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Republican lawmakers are launching an investigation into claims that the Environmental Protection Agency, while giving preferential treatment to environmental groups, made it harder for conservative groups to obtain government records. “According to documents obtained by the Committees, EPA readily granted FOIA fee waivers for environmental allies, effectively subsidizing them, while denying fee waivers and making the FOIA process more difficult for states and conservative groups,” wrote Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Darrell Issa and Sens. David Vitter, Chuck Grassley and Jim Inhofe in a letter to the EPA. Citing a report by The Daily Caller News Foundation, Republicans are asking the...

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian warplanes struck militant camps in the northeast on Friday in a major push against an Islamist insurgency, drawing a sharp warning from the United States to respect human rights and not harm civilians.

The Treasury Department’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was auditing 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. J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, told members of the House Ways and Means Committee that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel of his audit on June 4, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly thereafter.” Mr. George told Treasury officials about the allegation as part of a...

Following the national outrage over Kermit Gosnell and his late-term abortions that were essentially infanticide, a pro-life Republican member of Congress is pushing legislation that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy nationwide. Congressman Trent Franks informed LifeNews today that he will advance legislation to provide protection nationwide for unborn children who have the capacity to experience pain while being aborted, a capacity defined in the bill as existing by 20 weeks fetal age. Franks is the prime sponsor of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The current version of the bill, which garnered a majority vote in the...

Democracy: The IRS targeting of Tea Party groups is mind-boggling not only for its abuse of government power. It's also disturbing for what it intended to do: destroy civil society, opening a door for tyranny. The formation in 2009 of hundreds of Tea Party groups at the rallying cry of CNBC news editor Rick Santelli, from places as diverse as Lowell, Mass., Pleasanton, Calif., Asheville, N.C., Yuma, Ariz., and Lincoln, Neb., among hundreds of others, was a spontaneous reaction by ordinary American citizens to an overspending, oversized government whose overreach called into question its constitutionality. Yet it was these very...

“Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa, ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers,’" Schock declared.

GOP Rep. Mike Kelly was a huge hit at Friday’s House hearing on IRS harassment of conservative groups as he skewered acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller. Some tasty highlights from his fiery rant:Rep Kelly to Miller: You think this is uncomfortable? Try being a citizen being targeted by the IRS.Kelly: "This confirms that the #IRS can do anything they want, anytime they want, to anyone they want. " "Where you're sitting, you should be outraged, but you're not." Rep, Kelly to Miller #IRS #Waysandmeanscommittee "Is there any limit to the scope as to where you folks can go? … It's...

Former White House Counsel during the Clinton Administration, Lanny Davis, is calling for the resignation of Obama White House Counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler. ... the White House counsel's office reportedly knew about the Inspector General's investigation into harassment ofdconservative groups, since April. Davis contends that if this is true and Ms. Ruemmler chose not to inform President Obama of the investigation and the possible legal and political ramifications, she should step down. ...

<p>Long before the Internal Revenue Service revealed it had improperly targeted conservative 501(c)(4) groups, a group of Democratic senators led by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer urged the IRS to do just that.</p> <p>The IRS’s admission last Friday that it had singled out tea party and other groups for extra audits and delays has raised concerns that President Barack Obama’s administration quietly attempted to stymy opponents through intimidation. But many prominent Democrats — including Montana Sen. Max Baucus, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the New York Times editorial board — had been publicly calling for tighter restrictions on 501(c)(4) groups affiliated with the tea party and conservatives.</p>

Slim majorities of Americans are very or somewhat closely following the situations involving the Internal Revenue Service (54%) and the congressional hearings on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and its aftermath (53%) -- comparatively low based on historical measures of other news stories over the last two decades. These results are based on a May 14-15 Gallup poll. Despite extensive news coverage of these stories in recent days, the level of attention being paid to each is below the average 60% of Americans who have closely followed more than 200 news stories Gallup has measured over...

