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Here is a copy of the Democratic talking points at the House Ways and Means Committee hearing today in Washington DC. Democrats handed this out to the press before the hearing. Democrat Sander Levin, the ranking member on the committee, said the IRS targeting scandal is not a partisan scandal.

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain’s office is pushing back against reports that while visiting Syria this week he posed in a photo with rebels who kidnapped 11 Lebanese Shi’ite pilgrims. The photo, released by McCain’s office, shows McCain with a group of rebels. Among them are two men identified in the Lebanese press as Mohamed Nour and Abu Ibrahim, two of the kidnappers of the group from Lebanon.

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain’s office is pushing back against reports that while visiting Syria this week he posed in a photo with rebels who kidnapped 11 Lebanese Shi’ite pilgrims. ( Image by Handout/Reuter / Reuters ) The photo, released by McCain’s office, shows McCain with a group of rebels. Among them are two men identified in the Lebanese press as Mohamed Nour and Abu Ibrahim, two of the kidnappers of the group from Lebanon.

Asked why he visited WH 118 times,Former IRS Commish Doug Shulman,cited the Easter Egg Roll as one reason. —Mark Knoller (@markknoller) May 22,2013 Well, give him points for creativity at least. When asked to account for his 118 visits to the White House within a two-year period, former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman dug deep and managed to come up with one explanation: he took his kids to the White House Easter Egg Roll!… “@jpodhoretz: 118 times in 104 weeks Shulman went to White House. why?"Easter egg roll…" he actually said that.” Bold.—Dana Perino (@DanaPerino) May 22,2013 No kidding! Too bad...

Yesterday’s and today’s press conferences by White House press secretary Jay Carney provide ammunition to the thesis proposed this week even by a few mainstream journalists. By Carney’s account, Obama knows little or nothing about several really awful things happening in his own administration. He is (as Carney claimed) deliberately kept in the dark by senior staff regarding matters you’d expect a president would really want to know about, such as a major scandal about to erupt regarding the IRS targeting Tea Party groups, which began just as his health care bill was running into difficulty. The long and the...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has come under heavy fire this week as journalists grilled him about the three scandals hitting President Obama’s administration at once. On CNN Thursday night, however, Carney explained to Piers Morgan that he has actually enjoyed his job this week. “Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve kind of enjoyed it,” Carney said, as Morgan asked him how his week has been. Carney has hosted only two press briefings this week. “I dismiss the premise, the idea that these are scandals,” Carney said flatly, calling the controversy over Benghazi a “total concoction by Republicans,” and...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney denied that President Obama’s administration bears any comparison to that of Richard Nixon, who resigned in the face of impeachment. “The people who make those kinds of comparisons need to check their history,” Carney told reporters when asked about Nixon comparisons. “It is a reflection of the sort of rapid politicization of everything that you have that kind of commentary.” Time’s Joe Klein wrote that the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups for inappropriate scrutiny put Obama “on the same page as Richard Nixon” — perhaps because the Nixon articles of impeachment included the charge...

The White House on Monday distanced President Obama from the Department of Justice’s seizure of Associated Press telephone records. “Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the AP,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. Carney said the White House had no involvement in the Justice effort. “We are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations, as those matters are handled independently by the Justice Department,” he said. The Justice Department said in a letter to the AP on Friday that...

Obama denounces Benghazi cover-up charges as ‘political circus’ The Ticket By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – 1 hr 15 mins ago President Barack Obama on Monday furiously dismissed as a "political circus" Republican charges that his administration had misled the public about the Sept. 12, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. Obama said the accusations of a cover-up dishonor the memory of the four Americans killed in the onslaught. "There’s no 'there' there,” Obama insisted during a joint question-and-answer session with British Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House. "And the fact that...

The Obama administration is flatly denying a blaring British newspaper report that the U.S. diplomats in Libya were killed as a result of a “continuing security breach,” and that “credible information” about possible attacks had been ignored. A U.S. official told POLITICO: “There's no intelligence indicating that the attack in Benghazi was premeditated.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81198.html#ixzz26P9XMG6i

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security denied Thursday that its large-scale ammunition purchases were an effort keep bullets out of the hands of private citizens. At a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, top DHS training officer Humberto Medina said he could "say categorically that was not a factor at all" in the purchases. He also noted that ammunition DHS purchased would be used for both operations and training purchases. The Associated Press reported in February that DHS was planning to buy more than 1.6 billion rounds over the next five years, a number that sparked fears of government stockpiling...

