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Inspector General report paves way for Burke disbarment gun rights May 20, 2013 By: David Codrea Subscribe Per the OIG report, "Burke's Law" could be a thing of the past if his "professional conduct" catches up with him at the bar. Per the OIG report, "Burke's Law" could be a thing of the past if his "professional conduct" catches up with him at the bar. Credits: United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona 0 Email Policy & Issues newsletter A report released today by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General pronounces a harsh assessment of former...

The Syrian army has begun deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles and has aimed them at Tel Aviv, the British Sunday Times reports. According to the report, Syria is preparing to strike Israel in case the Jewish State launches another attack on its territory. The army has received orders to strike central Israel in case additional attacks against Syria are carried out, according to the Sunday Times. The information was reportedly obtained by reconnaissance satellites that were tracking the Syrian forces. According to the report, Syria was deploying advanced Tishreen missiles, which are capable of carrying a warhead of a half a...

Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation of whether Internal Revenue Service employees broke the law when they targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status — the latest setback for an agency that is the subject of withering bipartisan criticism and multiple congressional inquiries. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Tuesday that the Justice Department and the FBI began the probe after the IRS acknowledged that it selected conservative groups with the words “tea party” and “patriot” in their names for special reviews. “We are examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations,” Holder said at a news...

As predicted, the House GOP’s release of an interim report on their ongoing investigation into last September’s Benghazi attack — offering a rather scathing assessment of Hillary Clinton and the White House’s handling of the situation before, during, and after — was not particularly well received in all circles, and several House Democrats are already up in arms about it. In a letter to Speaker Boehner: We are concerned that by issuing this staff report with only five Republican Committee Chairmen, you are sacrificing accuracy in favor of partisanship. You have stated repeatedly over the past several months that “It’s...

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday unveiled a report on last's year attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that blames then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for lapses in security. The 46-page report by the five committees of jurisdiction concludes that reductions in security levels prior to the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were approved at the highest levels of the State Department, including by Clinton herself. The report also concludes that talking points from the intelligence community were altered to protect the State Department from criticism of inadequate security levels.

The historic drought that blazed across America's corn belt last year was not caused by climate change, a federal government study found. The summer of 2012 was the driest since record-keeping began more than a century ago, as well as one of the hottest, producing drought conditions across two-thirds of the continental United States. **SNIP** But the report released on Thursday by scientists at five different government agencies said that was not the case. The drought was "a sequence of unfortunate events" that occurred suddenly, the report said. The circumstances were so unusual the drought could never have been predicted....

Anti-Semitic attacks in Russia remained rare in 2011 and 2012 amid rising anti-Muslim vitriol, according to a new report by a Russian-Jewish group. “During the reviewed period, the number of attacks of anti-Semitic character in Russia has remained relatively low,” according to the report published last week by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress. The report lists five physical assaults and 38 instances of anti-Semitic vandalism. The report’s authors wrote that the low level of anti-Semitic attacks correlates with an increase in anti-Muslim vitriol connected to religious tensions in the country’s South.

Al Arabiya is a Saudi-owned television news channel launched in March 2003 the channel is based in Dubai. It claims to have conducted the first media interview of Barack Obama after he became President. As I noted earlier this evening, Obama spoke last week under a banner of Yasser Arafat, "the father of modern terrorism." That move is being seen as a gaffe by the very few, almost none of whom are in the establishment press, who have even noticed it. What if it's not a gaffe, but rather an intentional move? That may be the case if what Al...

When President Barack Obama was heckled during a speech to Israeli students in Jerusalem on Thursday, the U.S. media reported that the heckler was a student calling for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. On CNN, Wolf Blitzer even devoted an entire segment to the issue. However, Israeli media reported that the hecker was apparently an Israeli Arab student, shouting at Obama about the Palestinians rather than about Pollard. Israeli website Ynetnews.com reported that the heckler was Rabea Id, who had shouted: "Have you really come to promote the peace process or to provide Israel with more weapons to...

Today the Department of Justice inspector general released a report on potential Labor secretary nominee Tom Perez’s DOJ Civil Rights Division. The timing of the release to coincide with his nomination was certainly accidental, because the report paints a damning portrait of the DOJ unit he managed. The full report is here. The 250-page report offers an inside glimpse of systemic racialist dysfunction inside one of the most powerful federal government agencies. The report was prepared in response to Representative Frank Wolf’s (R-VA) outrage over the New Black Panther voter intimidation dismissal. In response to the report, Rep. Wolf said...

