views. Nevada is,...

<p>ST. LOUIS (AP) — Police are searching for three young men after a light rail passenger in St. Louis was attacked after being asked what he thought about the "Mike Brown situation."</p> <p>Officers released details Friday after a passenger who wasn't involved posted video of the attack on social media.</p>

WASHINGTON — Senator Harry Reid, the tough tactician who has led Senate Democrats since 2005, will not seek re-election next year, bringing an end to a three-decade congressional career that culminated with his push of President Obama’s ambitious agenda against fierce Republican resistance. Mr. Reid, 75, who suffered serious eye and facial injuries in a Jan. 1 exercise accident at his Las Vegas home, said he had been contemplating retiring from the Senate for months. He said his decision was not attributable either to the accident or to his demotion to minority leader after Democrats lost the majority in November’s...

Yep. The power of Twitter has been shown time and time again. What sparked that comment this time? Well, this happened:

Texas prosecutor Mike McCrum says the grand jury that indicted former Texas Governor Rick Perry has made two mutually exclusive factual findings. The grand jury, McCrum says, has alternately declared that Perry's public statement threatening to veto a spending bill was 1) An official act; and 2) Not an official act. The significance of this will be described below. First, though, recall that there are two Counts in the indictment against Perry: COUNT ONE: Abuse of Official Capicity. This count alleges that Perry abused the office of Governor by "misusing" government "property" (the veto is the item Perry allegedly misused)...

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) was forced to apologize on Tuesday, after attacking a political opponent for being an "Orthodox Jew" at a radical leftist J Street conference. At the conference, Schakowsky negatively painted Joel Pollak, her opponent in 2010 elections, by highlighting the fact that he is a religious Jew - a choice of words that the crowd responded to by booing Pollak. In her comments, she criticized Pollak for being a "Jewish, Orthodox, Tea Party Republican." The remarks can be seen in the following video, with the specific reference to Pollak starting at 52 seconds in.

Bob Jones III Apologizes For Saying Gays Should Be Stoned By Ed Payne, CNN March 23, 2015 (CNN)Three and a half decades after calling for homosexuals to be stoned, former Bob Jones University President Bob Jones III has apologized. "I take personal ownership of this inflammatory rhetoric," Jones said. "This reckless statement was made in the heat of a political controversy 35 years ago." The weekend apology came days after the conservative Christian school in South Carolina received a petition asking for an apology for a statement Jones made to the Associated Press in 1980 at the White House. "I'm...

For those interested in examining “terrorist attacks committed on American soil” and hate crimes, the Crime Museum in Washington, D.C., is the place to be starting on Wednesday. In addition to offering information on recent attacks, the museum's "Domestic Terrorism and Hate Crimes" exhibit will display objects from the wrenching incidents. From the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, for example, there will be a runner’s medal and a bib from one of the victims. Letters from the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, will also be on display, as will a Virginia Jihad Network rifle that was confiscated in 2003. The exhibit will also...

It turns out that the person who has been posting "whites only" stickers around Austin, Texas is actually a liberal "social justice warrior" looking to bring attention to the racism of whites. These stickers had been posted around stores in Austin: For days no one knew who had posted them and why could only be speculated. The answer has been solved today: the stickers were posted by Austin lawyer Adam Reposa who did it to point out the "gentrification" of Austin and the displacement of minorities. “They’re getting pushed out, and pretty quick. This area of town is turning into...

n 1986, I was as ready to leave the closet as I would ever be—but how would I do so? Though I was a third term Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, I had lived too long with the burden of “the gay thing” to treat coming out as a political matter alone. For many years, I was ashamed of myself for hiding my membership in a universally despised group. I’d been afraid of exposure, and angry at myself for my self-denial. I’d felt shame as I watched younger gay men and lesbians confront the bigots openly with a courage that I...

On CNN this morning, White House aide David Simas avoided congratulating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the Israeli elections. Instead, he would only congratulate the Israeli people on having an election. "We want to congratulate the Israeli people for the democratic process for the election that they just engaged in with all the parties that engaged in that election.

The difficult task for Emanuel is to win their support while not alienating the more-progressive elements of the electorate. So the mayor is raising big money from wealthy conservative donors while sending a subtle message in his campaign ads that is designed to scare the more-affluent constituencies in the city—without trumpeting support from the Right. He has welcomed Rauner's quiet outreach for his campaign while also blasting the governor for his proposed budget cuts. March 17, 2015 Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is about as partisan a Democrat as there is in this country. But to win a second term and...

Fifty years ago this month, Democrats made a historic mistake. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, at the time a federal official, wrote a famous report in March 1965 on family breakdown among African-Americans. He argued presciently and powerfully that the rise of single-parent households would make poverty more intractable. “The fundamental problem,” Moynihan wrote, is family breakdown. In a follow-up, he explained: “From the wild Irish slums of the 19th-century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows large numbers of young men to grow up in broken families...

TWO FERGUSON POLICE OFFICERS WERE SHOT TONIGHT OUTSIDE THE POLICE DEPARTMENT!