(Newser) – The latest headline-getting theory from Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of the two Boston bombing suspects: She thinks the marathon attacks may have been staged. "That's what I want to know, because everybody's talking about it—that this is a show, that's what I want to know. That's what I want to understand," she says in an interview with CNN, adding that she thinks the blood shown in pictures of the aftermath is actually be paint. (According to Mediaite, she likened the whole thing to a "really big play.") "America took my kids away from me," she says. But...

Here's the statement he released last night, following the Cavuto segment that Ed wrote about yesterday. I think he's right: Even during the filibuster, he allowed for the use of military force (i.e. drones) to stop an attack on U.S. soil that's in progress. His objection was to the White House using drones to liquidate someone who was merely plotting, who hadn't lifted a finger (yet) to do any actual damage. “My comments last night left the mistaken impression that my position on drones had changed.“Let me be clear: it has not. Armed drones should not be used in normal...

The mayor of Boston says it c appears the two suspects in Monday's Boston Marathon bombing acted alone. "All of the information that I have they acted alone," Thomas Menino said during an appearance on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" Sunday. However, he added that it was not clear if they would be able to question the suspects about the possibility of outside help. "The older brother's dead now. We have the second one at Beth Israel Hospital in very serious condition," he said "And we don't know if we'll ever be able to question the individual." So far...

SEOUL, April 20 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Saturday denied that it has any links to the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded dozens earlier this week, saying it opposes all forms of terrorism. On Wednesday, the conservative U.S. news Website WND reported that North Korea may be behind the bombing, citing the communist country's recent threats to attack the U.S. and its "history of committing terrorist attacks without taking credit for them." The report also noted that the April 15 bombing coincided with the 101st birth anniversary of North Korea's founding leader Kim Il-sung, the grandfather...

US In Denial As Islamic Terrorism Visits BostonBy Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyNew York, NY --- April 20, 2013 … With one Boston Marathon terror bomber dead and the other now in custody, thousands in Boston and around the US are celebrating. After police found Dzhokar Tsarnaev hiding in a boat, in a backyard in Watertown, MA, it appears to many that it is all over. The terrorism is gone. After all, the last remaining terrorist was captured. Right? Boston police have stated that they believe that the two Boston bombers acted alone. How does that explain extensive training in...

A grisly post-mortem photo of one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers appears to have been taken early today after medical personnel turned the body over to law enforcement officials. The image of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, began circulating online this afternoon after it was posted on popular web sites like Reddit and 4chan. The source of the photo remains unclear. Seen above, the picture shows Tsarnaev--naked from the hip up--after he died at 1:35 AM at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Tsarnaev was mortally wounded during a gun battle between him and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokar and police. In...

Overwhelming evidence is no match for stupidity. Hot on the heels of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's arrest last night, the Facebook group "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is Innocent" was quickly formed. As of writing this article, the group has over 700 members. Why anyone would create a group like this can only be speculated upon. The only thing written in the description of the group is, "this is a set up!" Additionally, the group is claiming that the Boston Bombings themselves never occurred, and that some sort of government entity killed innocent people, while staging the explosions, with thousands of operatives (pretending to be...

President Barack Obama has said he doesn't believe North Korea can fit a nuclear warhead on a missile, casting strong doubt on an alarming assessment disclosed last week by the Pentagon's intelligence arm. And he warned the young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that weeks of threats against the United States and South Korea had only served to isolate the regime further. Asked in an NBC News interview whether North Korea could put a nuclear weapon on a ballistic missile, Obama said, "Based on our current intelligence assessments, we do not think that they have that capacity." ~snip~ 'I'm...

A A spokesperson for the Boston Police Department said no suspects have been taken into custody yet after the bombing at the Boston Marathon. "At this time, we haven't been notified of any arrests or anyone apprehended," the spokesperson said. The New York Post reported that a "Saudi national who suffered shrapnel wounds in today's blast" has been identified as "a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing." The Boston PD spokesperson did not confirm that report. "Honestly, I don't know where they're getting their information from, but it didn't come from us," said the spokesperson.