The IRS under the Obama administration painted targets on the backs of conservatives beginning in 2010, and ousted acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller apologized to the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday. But members on both sides of the aisle were furious, and castigated him for the mismanagement and political gamesmanship the IRS engaged in on his watch. Texas Republican congressman Kevin Brady had the harshest criticism for Miller. ‘Is this still America?' he asked him.

Today, the Thomas More Society offered over 150 pages of analysis and evidence to the House Ways and Means Committee about repeated IRS harassment of pro-life organizations. At the request of Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL), Thomas More Society President Thomas Brejcha, Executive Director Peter Breen, and Special Counsel Sally Wagenmaker, prepared the legal memorandum with solid evidence of IRS harassment of pro-life organizations dating back to 2009. Shock asked the IRS commissioner today if this discrimination is appropriate and he was unable to say yes or no. The memo details the history of IRS misconduct in the cases of three...

Acting IRS chief Steven Miller on Friday said he did not believe agency officials did anything illegal when giving extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. Miller, who was forced to resign this week by President Obama, said he didn’t believe the scrutiny was illegal even as he apologized for the IRS’s actions, which have turned into a political storm for the White House. He also admitted under questioning from House Ways and Means Committee members that facts could emerge that might change whether he thinks anyone in the agency committed a crime, and he said one staffer involved...

More than $92 million in bonuses averaging $5,500 per employee have been handed out by IRS executives to thousands of the tax agency’s employees since 2009, according to data obtained by The Washington Examiner. The average annual salary of the employees receiving at least one bonus during the four-year period between 2009 and 2012 was slightly less than $94,000, indicating that the extra tax dollars mostly went to managers and executives eligible for performance-based incentives. The IRS’s overall workforce includes more than 97,000 employees. According to the data, which the agency provided in response to the newspaper’s Freedom of Information...

The woman who ran the Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt organizations division has been promoted, and now heads the agency's health-care office, ABC News reported. Sarah Hall Ingram was commissioner of the embattled IRS office from 2009 to 2012, roughly the period that the agency is accused of singling out Tea Party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny, based on nothing but their political bent. As a firestorm grows around the IRS, Ms. Ingram quietly left the tax-exempt office and was made director of IRS Affordable Care Act Division...

If at first you don't succeed... The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law on Thursday in a symbolic move aimed as much at healing internal Republican rifts as demonstrating dogged party opposition to "Obamacare." "No matter what, Americans will not want a politicized agency to have access to their most personal, intimate health care information or be in charge of important health care decisions," Bachmann said. The 229-195 vote occurred largely along party lines and marked the 37th time the House has voted to repeal or defund the 2010 Patient Protection and...

An earthquake has struck a wide area west of Ottawa. Earthquakes Canada reports the 4.8 magnitude quake was centred in Braeside, Ont., northwest of the capital. Twitter erupted with reports of buildings shaking in Ottawa for several seconds. The tremor was also felt at least as as far away as Toronto. Ontario Provincial Police in Arnprior, Ont., not far from the epicentre, say they have received no reports of damage.

Senior Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, who recently slapped Obamacare as a "train wreck," believes that the IRS scandal is just beginning and that "a lot more" damaging information will be revealed, likely at congressional hearings. "I have a hunch that a lot more is going to come out, frankly," Baucus, whose pending retirement seems to have freed him up to speak bluntly, told Bloomberg Government's " Capitol Gains " TV show. "It's broader than the current focus. And I think it's important that we have the hearings, and I think that will encourage other information to come out that has...

The State Department, under Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, created an arrangement for her longtime aide and confidante Huma Abedin to work for private clients as a consultant while serving as a top adviser in the department. Ms. Abedin did not disclose the arrangement — or how much income she earned — on her financial report. It requires officials to make public any significant sources of income. The disclosure of the agreement that Ms. Abedin made with the State Department comes as her husband, former Representative Anthony D. Weiner, a Democrat, prepares for a mayoral run in New York City. Politico...

