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Under Herbert Hoover’s presidency during the Great Depression, local governments ordered the deportation of illegal aliens to make jobs available to American 
citizens that desperately needed work.

Harry Truman introduced legislation in 1951 to reduce the illegal immigration problem.


And then in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower deported approximately 1.3 million Mexican nationals due to the growing threat to national security and the American economy.

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This Is No Ordinary Scandal

Political abuse of the IRS threatens the basic integrity of our government.

By PEGGY NOONAN

We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they're seeing. The Justice Department assault on the Associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration's credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don't look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the president enjoyed is gone.

Something big has shifted. The standing of the administration has changed.

As always it comes down to trust. Do you trust the president's answers when he's pressed on an uncomfortable story? Do you trust his people to be sober and fair-minded as they go about their work? Do you trust the IRS and the Justice Department? You do not.

The president, as usual, acts as if all of this is totally unconnected to him. He's shocked, it's unacceptable, he'll get to the bottom of it. He read about it in the papers, just like you.

But he is not unconnected, he is not a bystander. This is his administration. Those are his executive agencies. He runs the IRS and the Justice Department.

A president sets a mood, a tone. He establishes an atmosphere. If he is arrogant, arrogance spreads. If he is too partisan, too disrespecting of political adversaries, that spreads too. Presidents always undo themselves and then blame it on the third guy in the last row in the sleepy agency across town.

The IRS scandal has two parts. The first is the obviously deliberate and targeted abuse, harassment and attempted suppression of conservative groups. The second is the auditing of the taxes of political activists.

In order to suppress conservative groups—at first those with words like "Tea Party" and "Patriot" in their names, then including those that opposed ObamaCare or advanced the Second Amendment—the IRS demanded donor rolls, membership lists, data on all contributions, names of volunteers, the contents of all speeches made by members, FacebookFB +0.46% posts, minutes of all meetings, and copies of all materials handed out at gatherings. Among its questions: What are you thinking about? Did you ever think of running for office? Do you ever contact political figures? What are you reading? One group sent what it was reading: the U.S. Constitution.

The second part of the scandal is the auditing of political activists who have opposed the administration. The Journal's Kim Strassel reported an Idaho businessman named Frank VanderSloot, who'd donated more than a million dollars to groups supporting Mitt Romney. He found himself last June, for the first time in 30 years, the target of IRS auditors. His wife and his business were also soon audited. Hal Scherz, a Georgia physician, also came to the government's attention. He told ABC News: "It is odd that nothing changed on my tax return and I was never audited until I publicly criticized ObamaCare."

Franklin Graham, son of Billy, told Politico he believes his father was targeted. A conservative Catholic academic who has written for these pages faced questions about her meager freelance writing income. Many of these stories will come out, but not as many as there are. People are not only afraid of being audited, they're afraid of saying they were audited.

All of these IRS actions took place in the years leading up to the 2012 election. They constitute the use of governmental power to intrude on the privacy and shackle the political freedom of American citizens. The purpose, obviously, was to overwhelm and intimidate—to kill the opposition, question by question and audit by audit.

It is not even remotely possible that all this was an accident, a mistake. Again, only conservative groups were targeted, not liberal. It is not even remotely possible that only one IRS office was involved.

Lois Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the IRS, was the person who finally acknowledged, under pressure of a looming investigative report, some of what the IRS was doing. She told reporters the actions were the work of "frontline people" in Cincinnati. But other offices were involved, including Washington. It is not even remotely possible the actions were the work of just a few agents. This was more systemic. It was an operation. The word was out: Get the Democratic Party's foes. It is not remotely possible nobody in the IRS knew what was going on until very recently. The Washington Post reported efforts to target the conservative groups reached the highest levels of the agency by May 2012—far earlier than the agency had acknowledged. Reuters reported high-level IRS officials, including its chief counsel, knew in August 2011 about the targeting.