Workers who blow the whistle on violations of the healthcare law will be protected from retaliation by the federal government, according to new rules issued on Wednesday. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) is encouraging people to turn in employers who fail to abide by the rules set in the Affordable Care Act. Specifically, the rules would shield whistleblowers who report employers who are blocking access to healthcare tax credits or denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions. In the 58-page interim rule, OSHA notes that the healthcare law could “create an incentive for an employer to retaliate against...

LIVE: Thousands Of Companies Around The World Reveal The Truth About The Economy Sam RoJanuary 31, 2013HEADS UP! The world's biggest economies are releasing their January manufacturing PMI reports. This is our live scorecard. Once again, the world will want to see if the emerging Asian economies are continuing the improvement they saw in their recent PMI reports. And they'll also want to see if Europe's manufacturing downturn is slowing. People will also want to know what's up with Japan. A political dispute with China has been a serious problem for exports. Meanwhile, new leadership has been explicit about their...

Rick Santelli made a stunning observation Wednesday about the shocking report that the economy actually shrunk in the fourth quarter last year. "We are now Europe," he declared on CNBC´s Squawk Box. "Hey Joe," Santelli said, "when you act like Europe, you get growth rates like Europe, and our discussions with economists sounds like we´re in Europe. They have the same discussions constantly." "They’re always doing the right thing," he continued. "They’re always thinking they know better. And this is the kind of growth. We have become Europe. We are now Europe."

The mainstream media bullied professional golfer Phil Mickelson into apologizing for criticizing California's high taxes and threatening to leave the state because of California's high income tax rate. But California's high taxes have been forcing many athletes--including those far from the limelight and who have not made as much money as Mickelson--to leave the state for fiscal reasons. Tiger Woods said he left California because of high taxes in 1996. According to the Wall Street Journal, Woods' net savings over those 16 years come to about $100 million. Mickelson, meanwhile, earned nearly $60.7 million last year. After Proposition 30, Mickelson...

There has been “an alarming rise in the number of attacks against Jewish targets” over the past year, according to a new report issued by the Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Ministry on Sunday. The 2012 report on anti-Semitism, which was presented to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein during Sunday’s cabinet meeting, indicated that the confluence of extreme rightwing political movements and Islamic radicalism have been responsible for a new wave of anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe. The report’s release was timed to coincide with the commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on...

A new bipartisan report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee faults both the State Department and Pentagon for failing to adequately protect the Americans killed in the deadly September attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The report, titled “Flashing Red,” comes after a critical independent State Department-ordered review, and widens the blame for the assault, which left four Americans dead, to the Pentagon and White House. The Committee found that the State Department failed to appropriately assess and heighten security measures after intelligence showed that Americans stationed in Benghazi could be threatened by terror groups, according to reports...

Three top officials in the State Department resigned Wednesday in the wake of a scathing report which slammed "systemic failures" and "management deficiencies" in the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, which resulted in the murder of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Assistant Secretary Eric Boswell, head of the bureau of diplomatic security, and Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary for international programs, have stepped down, CNN and CBS television said, citing unnamed department officials. Lamb, who was Boswell’s deputy in charge of international programs, denied requests from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli for an extension of temporary security...

Clinton gets accountability report on Benghazi attacksBy Andrew Quinn Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:18pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday received an official review of the September attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, setting the stage for testimony on an incident that prompted a political furor and sharp questions about security at U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas. **SNIP** The committee has been meeting in private and State Department officials have declined to discuss almost all specifics of the Benghazi attack pending its reports. The findings are expected to cover questions on whether enough...

A ceasefire between Israel and Gaza could go into effect “within several hours”, according to a Monday night report by the Al-Arabiya network. The report said that the forum of nine senior Israeli ministers was expected to approve an initial outline for a ceasefire with Hamas. According to the outline offered by Egypt and described in the report, Israel will stop the air strikes on Gaza and stop the targeted killings of senior members of Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza, in exchange for a complete cessation of the rocket fire into Israel.

A review of press releases issued by the Department of Homeland Security, the latest being filed Sunday and dealing with DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s visit to State Island for a Hurricane Sandy follow-up, reveals the department is crediting itself with all kinds of activities and accomplishments except for its commitment to produce an Inspector General report on Fast and Furious gunwalking independent of the Department of Justice report released in September. A review of the DHS OIG press releases on its website, with the latest filing also being yesterday, also does not mention such a report. The second IG investigation...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano lied to Congress about her department’s special centers where state and local police could share information with the federal government about terrorism and other crimes. This accusation against Napolitano appears, shockingly enough, in a bipartisan report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The so-called “fusion center” program, which Napolitano asserted to Congress was a smashing success, had “serious problems,” according to the report, which also stated, “The findings of both the 2010 and 2011 assessments contradict public statements by [Homeland Security] officials including congressional testimony from Ms. Napolitano.” Ms. Napolitano and other officials consistently...