All Things Considered 5 min 23 sec DownloadTranscript   Enlarge image i A scientist removes the nucleus from a human egg using a pipette. This is the first step to making personalized embryonic stem cells. Courtesy of OHSU Photos A scientist removes the nucleus from a human egg using a pipette. This is the first step to making personalized embryonic stem cells.Courtesy of OHSU Photos Scientists say they have, for the first time, cloned human embryos capable of producing embryonic stem cells.The accomplishment is a long-sought step toward harnessing the potential power of embryonic stem cells to treat many...

CHARLIE ROSE: You have seen lots of second terms. This one came in on a big political victory, wanting to do things. And you have this picture, one, of intrusive government and yet a president who seems like a bystander in his own government. BOB SCHIEFFER: People were talking in Washington about -- some people were saying, "Are we back to the Nixon administration? This is what they did in the Nixon administration." This is not the Nixon administration, where you had burglars and people talking about blowing up the Brookings Institution. This is more of a case, is anybody...

The commander in chief of the American armed forces today forced a violation of Marine Corps regulations, so he wouldn’t get wet. According to Marine Corps regulation MCO P1020.34F of the Marine Corps Uniform Regulations chapter 3, a male Marine is not allowed to carry an umbrella while in uniform. There is no provision in the Marine Corps uniform regulation guidelines that allows a male Marine to carry an umbrella. Nevertheless, during a press conference under a light drizzle with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan this morning, President Obama allowed the First Head to be protected from the...

The Pentagon for the first time has officially recognized transgender service members in a significant step being hailed by the LGBT community. The acknowledgement came in the form of a letter to veteran and transgender activist Autumn Sandeen confirming that the Navy had updated its records to show she is a woman. While still a long way from open transgender service in the military, OutServe-SLDN, an organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender service members and their families labeled the move 'symbolic.' The letter from the Navy official, dated May 2, read: 'Per your request the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting...

So how do you feel about turning over access to sensitive healthcare information to the Internal Revenue Service? In the wake of running disclosures of the agency’s nefarious snooping and political targeting, its new role as chief health insurance enforcer should give us heartburn. Under Obamacare, responsibility for verifying eligibility for the healthcare program, and monitoring whether you carry “qualifying” health coverage (and are exempt from the law’s penalties) falls principally to the IRS. The IRS was given expansive, new powers to execute these goals. That includes more authority to share your personal information — not only about your income,...

 President Barack Obama is having the worst week ever. On top of three erupting scandals, the IRS targeting conservative groups, AP wiretapping, and Benghazi whistle blowers, he stepped into another. He was pictured at a rainy press conference with the Prime Minister of Turkey. We don't think Marines should be holding umbrellas in the rain. #semperdry Two U.S. Marines were forced to hold an umbrella over the heads of state after the White House requested it, to keep Obama dry while he talked with the press. Never mind the staffers who are supposed to assume this role, Obama wanted...

Then CIA-Director David Petraeus objected to the final talking points the Obama administration used after the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, because he wanted to see more details revealed to the public, according to emails released Wednesday by the White House. Under pressure in the investigation that continues eight months after the attacks, the White House on Wednesday released 99 pages of emails and a single page of hand-written notes made by Petraeus' deputy, Mike Morell, after a meeting at the White House on Saturday, Sept. 15. On that page, Morell scratched out from the...

IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office 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. ... Ingram ... is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office...

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.

Wind farms in this corner of Wyoming have killed more than four dozen golden eagles since 2009, one of the deadliest places in the country of its kind. But so far, the companies operating industrial-sized turbines here and elsewhere that are killing eagles and other protected birds have yet to be fined or prosecuted - even though every death is a criminal violation. The Obama administration has charged oil companies for drowning birds in their waste pits, and power companies for electrocuting birds on power lines. But the administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company, even those that...