The White House is reported to be shellshocked at public reaction to the scandal. But why? Were they so highhanded, so essentially ignorant, that they didn't understand what it would mean to the American people when their IRS—the revenue-collecting arm of the U.S. government—is revealed as a low, ugly and bullying tool of the reigning powers? If they didn't know how Americans would react to that, what did they know? I mean beyond Harvey Weinstein's cellphone number.

And why—in the matters of the Associated Press and Benghazi too—does no one in this administration ever take responsibility? Attorney General Eric Holder doesn't know what happened, exactly who did what. The president speaks in the passive voice. He attempts to act out indignation, but he always seems indignant at only one thing: that he's being questioned at all. That he has to address this. That fate put it on his plate.

We all have our biases. Mine is for a federal government that, for all the partisan shootouts on the streets of Washington, is allowed to go about its work. That it not be distracted by scandal, that political disagreement be, in the end, subsumed to the common good. It is a dangerous world: Calculating people wish to do us harm. In this world no draining, unproductive scandals should dominate the government's life. Independent counsels should not often come in and distract the U.S. government from its essential business.

But that bias does not fit these circumstances.

What happened at the IRS is the government's essential business. The IRS case deserves and calls out for an independent counsel, fully armed with all that position's powers. Only then will stables that badly need to be cleaned, be cleaned. Everyone involved in this abuse of power should pay a price, because if they don't, the politicization of the IRS will continue—forever. If it is not stopped now, it will never stop. And if it isn't stopped, no one will ever respect or have even minimal faith in the revenue-gathering arm of the U.S. government again.

And it would be shameful and shallow for any Republican operative or operator to make this scandal into a commercial and turn it into a mere partisan arguing point and part of the game. It's not part of the game. This is not about the usual partisan slugfest. This is about the integrity of our system of government and our ability to trust, which is to say our ability to function.

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Federal prosecutors officially adopted new guidelines about charging corporations with crimes — a softer approach that, longtime white-collar lawyers and former federal prosecutors say, helps explain the dearth of criminal cases despite a raft of inquiries into the financial crisis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/bu...pagewanted=all

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Denmark has taken the top spot on the United Nation's first ever World Happiness Report, followed by Finland, Norway and the Netherlands.

The 158-page report, published by Columbia University's Earth Institute, was commissioned for the United Nations Conference on Happiness on Monday in order to "review the state of happiness in the world today and show how the new science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness."

The rankings in the report were based on a number called the "life evaluation score," a measurement which takes into account a variety of factors including people's health, family and job security as well as social factors like political freedom and government corruption. It also looks at measurements from previous reports on happiness from the Gallup World Poll (GWP), the World Values Survey (WVS), the European Values Survey (EVS), and the European Social Survey (ESS).

In the introduction to the report, co-editors John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs explain that the report aims in part to evaluate happiness based on a more comprehensive measurement system that can be used to inform policy-makers. As the Atlantic explains, previous reports on happiness have linked personal contentment to income, but that correlation has been challenged in recent years by economists who have argued that the happiness of a nation is determined by far more than its Gross National Product.

"While basic living standards are essential for happiness, after the baseline has been met happiness varies more with the quality of human relationship than with income," the report read. "Policy goals should include high employment and high-quality work; a strong community with high levels of trust and respect, which government can influence through inclusive participatory policies; improved physical and mental health; support of family life; and a decent education for all."
Based on its "life evaluation score," which is rated on a scale of 0-to-10, the report found that Denmark, Norway, Finland and the Netherlands outstripped all other nations with an average score of 7.6 between them.

On the other end of the spectrum, Benin, Central African Republic, Togo and the Sierra Leone had an average life evaluation score of 3.4.

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Obama Played by Chicago Rules .

By DAVID FREDDOSO

Democrats don't like it when you say that Barack Obama won his first election in 1996 by throwing all of his opponents off the ballot on technicalities.