The inspector general’s investigation into the Department of Justice’s role in Operation Fast and Furious was not expected to be a blockbuster report. The primary interest in the document for members of the media, investigators, and the public alike was how Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz would choose to participate in a cover-up. Horowitz did not disappoint. The six-part, 471-page report dedicated an entire chapter to Operation Wide Receiver, a program that began in 2006 and did not terminate until mid-2009. Wide Receiver was an ATF operation started by local agents during the Bush administration which allowed hundreds of weapons...

The author of a study that says tax cuts on high-incomes and small businesses have little to no impact on economic growth has personally donated at least $3,400 to President Obama since 2008—a fact that the media outlets touting the study have failed to disclose. The author, Thomas L. Hungerford, also gave at least $2,450 to Democratic campaign committees during that same period. Hungerford is a public finance specialist at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the nonpartisan agency that provides “policy and legal analysis” for members of Congress. “CRS is well-known for analysis that is authoritative, confidential, objective and nonpartisan,”...

Fox News has obtained a three-page intelligence report showing that two days before the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, a statement incited "sons of Egypt" to pressure America to release the so-called blind sheikh "even if it requires burning the embassy down with everyone in it." The web statement, apparently posted on Sept. 9, was in reference to the embassy in Egypt. It preceded a throng of demonstrators breaching the U.S. Embassy wall in Cairo, supposedly in protest over an anti-Islam film. Obama administration officials claim that attackers in Libya then took their

A Marine spokesperson at the Pentagon denied reports that U.S. Marines defending the American embassy in Egypt were not permitted by the State Department to carry live ammunition in a statement to Fox News Thursday. Pentagon Lt. Col. Chris Hughes told the outlet: “The ambassador and RSO (Regional Security Officer) have been completely and appropriately engaged with the security situation. No restrictions on weapons or weapons status have been imposed. This information comes from the Det Commander at AMEMB (American Embassy) Cairo.” The statement came in response to open-source reporting that U.S. Marines defending the American embassy in Egypt were...

Obama said hang on, but jobs report shows many Americans aren’tBy Chris Stirewalt Published September 07, 2012 FoxNews.com 368,000 — the estimated number of Americans who, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, left the labor force in August. **SNIP** Biden, who literally used the word “literally” 10 times in his brief speech introducing Obama, accused the Republicans of talking down the country in a bid to gain power. “America is not in decline. America is not in decline,” shouted the vice president. “I've got news for Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan: Gentlemen, never ever — it never makes sense,...

ABC News president Ben Sherwood told staff today that last Friday's incorrect report by Brian Ross detracts from the network's otherwise excellent coverage of the Colarado theater shooting, network sources tell POLITICO. Sherwood's remarks, made on the network's daily editorial conference call, came the morning after Ross's report was picked up by late night comedians John Stewart and Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central, both of whom used Ross's erroneous suggestion of a Tea Party link to the Colorado theater shooting as fodder for their Monday night routines. On Monday's conference call,

Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt At a time when voter ID laws in 30 states are coming under intense fire from the liberal media, the Obama administration and civil rights leaders, one of the strongest cases anywhere was offered for voter identification by the lone Republican on the three-member panel overseeing elections in Philadelphia. Wednesday, City Commissioner Al Schmidt unveiled a 27 page report that his office had commissioned entitled “Voting Irregularities in Philadelphia County, 2012 Primary Election.” The report, which focused on cases in 15 of the city’s 1,687 election districts, found cases of double voting, voter impersonation,...

ORIGINAL POST: Last economic datapoint of the day: April factory orders come out at 10:00 AM ET. Analysts expect an increase of 0.2%. That compares to a decline of 1.9% in the previous month. Given all the bad news in econ data-world these days, this one will be closely watched for confirmation or negation of the trend. UPDATE: The numbers are out and bad. Factory orders fell 0.6% in April, which is way worse than the 0.2% growth anticipated. Last month was revised to a decline of 2.1% from a decline of -1.5%. And ext-transport, the decline was a solid...

Alan Krueger, head of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, pointed out that the country has added jobs for 27 months in a row, including 4.3 million jobs in the private sector. The economy still has a few bright spots. Americans bought cars and trucks a strong pace last month, giving automakers their best May since 2008. Underscoring the challenge for Obama with five months to go in the campaign, a May poll by The Associated Press and GfK, a research company, showed that 52 percent disapproved of Obama's handling of the economy while 46 percent approved. Some financial analysts...