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 problems with the IRS extend beyond playing politics with conservative groups seeking a tax-exempt status. I have never made this public before, but given the heightened interest in the way the IRS has conducted itself, the time has come to disclose what happened. Just weeks after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, I was notified by the IRS that the Catholic League was under investigation for violating the IRS Code on political activities as it relates to 501(c)(3) organizations. What the IRS did not know was that I had proof who contacted them to launch the investigation: Catholics...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department failed to provide the names of some terrorists in the witness protection program to the center that maintains the government's watch list used to keep dangerous people off airline flights, the department's inspector general said in a report Thursday. As a result of the department's failure to properly share information, some in the witness protection program who were on the "no-fly" list were allowed to travel on commercial flights, the federal watchdog said. "It was possible for known or suspected terrorists to fly on commercial airplanes in or over the United States and evade...

IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election. “In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s...

Authorities in Houston, Texas are responding to calls for an investigation of Douglas Karpen, who is being considered the second Kermit Gosnell for killing babies born alive after abortion. Yesterday, the Lt. Governor of Texas demanded an investigation of an abortion practitioner who is considered the second Kermit Gosnell. A new video expose’ of Douglas Karpen has three former abortion clinic employees of abortion practitioner Douglas Karpen exposing horrific practices that took place at his abortion clinic. That a second Kermit Gosnell would be operating in Texas is so revolting that Lt. Governor David Dewhurst is demanding an investigation. Local...

Lie No. 1: Lois Lerner’s apology last Friday was a spontaneous reaction to an unexpected question from an unknown audience member. In fact, the question came from tax lawyer and lobbyist Celia Roady. Ms. Roady has some interesting career highlights: She was part of the 1997 ethics investigation of Newt Gingrich, but, more to the point, she was appointed to the IRS’s Advisory Council on Tax-Exempt and Government Entities by IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman. She is a longtime colleague of Lerner, who is director of tax-exempt organizations. Ms. Roady has declined to comment on whether her question was planted, but...

James Carville: This is all over in 30 days By: Kevin Robillard May 16, 2013 11:57 AM EDT Democratic strategist James Carville had some good news for President Barack Obama amid three controversies: It will all be over in a month. Carville, who helped guide former President Bill Clinton through crises, on Thursday described Benghazi and the Justice Department’s decision to subpoena the Associated Press’ phone records as non-stories to start with and he predicted the IRS scandal would fizzle out within a month. “These guys are awfully frustrated right now,” Carville said, referring to the GOP. “They’re taking the...

TAMPA BAY - Federal authorities arrested a local doctor's son, who they say tricked his pregnant girlfriend into taking an abortion pill, killing their unborn child. John Andrew Weldon, 28, is now facing first-degree murder and interfering with interstate commerce charges. According to a federal arrest affidavit, Weldon swapped out his girlfriend's antibiotics with abortion pills, specifically Cytotec. "I was never going to do anything but go full term with it, and he didn't want me to," explained Remee Lee, 26, Weldon's now ex-girlfriend. On Easter Sunday, Lee went to an area hospital complaining of severe cramping and excessive vaginal...

KABUL, Afghanistan – A suicide bomber rammed his car into a U.S. convoy in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 15 people including two American soldiers and four civilian contractors, officials said. The brazen attack made May the deadliest month this year for coalition forces. Cmdr. Bill Speaks, a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Secretary, confirmed that the two soldiers from the NATO military coalition who were killed in the bombing were Americans. He would not comment on the nationalities of the civilian contractors. It was the bloodiest attack in the Afghan capital since March 9, when suicide bombers struck...

First-time jobless claims jumped sharply last week a possible signal that businesses are laying off workers over concerns about the effects of across-the-board spending cuts and tax hikes. The number of workers seeking unemployment benefits increased 32,000 to a seasonally adjusted 360,000, the highest level since the end of March, after hitting a five-year low the previous week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. But the four-week moving average, a figure that provides a better trajectory of where the labor market is headed, rose 1,250 to 339,250, a level that reflects steady hiring. Economists say the market is in better...