By clearing out the incumbent and the others in his first Democratic primary for state Senate, Mr. Obama did something that was neither illegal nor even uncommon. But Mr. Obama claims to represent something different from old-style politics -- especially old-style Chicago politics. And the senator is embarrassed enough by what he did that he misrepresents it in the prologue of his political memoir, "The Audacity of Hope."

In that book, Mr. Obama paints a portrait of himself as a genuine reformer and change agent, just as he has in this presidential campaign. He attributes his 1996 victory to his message of hope, and his exhortations that Chicagoans drop their justifiable cynicism about politics.

When voters complained of all the broken promises politicians had made in the past, Mr. Obama writes that he "would usually smile and nod, and say that I understood the skepticism, but that there was -- and always had been -- another tradition to politics, a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done."

Mr. Obama writes that even if the voters were not impressed by this speech, "enough of them appreciated my earnestness and youthful swagger that I made it to the Illinois legislature."

In real life, it did not matter what Mr. Obama said on the stump or whether South Side voters were impressed. What mattered was that, beginning on Jan. 2, 1996, his campaigners began challenging thousands of petition signatures the other candidates in the race had submitted in order to appear on the ballot. Thus would Mr. Obama win his state Senate seat, months before a single vote was cast.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Obama's petition challengers reported to him nightly on their progress as they disqualified his opponents' signatures on various technical grounds -- all legitimate from the perspective of law. One local newspaper, Chicago Weekend, reported that "[s]ome of the problems include printing registered voters name [sic] instead of writing, a female voter got married after she registered to vote and signed her maiden name, registered voters signed the petitions but don't live in the 13th district."

One of the candidates would speculate that his signature-gatherers, working at a per-signature pay rate, may have cheated him by signing many of the petitions themselves, making them easy to disqualify.

In the end, Mr. Obama disqualified all four opponents -- including the incumbent state senator, Alice Palmer, and three minor candidates. Ms. Palmer, a former ally of Mr. Obama, had gathered 1,580 signatures, more than twice the 757 required to appear on the ballot. A minor, perennial candidate had gathered 1,899 signatures, suggesting the Obama team invested much time working even against him.

The act of throwing an incumbent off the ballot in such a fashion does not fit neatly into the narrative of a public-spirited reformer who seeks to make people less cynical about politics.

But Mr. Obama's offenses against the idea of a "new politics" are many, and go well beyond hardball election tactics. It is telling that, when asked at the Saddleback Forum last weekend to name an instance in which he had worked against his own party or his own political interests, he didn't have a good answer. He claimed to have worked with his current opponent, John McCain, on ethics reform. In fact, no such thing happened. The two men had agreed to work together, for all of one day, in February 2006, and then promptly had a well-documented falling-out. They even exchanged angry letters over this incident.

The most dramatic examples of Mr. Obama's commitment to old-style politics are his repeated endorsements of Chicago's machine politicians, which came in opposition to what people of all ideological stripes viewed as the common good.

In the 2006 election, reformers from both parties attempted to end the corruption in Chicago's Cook County government. They probably would have succeeded, too, had Mr. Obama taken their side. Liberals and conservatives came together and nearly ousted Cook County Board President John Stroger, the machine boss whom court papers credibly accuse of illegally using the county payroll to maintain his own standing army of political cronies, contributors and campaigners.

The since-deceased Stroger's self-serving mismanagement of county government is still the subject of federal investigations and arbitration claims. Stroger was known for trying repeatedly to raise taxes to fund his political machine, even as basic government services were neglected in favor of high-paying county jobs for his political soldiers.

When liberals and conservatives worked together to clean up Cook County's government, they were displaying precisely the postpartisan interest in the common good that Mr. Obama extols today. And Mr. Obama, by working against them, helped keep Chicago politics dirty. He refused to endorse the progressive reformer, Forrest Claypool, who came within seven points of defeating Stroger in the primary.

After the primary, when Stroger's son Todd replaced him on the ballot under controversial circumstances, a good-government Republican named Tony Peraica attracted the same kind of bipartisan support from reformers in the November election. But Mr. Obama endorsed the young heir to the machine, calling him -- to the absolute horror of Chicago liberals -- a "good, progressive Democrat."

