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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told a federal court that it may have lost the text messages at the center of a lawsuit by a libertarian think tank. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) sued the EPA last year in federal court to compel the release of text messages to and from Administrator Gina McCarthy and her predecessor under the Freedom of Information Act. In the Tuesday filing to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Justice Department lawyers representing the EPA said the agency will soon file a notice that it may have misplaced records that it...

If a certain fecal matter had been the only instance of disrepute revealed from within the ranks of the Environmental Protection Agency today, that would have been more than enough; alas… it wasn’t. (snip) The environmental agency is having trouble locating emails belonging to a former agency employee and pulling information from his crashed hard drive, House members revealed Wednesday while questioning Administrator Gina McCarthy at a hearing on complaints of mismanagement. “What is it with bureaucrats and public employees … the hard drives crash?” asked Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.). He and others on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cancelled its longtime relationship with an email-storage contractor just weeks after ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer crashed and shortly before other IRS officials’ computers allegedly crashed. The IRS signed a contract with Sonasoft, an email-archiving company based in San Jose, California, each year from 2005 to 2010. The company, which partners with Microsoft and counts The New York Times among its clients, claims in its company slogans that it provides “Email Archiving Done Right” and “Point-Click Recovery.” Sonasoft in 2009 tweeted, “If the IRS uses Sonasoft products to backup their servers why wouldn’t you choose...

The two years of missing emails from the account of Lois Lerner may be a problem for most people but for Lerner, it's just part of life. "Sometimes, stuff just happens," Lerner wrote to an IT expert in 2011 who was trying to retreive the emails that were lost in her "hard drive crash." And no doubt, she's glad that's true. In a letter to Congress, the IRS tried to explain the steps they took to retrieve the missing emails. Washington Times: In a series of documents sent to Congress on Friday — the traditional day for dumping bad news...

Contrary to the White Houses explanation that a few rogue agents in Cincinnati lead the targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS, newly released emails obtained by Judicial Watch detail Democratic Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) pressuring the IRS to target conservative groups. On March 30, 2012 Levin wrote to then IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman about his concern with the political activity by conservative nonprofits. “Some entities claiming tax-exempt status as social welfare organizations under 26 U.S.C.&501(c)(4) appear to be engaged in political activities more appropriate for political organizations claiming tax-exempt status under 26 U.S.C.&527. Because of the urgency of...

Is Kim Jong-un's Aunt Dead? North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's aunt and widow of executed eminence grise Jang Song-taek is believed to have died, possibly by her own hand. A government source here on Sunday said Kim Kyong-hui, who has been out of the public eye either committed suicide or died from a heart attack. The source said intelligence services here believe Kim is dead but have not been able to confirm this, though they are also trying to find out whether she went abroad for medical treatment. Another government official said, "There are many rumors going around about Kim...

(FOREIGN POLICY) -- The offices of a Dallas law firm representing a high-profile State Department whistleblower were broken into last weekend. Burglars stole three computers and broke into the firm's file cabinets. But silver bars, video equipment and other valuables were left untouched, according to local Fox affiliate KDFW, which aired security camera footage of the suspected burglars entering and leaving the offices around the time of the incident.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won't testify to Congress next week on Benghazi, after fainting and suffering a concussion Saturday and due to her ongoing stomach ailment. "While suffering from a stomach virus, Secretary Clinton became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a concussion," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philippe Reines said in a statement. "She has been recovering at home and will continue to be monitored regularly by her doctors. At their recommendation, she will continue to work from home next week, staying in regular contact with Department and other officials. She is looking forward to being back in the office...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will not be able to testify next week before House and Senate panels on the Benghazi issue because she sustained a concussion, a top State Department official said Saturday.

A recount of the Jan. 3 Iowa Republican caucus results has Rick Santorum leading Mitt Romney in the race for the GOP presidential nomination by 34 votes, with data from 8 precincts missing and never to be certified, GOP officials told The Des Moines Register on Wednesday. Despite Santorum's advantage, the state Republican party views the results as a wash.