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left claiming responsibility for the April 13 attack on the Boston Marathon, reports CBS News senior correspondent John Miller. Sources tell Miller that Tsarnaev wrote the note in the boat he was hiding in as police pursued him, and as he bled from gunshot wounds sustained in an earlier shootout between police and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The note, scrawled with a pen on the interior wall of the cabin, said the bombings were retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and called the Boston victims collateral damage in the same way...

US researchers have reported a breakthrough in stem cell research, describing how they have turned human skin cells into embyronic stem cells for the first time. The method described Wednesday by Oregon State University scientists in the journal Cell, would not likely be able to create human clones, said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. But it is an important step in research because it does not require the use of embryos in creating the type of stem cell capable of transforming into any other type of cell in the body.

Documents: IRS letters harassing conservative groups came from Washington, DC headquarters and from California offices, despite Inspector General's focus on Cincinnati employees Tax agency has admitted targeting tea party groups and other conservative organizations for special, politically motivated scrutiny IRS inspector general focused on wrongdoing in Cincinnati, Ohio office and ignored abusive letters coming from other cities MailOnline found letters from IRS's Washington, D.C. headquarters, and from IRS offices in two southern California cities The American Center on Law and Justice is threatening to sue the IRS if 27 tea party groups aren't granted tax-exempt statuses by FridayLetters from the...

<p>Here’s what they might be saying in the White House this evening: It’s only Wednesday.</p> <p>It’s been a rough week for the Obama administration with revelations the Justice Department tracked reporters’ phone lines adding to the pressure already building over the response to that attack in Benghazi last September and the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups.</p>

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — The U.S. Navy is putting underwater drones through wartime-style drills as part of international mine-clearing exercises in the Persian Gulf following similar maneuvers by Iran. The U.S.-led exercises, which began last week, include operations by the unmanned SeaFox devices, which are equipped with sonar and an explosive charge designed to shoot and destroy mines. It is part of the Navy's plans to increasingly deploy automated surveillance and protection systems, including aerial drones. Navy commanders insist the exercises, comprising more than 41 nations, are not intended solely against possible Iranian threats. But Iran has previously warned it...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells Newsmax TV that the current scandal facing the Internal Revenue Service proves that the agency cannot be trusted to implement Obamacare. "I don’t think so," the Kentucky Republican says in an exclusive interview. "I don’t think we ought to have Obamacare. We ought to pull it out root and branch, if we possibly can. "And, certainly, the IRS part of administering Obamacare, particularly in the wake of this IRS scandal with regard to suppressing the views of Americans who were critical of the IRS, raises further suspicions about their involvement in the administration of...

Breitbart News has obtained an exclusive video of Attorney General Eric Holder flatly rejecting the idea of appointing a special counsel to investigate Benghazi. Filmed on May 15 and provided to Breitbart News by Special Operations Speaks, the video shows Holder emerge from his car and walk towards the Rayburn House Office Building for hearings on the IRS scandal. Holder is clearly asked, "Mr. Holder, will you appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Benghazi?" In equally clear tones, Holder answers, "No," and disappears into the building.

President Obama announced Wednesday night that the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service had been ousted after disclosures that the agency gave special scrutiny to conservative groups. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., meanwhile, warned top I.R.S. officials that a Justice Department inquiry would examine any false statements to see if they constituted a crime. Attorney General on the I.R.S. Speaking in the White House’s formal East Room, Mr. Obama said Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew had asked for and accepted the resignation of the acting commissioner, Steven Miller, who as deputy commissioner was aware of the agency’s efforts...

In a press conference following the sentencing of abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell, his attorney Jack McMahon insisted that the prosecution was racist and that the abortionist was no “monster.” McMahon told reporters assembled outside the Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center that Gosnell “truly believes in himself” and remains convinced that “he never killed a live baby.” “Dr. Gosnell, he believes that what he did was not commit homicide,” he said. “Nobody gave him a second chance,” McMahon said. “Dr. Gosnell is far from a monster, and this was not a house of horrors.” “He wanted this case aired out in a...

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: HH: 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...