Mayor Richard M. Daley -- who would receive Mr. Obama's endorsement in 2007 shortly after several of his top aides and appointees had received prison sentences for their corrupt operation of Chicago's city government -- was invested in the Stroger machine's survival. So was every alderman and county commissioner who uses the county payroll to support political hangers-on. So was Mr. Obama's friend and donor, Tony Rezko, who is now in federal prison awaiting sentencing after being convicted in June of 16 felony corruption charges. Rezko had served as John Stroger's finance chairman and raised $150,000 for him (Stroger put Rezko's wife on the county payroll).

Mr. Obama has never stood up against Chicago's corruption problem because his donors and allies are Chicago's corruption problem.

Mr. Obama is not the reformer he now claims to be. The real man is the one they know in Chicago -- the one who won his first election by depriving voters of a choice.

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Campaign demise [edit]

Ryan married actress Jeri Ryan in 1991; together they have a son, Alex Ryan, born August 15, 1994. They divorced in 1999 in California, and the records of the divorce were open but their custody documents were sealed at their mutual request. Five years later, when Ryan's Senate campaign began, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate, sought to have the records released. On March 3, 2004, several of Ryan's GOP primary opponents urged release of the records.[6] Both Ryan and his wife had agreed to make their divorce records public, but not make the custody records public, claiming that the custody records could be harmful to their son if released. On March 16, 2004, Ryan won the GOP primary with 36 percent to 23 percent against Jim Oberweis, who came in second.[7] Obama won the Democratic primary, with 53 percent to 23 percent against Dan Hynes, who came in second.

On March 29, 2004, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider ruled that several of the Ryans' custody records should be opened to the public, and ruled that a court-appointed referee would later decide which custody files should remain sealed to protect the interests of the Ryans' 9-year-old child.[8] The following week, on April 2, 2004, Barack Obama formally established his position about the Ryans' soon-to-be-released divorce records, and called on Democrats not to inject them into the campaign.[9] The Ryan campaign characterized Obama's stance as hypocritical, because people they alleged to be Obama's backers had been emailing reports about the divorce records prior to Judge Schnider's decision, and urging the press to seek to open them.[9] In May 2004, two polls were conducted statewide. The Chicago Tribune poll found Ryan trailing Obama 52% to 30%[10] while the Sun Times reported that he was trailing Obama 48 percent to 40 percent in the U.S. Senate race, according to a Daily Southtown poll of 500 likely Illinois voters[11][12] On June 22, 2004, after receiving a report from the referee, Judge Schnider released the files that were deemed consistent with the interests of Ryan's young child. In those files, Jeri Ryan alleged that Jack Ryan had wanted her to perform sexual acts with him in public in sex clubs in New York, New Orleans, and Paris, although no sex occurred. Jeri Ryan described one as "a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling."[2][13] Jack denied these allegations and the Judge dismissed the allegations. (Source: Los Angeles Superior Court, Custody Documents, Case No. BD 290 382). In the files Jeri Ryan also revealed she had been having an affair with the producer of her TV show, Brannon Braga, which was unknown by Jack Ryan until he was served by an LA County sheriff with divorce papers. LASC Case Number BD 290 382. Ryan neither brought up her affair in the custody hearing, nor in defense during his campaign.

The decision to release these files generated much controversy because it went against both parents' direct request, and because it reversed the earlier decision to seal the papers in the best interest of the child, who had special needs. Jim Oberweis, Ryan's defeated GOP opponent, commented that "these are allegations made in a divorce hearing, and we all know people tend to say things that aren't necessarily true in divorce proceedings when there is money involved and custody of children involved."[2]

Prior to release of the documents, Ryan claimed he had told leading Republicans that the custody file could cause problems for his campaign.[14] After the documents were released, GOP Chair Judy Baar Topinka said of Ryan's comment "It may have been somewhat misleading."[15] Topinka said after the June 25 withdrawal that Ryan's "decision was a personal one" and that the state GOP had not pressured Ryan to drop out.[16][17] Ryan's campaign ended less than a week after the custody records were opened, and Ryan officially filed the documentation to withdraw on July 29, 2004. The same party leaders who called for Ryan's resignation chose Alan Keyes as Ryan's replacement in the race; Keyes lost to Obama, 27% to 70%.