US and South Korean special forces have been parachuting into North Korea to gather intelligence about underground military installations, a US officer has said in comments carried in US media. Army Brigadier General Neil Tolley, commander of US special forces in South Korea, told a conference held in Florida last week that Pyongyang had built thousands of tunnels since the Korean war, The Diplomat reported. "The entire tunnel infrastructure is hidden from our satellites," Tolley said, according to The Diplomat, a current affairs magazine. "So we send (South Korean) soldiers and US soldiers to the North to do special reconnaissance."...

A medical report compiled by the family physician of accused Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a "closed fracture" of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation. Zimmerman faces a second degree murder charge for the Feb. 26 shooting that left the unarmed 17-year-old high school junior dead. Zimmerman has claimed self defense in what he described as a life and death struggle that Martin...

Report says 40 percent of the public breathes unhealthy airBy Andrew Restuccia - 04/25/12 02:53 PM ET More than 40 percent of the public lives in regions with unhealthy levels of air pollution, a new report from the American Lung Association says. The public health group, in its annual State of the Air report, said air quality has dramatically improved in recent decades as a result of the Clean Air Act. But it warned that more action is needed to better protect the public from air pollution like smog or soot. The report finds that more than 127.2 million people,...

A major Israel TV station on Sunday night broadcast a detailed report on how Israel will go about attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the event that diplomacy and sanctions fail and Israel decides to carry out a military strike. The report, screened on the main evening news of Channel 10, was remarkable both in terms of the access granted to the reporter, who said he had spent weeks with the pilots and other personnel he interviewed, and in the fact that his assessments on a strike were cleared by the military censor. No order to strike is likely to be...

Economists have worried all along that job growth couldn't sustain the strong December-to-February pace. They also worry that a 66-cent run-up in gasoline prices (to a national average $3.94 a gallon) so far this year will discourage consumer spending -- though American households are more resilient financially after cutting their debts. Most economists expect annual growth this year of just 2.5 percent. Normally, it takes annual growth of 4 percent to lower the unemployment rate 1 percentage point over a year. The job market is improving largely because the pace of layoffs has fallen sharply. The staffing firm Challenger, Gray...

Tweet from The Colbert Report: Nation! First Lady @MichelleObama will appear on The Colbert Report on Wednesday, April 11. Tune in at 11:30pm / 10:30c. Quite the media blitz the First Lady and the President have been on lately. You would think that if the First Lady wanted to reach a sizable audience, though, she would do a guest spot on a program that gets more viewers like "Pawn Stars" or a cartoon rerun on Nickelodeon or something on cable access. Well, Colbert is a true-blue friend to the Barack Obama re-election campaign and a fellow crusader in the left's...

At 7:50 am Friday morning, CNNMoney reported on the embarrassingly small number of jobs the “green” energy industry has contributed to the nation’s workforce. The story was titled “‘Green’ jobs just a small portion of workforce.” -------- “As Kermit knows, it’s not easy being green,” the story began. “There were only 3.1 million green jobs in the U.S. in 2010.” Translation: After receiving billions in federal subsidies ($100 billion from the stimulus program alone), “green” jobs account for only 2.4 percent of the nation’s employment. Seeing as how taxpayer dollars are being thrown at “green” energy projects under the guise...

The Visitation Report into the Church in Ireland, ordered by Pope Benedict XVI, the full text of which may be found here, says "It must be stressed that dissent from the fundamental teachings of the Church is not the authentic path towards renewal." The sexual abuse crisis which exploded throughout the Catholic Church in Ireland [and elsewhere] has its origin in a Culture of Dissent. For, as Father Vincent Miceli has reminded us, "falsity is the heart of immorality." Betrayal arises in man's heart and is soon manifested in his actions which often culminate in criminal violence. But, as Fr....

(CNSNews.com) - The definitive study of contraception use in the United States--which was produced by the U.S. government's National Center for Health Statistics and published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--refutes the claim President Barack Obama made in a White House briefing on Feb. 10 that “nearly 99 percent of all women” have used contraception. In fact, according to the study--which looked at the contraception use of American women between the ages of 15 and 44--13.9 percent had never had heterosexual intercourse, period. Also, according to the study, 38.2 percent of American women age 15-44 said they...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar joined White House Press Secretary Jay Carney in the briefing room Monday to tout President Obama's energy policies and the increase in oil and gas production, but a new report from the Department of Energy (DOE), prepared in consultation with Interior officials undermines his claim. "On federal lands and water, we have moved forward in the last three years with a 13-percent increase in oil and gas production," Salazar said, dismissing Republican claims that production on federal lands has dropped, even if private production has increased. "I would say that those attacks are simply wrong. The...