A source close to the family of the Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset al Megrahi told Sky News Thursday his death is imminent and every day is "expected to be his last." Suffering from prostate cancer, the Libyan's health has rapidly deteriorated -- and his relatives said he has been in a coma and on life support for around a week. Al Megrahi -- who was convicted of killing 270 people by bombing a Pan Am jet in 1988 -- has been unable to walk for a number of weeks and is not expected to recover.

Embattled Metra Executive Director Phil Pagano, under investigation by his own agency for financial issues, threw himself in front of a Metra train this morning and was killed, sources said. It happened in an unincorporated area near Crystal Lake just after 8 a.m.

Let me guess in what country....

A federal judge in Houston this afternoon wiped away the fraud and conspiracy conviction of Kenneth L. Lay, the Enron Corp. founder who died of heart disease in July, bowing to decades of legal precedent but frustrating government attempts to seize nearly $44 million from his estate. The ruling worried employees and investors who lost billions of dollars when the Houston energy trading company filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2001. It also came weeks after Congress recessed for the November elections without acting on a last-ditch Justice Department proposal that would have changed the law to allow prosecutors to...

Keeping in line with the Associated Press' penchant for running interference for the Democratic Party, we have another fine example in today's story about the five year prison sentence handed down to Tennessee state senator Roscoe Dixon, a Democrat. Dixon, convicted of taking $9,500 in bribes, was sentenced as a result of an FBI investigation of Tennessee politicians called Operation Tennessee Waltz. Amazingly, the AP found no room in their story for party labels. Naturally, they also don't bother to emphasize the many OTHER Democrats that have been indicted in this scandal. Among others, the top indictments were as follows:...

Posted by Tim Graham on October 8, 2006 - 07:09. The TV networks have enough trouble noticing a single governor's race across the country. But for some reason, the attorney general's race in New York drew attention when Republican candidate Jeanine Pirro drew a federal investigation for wanting to have her cheating husband wire-tapped. (NBC's Today has aired five segments or mentions of Pirro in the last ten days.) Will NBC and others in national TV news report on her opponent, Andrew Cuomo, and his weird habit of investing campaign money in risky hedge funds run by supporters? The New York...

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead on Saturday at her apartment block in central Moscow, police said. "According to initial information she was killed by two shots when leaving the lift. Neighbors found her body," a police source told Reuters. Police found a pistol and four rounds in the lift. Politkovskaya, a 48-year-old mother of two, won international fame and numerous prizes for her dogged pursuit of rights abuses by Putin's government, particularly in the violent southern province of Chechnya. "The first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed...

Cornyn: 700 miles of border fence won't happen Senator says plan isn't practical, doesn't have the necessary funds. By Eunice Moscoso WASHINGTON BUREAU Wednesday, October 04, 2006 WASHINGTON — Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and key liaison to the White House on immigration, said Tuesday that 700 miles of fencing approved by Congress for the United States' southern border will probably not be built because of a lack of money and other practical considerations. "It's one thing to authorize. It's another thing to actually appropriate the money and do it," he said.Cornyn predicted that some fencing would be built...

Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Russia found itself indirectly aiding Hezbollah during the summer's Lebanon war when data collected by Russian-manned listening posts in Syria was transferred to the terror group. According to Jane's Defence Weekly, an advanced listening post on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights fed real-time intelligence to Hezbollah throughout the conflict with Israel. Moscow has long maintained intelligence cooperation with Syria in a broad deal that gives it direct access to sensitive information and brings Russia large profits from defense and infrastructure contracts. Israel has not publicly complained over Russia's intelligence gathering activities, though Jerusalem did...

WASHINGTON, October 4 (Itar-Tass) – As for to day Russia “has no Iegal obstacles to deliver nuclear fuel to Iran,” Nikolai Spassky, deputy head of the Russian Rosatom nuclear agency told reporters on Tuesday. “We normally work in the framework of international law which is international agreements signed by Russia and resolutions of the UN Security Council,” Spassky said noting that today there are no such resolutions limiting nuclear fuel deliveries to Iran. However if the United States adopts a law limiting partnership relations with countries cooperating with Iran and if this law affects relations between the two countries in...