In retrospect [edit]

Subsequent to his withdrawal from the U.S. Senate race in Illinois, Jack Ryan has characterized what happened to him as a "new low for politics in America".[18] According to Ryan, it was unprecedented in American politics for a newspaper to sue for access to sealed custody documents. Ryan opposed unsealing the divorce records of Senator John Kerry during Kerry's race against George W. Bush in 2004, and Kerry's divorce records remained sealed. Ryan has made the following request: "let me be the only person this has happened to. Don’t ask for Ted Kennedy’s. Don’t ask for John McCain’s. Don’t ask for Joe Lieberman’s. Just stop. This is not a good precedent for American society if you really want the best and brightest to run."[18]

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Sarah Palin, Tea Party save America

By Bernie Quigley - 05/15/13 10:15 AM ET

This morning from The Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker: "Breaking news: Conservative organizations suddenly have found common cause with one of their favorite objects of contempt — the benighted Mainstream Media ... Or as the tea party queen and former Alaska governor likes to put it, the ‘lamestream media.’ In a twist of irony, the two groups have coalesced around a common enemy: the U.S. government.”

The Tea Party queen here is, of course, Sarah Palin. Interesting, because Parker was among the first to announce, when Palin first arrived on the scene, that Palin was “out of her league.”

“The league” is what we commonly call the “establishment” today. This definition of the word “establishment,” which was popularized in the '60s, popped up again (here, I think) to juxtapose and enhance the Tea Party. It contains lamestream press, the two political parties, and the families of influence from Eastern money and Northeastern states, the Kennedy and the Bush apparatuses primarily (Obama proudly walks his Kennedy doggie) and now the Clintons and their generation.

The establishment has flipped. America today has done what needs to be done and it could not have been done without the Tea Party. But truth be told, there would be no Tea Party today had there not been a Sarah Palin to egg it on and advance it.

Reports now are everywhere that “DC turns on Obama,” a headline today at Politico.

We saw it coming when just last month the venerable TV veteran Tom Brokaw condemned the White House correspondents' annual fete, calling it “Versailles.” Something in our nature makes it true when an old soldier, a “Gray Champion,” says it, steps in front of the parade and says "no more." But we have been hearing this from Palin for several years now. Next year it will be different.

What has happened in America these past eight years is that the states have awakened as if from a slumber since 1865. A sea change has occurred between Hamilton’s American vision and Jefferson’s. The Tea Party and Palin have awakened Jefferson. It is a door that opened that will not be closed. The mainstream media has not exactly joined in, but it will. That is the next step.

The White House Correspondents' Association dinner in recent years has always brought to my mind the first years of the infamous and electric Frank Rizzo, mayor of Philadelphia, in the mid '70s. Philly then appeared to be falling apart. A PR campaign put posters all over the city saying, “Philadelphia is not as bad as everybody says.”

In fact, it was worse. But Rizzo provided free lunches for the press and the press loved him. Then one day, a single reporter refused the free lunch. Then another did, then another and another, and soon the press woke up to the Rizzo corruption and began to see their appeasement as benign coat carriers advanced and protected it. The Philadelphia Inquirer went on the attack. It went on to win Pulitzer after Pulitzer and in short time took the reputation of being the best investigative newspaper in America. And Philly returned to life.

The dam has broken in D.C. Let's hope the same happens there.