Principal, counselor charged with failing to report abuseCounty News 9:08 p.m. Friday, March 2, 2012 By Alexis Stevens The Atlanta Journal-Constitution A Cobb County middle school principal and counselor were arrested for allegedly failing to report a student's abuse claims to police. Jerry Wright Dority, who was principal at Tapp Middle School in Powder Springs, and a counselor, Yatta Lynnette Collins, were both arrested Thursday morning and booked into the Cobb County jail, booking records show. The two have been placed on administrative leave, a school district spokesman said. Dority, 50, and Collins, 40, are each charged with one count...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Comedy Central's "Colbert Report" is off the air and it's a mystery why. An expected live version of the show was replaced by a repeat on Wednesday. Comedy Central said Thursday's live show will be off, too. The network said it was airing the repeats "due to unforeseen circumstances," but offered no other explanation.

The Mormon Church owns one of the most active and unregulated gun sale portals on the web, according to a national investigation released by the New York City Mayor's office. The website in question is KSL.com, the online hub for Utah's NBC affiliate and sister radio station, which are both owned and operated by the for-profit arm of the Mormon Church. In addition to local news, KSL.com produces a popular classifieds section that reaches millions of users well beyond Utah.The LDS connection drew little notice when Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a leading financier of the gun control movement, published the report...

Saying the economy is “growing stronger,” President Obama issued a strong warning to Congress on Friday: “Do not slow down the recovery ... don't muck it up!" Speaking at a fire house in Arlington, Va. — hours after a jobs report showed the unemployment rate dropped from 8.5 to 8.3 percent — a fiery Obama said Washington has to do everything in its power to help the economy. He urged Congress to pass a payroll tax cut extension without drama and delay. “They just need to get it done, [it] shouldn’t be that complicated,” Obama said.

I open my browser this morning and what do I find? "RUBIO RIPS TEAM GINGRICH" glaring across the front of Drudge Report... one of many negative headlines/stories related to Newt. So I guess the hit job continues. As others have pointed out, the bias he's displaying is obvious and sickening. Wonder what the reason behind this is? Newt kick his dog? Reject his advances?

Well, I’ve just finished scouring the White House visitor logs. Regular readers know I seem to be one of the few in the media who actually does such a thing. Regular readers also know that I’ve pointed out time and again that the logs are incomplete, misleading, obtuse, and designed to make it as difficult as possible to figure out who has visited and when. So, it is no surprise that neither director Tim Burton nor actor Johnny Depp — hosts of the big 2009 Hollywood Halloween bash at the White House — show up in the visitor logs. At...

Gun Rights Examiner and Sipsey Street Irregulars received information this evening that three of the prime Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives players in the Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal have been relieved of duties. William Hoover, ATF's Deputy Director during Fast and Furious, who was recently reassigned as Special Agent in Charge of the Washington Field Office, Assistant Director in Charge of Field Operations Mark Chait, likewise reassigned as head of the Baltimore Field Office, and Deputy Assistant Director of Field Operations William McMahon have reportedly been sidelined pending the outcome of the anticipated report from the Office...

It seems that if you're a New York Times reporter on a mission to prove something you think must be obvious and your research leads to the exact opposite result from what you smugly expected, you forge ahead and try to pretend that you proved your point anyway. At least that how it seems to have worked out for Times reporter Michael Luo in a report appearing in Tuesday's print edition which tried to show readers how one state which allows residents to carry concealed weapons with a permit is allegedly allowing large numbers of dangerous people to possess them....

A nephew of late PLO founder Yasser Arafat says the family will be releasing a 558-page French medical report detailing the cause of his death. Naser al-Qudwa told the Palestinian Authority's semi-official Maan News Agency the document is being translated from French before it is released. Al-Qudwa claimed the report would answer "many questions," adding the 'Palestinian people' had a right to clear answers regarding his uncle's death. The report by French doctors reportedly describes a platelet disorder and speculates on its cause. The doctors, however, ruled out cancer or acute infection, Al-Qudwa says. "We have said that it is...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The economy added 103,000 new jobs in September. That's great news for the Obama campaign, right? Not exactly. Here's the problem: 103,000 new jobs a month is still about 50,000 jobs off the pace economists say is needed just to keep pace with population growth. The unemployment rate stands at 9.1%. It's been half a year since the economy added more than 150,000 jobs in any one month. And the problems driving unemployment -- slow growth and a crippled housing market -- remain a policy puzzle. It's a trend that should be setting off alarm bells...