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The IRS Was Dead Right To Scrutinize Tea Party

Posted: 05/15/2013 1:06 pm

Lost in the latest political scandal is a simple fact: The Internal Revenue Service was acting in the public interest when it opted to train its auditing power on the Tea Party and affiliated groups.

In castigating government as the root of all evil while portraying taxation as a form of tyranny, the Tea Party is no less than a mass celebration of the evasion of the basic responsibilities of American citizenship. Common sense alone tells you that people drawn to its ranks may feel extra temptation to find ways to limit what they surrender to the rogue federal bureaucrats who have supposedly seized the nation.

The cover-up is the bad part here, as in nearly all Washington scandals. It's not the act itself that delivered the real trouble -- in this case, a campaign unleashed in the Cincinnati offices of the IRS to scrutinize with particular rigor the applications for tax-exempt status submitted by Tea Party-affiliated groups. Rather, it was what happened afterwards that poses the problem: Officials at the IRS lied to members of Congress about what was actually going on.

That's how we got here, to this full-blown scandal with all the usual rituals -- an event that lends validation to seemingly every crackpot idea a conservative group has ever leveled at the Obama administration. (The fact that the Justice Department simultaneously got caught on an overreach of its own, seizing a trove of correspondence from journalists, hardly helps the administration deflect the well-earned wrath of critics.)

But let's get back to the primary act at issue here: The IRS -- an agency loved by no one and responsible for stocking the Treasury with federal tax proceeds, due under the law -- appears to have devoted unique effort to making sure that Tea Party organizations were not fudging the paperwork in their bids to secure tax exemption.

Good for the IRS.

Like any institution, the agency has limited resources at its disposal. The notion that everyone ought to be treated the same, with auditing powers sprayed around like a lawn sprinkler, is ridiculous. Cops concentrate patrols in high-crime areas. And while we properly decry racial profiling and odious tactics like New York City's Stop and Frisk campaign -- through which people are subject to police pat-downs for no other reason than their being black and male -- no one would criticize the police for keeping an eye on people who are openly encouraging criminal behavior.

Which gets us back to the Tea Party. Here is a group that has made no effort to hide its contempt for the very institution of taxation. This is what it says on the website of the Cincinnati Tea Party: "Individuals need to have a direct connection between their efforts and the fruits of their labor. This is the magical spark that has led the United States from a loosely conglomerated political experiment into the most exceptional, strongest and most powerful nation on earth. Too many taxes and regulations ultimately serve to snuff out that spark."

The blog section of that site includes links to a host of propaganda from anti-government groups, including this link to a video produced by an outfit called "Government Gone Wild," which highlights the expansion of taxpayer-financed safety net programs such as food stamps, unemployment and Medicaid.

"You are being enslaved," declares a fear-mongering narrator, engaging in an all-too-typical depiction of poor people as freeloaders living fat on the public dime. "More and more people are becoming dependent on government to take care of them, and politicians don't like it one bit: They love it."

In short, being poor is depicted as just a con aimed at gorging on a luxurious buffet, stocked by taxpayer-financed programs like food stamps. Other than fear of enforcement, why would anyone with such beliefs bother to pay their taxes in full?

This sort of thinking is pervasive among those inclined to caricature government as inherently demonic, which is to say, the sorts of people attracted to the Tea Party. Search for "Tea Party" and "tax evasion" on the Internet and you can find a blog called Government Against the People, and a post titled "Tax Resistance Is As American As Apple Pie."

We are living in a time of startling inequality, long-term joblessness, entrenched poverty and the breakdown of middle-class opportunity. Our classrooms are crumbling. Whole cities are consumed by neglect and deterioration, while suburban communities now contend with foreclosure, homelessness and despair. Government alone cannot fix any of these problems, but government clearly has a role to play. Government must boost investment in education and spur innovation through support for research. Government must maintain a safety net for people in need. All of this costs money.

The Tea Party stands for many things, but a big part of its message is that sending money to Washington amounts to the perpetuation of a dangerous welfare state that's intent on turning America into a helpless land where our lone skill is filling out the forms to go on the dole.

Isn't it reasonable to assume that people who hold such beliefs might feel additional motivation to pursue grey areas and loopholes at tax time? Wouldn't the people who oversee federal coffers have been derelict had they not at least had a good look?

None of which justifies shortcuts in terms of due process or basic civil liberties. We live in a free society, and people can congregate and propagate and opine as they like. People should be able to vote how they choose and encourage others to do the same, while feeling secure that they will not suffer reprisals at work or under the law.

This scandal does not stem from the IRS actually levying action that contravenes the law. It's simply about whom the IRS decided to scrutinize. And the IRS had abundant reason to look carefully at the applications for tax exempt status sent in by people who are prone to portray taxes as something as base as slavery.

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A Pattern Of Power Abuse

Posted 06:49 PM ET

Tyranny: Perhaps the most sinister aspect of the president's parade of scandals is that just days before they broke, he mocked as paranoid those concerned about government excesses.

On May 5, while giving the commencement address at Ohio State University, President Obama advised graduates to put all their trust in government and reject those shrill "voices" that say it's the source of our problems.

Ignore these limited-government types, he told the class of 2013, who warn "tyranny lurks just around the corner."

Only, Obama himself has proved our fears are well-founded. Government, particularly governance by this rogue regime, needs more checks, not fewer; more skepticism, not less. Tyranny isn't lurking around the corner. It's now upon us, manifest in the pattern of misuse and abuse of government power by this presidency, as revealed in its:

• Siccing the IRS on its political enemies.

• Seizing the home phone records of journalists.

• Opening more criminal investigations of press leaks than all previous presidents combined.

• Intimidating and silencing government whistle-blowers.

• Doctoring CIA intelligence reports to cover up national security failures.

• Framing private lenders and other businesses for civil-rights violations.

• Funneling settlement funds from banks to Democrat nonprofit groups who weren't even party to cases, including those that exist solely to shake down banks for risky loans and payola.

• Interfering in and sabotaging Supreme Court cases to protect unconstitutional prosecutorial weapons used against financial institutions.

• Running guns to foreign druglords and covering up their link to a federal agent's death.

It's no coincidence that the political timelines of the IRS and Justice Department fishing expeditions, as well as the Benghazi cover-up, all line up with Democrat political campaigns.

This is the government we have trusted to be the custodian of our personal medical records? This is the government we have trusted to police every consumer credit transaction?

It is imperative that Republicans now move legislation to repeal ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, while immediately blocking further funding to enforce and implement new health and financial regulations.

As we have warned over and over again in the last four years, this is an exceedingly power-hungry president who has no respect for the Constitution or rule of law. He will continue to run roughshod over our individual rights and economic freedoms — if we continue to let him.

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Democrats and the IRS

Chuck Schumer wanted the agency to probe tax-exempt political groups..

President Obama fired acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller on Wednesday, two days after claiming it was an "independent" agency. That was certainly a rapid re-education. But Mr. Miller shouldn't be the only fall guy, because the 54-page report released Tuesday by the Treasury Inspector General of Tax Administration makes clear that the tax agency tried to quash the political speech of groups opposed to Democrats during a Presidential election.

Beginning in early 2010, the report says, IRS officials in Cincinnati began using "inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention." The Cincinnati workers also developed a spreadsheet that was dubbed "Be On The Look Out" with key words to target conservative groups.

Over the next 18 months those groups found their applications delayed, and they were served with aggressive and burdensome questionnaires as part of the process of applying for tax-exempt status. Of the 170 groups that got requests for extra information, the Treasury report finds that 98 or 58% of the requests were unnecessary.

Fox News commentator and author Monica Crowley on the Department of Justice’s investigation of the IRS’s harassment of conservative groups. Photos: Getty Images

IRS defenders have said in recent days that the operation wasn't really partisan because tea party and similar groups only made up a third of all groups flagged for additional scrutiny. But according to the report, "all cases with Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names were forwarded to the team of specialists" (our emphasis). Of the 296 applications that were selected as "potential political cases," 91 of them, or 31%, were selected for scrutiny even though they showed no evidence of major political campaign activity.

Once they were selected, the report confirms they were slow-tracked: While a few applications got attention, the vast majority sat interminably as the 2012 campaign rolled on. According to the report, "No work was completed on the majority of these applications for 13 months." And "all applications that were forwarded to the team of specialists experienced substantial delays in processing." The political cases took the IRS some 574 days on average to process compared to 238 days for other nonprofit applications.

Those delays effectively sidelined the political activity of groups that would have opposed the re-election of President Obama and other Democratic priorities. The report acknowledges that "For I.R.C. § 501(c)(3) organizations, this means that potential donors and grantors could be reluctant to provide donations or grants. In addition, some organizations withdrew their applications and others may not have begun conducting planned charitable or social welfare work."

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It's no surprise, then, that Democrats have been angling to blame all this on the Supreme Court's 2010 decision to allow more independent campaign spending. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi responded to the scandal by saying that "We must overturn Citizens United, which has exacerbated the challenges posed by some of these so-called 'social welfare' organizations." So a Supreme Court decision justifies selective tax enforcement?

Ms. Pelosi's remarks are revealing because they underscore that Democratic agitation to restrict political speech may have driven this IRS dragnet. In a September 2010 letter to then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, Montana Senator Max Baucus encouraged the IRS to investigate the use of nonprofit status by conservative groups. Noting media reports on conservative groups like Crossroads GPS, American Action Network and Americans for Job Security, Mr. Baucus wrote that there are "serious questions about whether such organizations are operating in compliance with the Internal Revenue Code."

In March 2012, New York Senator Chuck Schumer and six other Democrats signed a letter demanding that the IRS put a "cap" on spending by nonprofits or face legislation. In the meantime, they wrote, the groups should be forced to "show their math" to prove that they deserve the tax-exempt status they are applying for. "The IRS should already possess the authority to issue immediate guidance on this matter," the Senators wrote.

Before he was fired Wednesday, Mr. Miller, the acting IRS commissioner identified two "rogue" Cincinnati workers as the puppeteers behind the overly "aggressive" enforcement. But don't be surprised if they thought they were merely following the direction of Senate Democrats.

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Whether these T-men were dumb or ambitious, count us skeptical that the buck stops there. The report blames much of the debacle on inefficient management or inadequate oversight of low-level workers. But IRS Exempt Organizations Director Lois Lerner has years of experience that include 20 years at the Federal Election Commission, including as Acting General Counsel.

The report also lobs some softballs that deserve follow-ups. On page 7, the report notes that "We asked the Acting Commissioner, Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division; the Director, EO; and Determinations Unit personnel if the criteria were influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS. All of these officials stated that the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS." So, that's it? Let's get that one answered under oath.

An IRS culture of politicized enforcement has shown up elsewhere too. The ProPublica website said recently that in 2012 the Cincinnati IRS gave it the confidential nonprofit applications of nine conservative groups, of which ProPublica later published six. The ProPublica reports were exploring the theme that Ms. Pelosi and Democrats sounded on tax-exemptions and political spending.

These leaks are an abuse of power. By all means let's hear from the folks in Cincinnati, but the idea that conservative group tax-exemptions should be targeted also has a Washington pedigree.

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D.C. turns on Obama

By MIKE ALLEN and JIM VANDEHEI | 5/14/13 9:10 PM EDT

The town is turning on President Obama — and this is very bad news for this White House.

Republicans have waited five years for the moment to put the screws to Obama — and they have one-third of all congressional committees on the case now. Establishment Democrats, never big fans of this president to begin with, are starting to speak out. And reporters are tripping over themselves to condemn lies, bullying and shadiness in the Obama administration.
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Buy-in from all three D.C. stakeholders is an essential ingredient for a good old-fashioned Washington pile-on — so get ready for bad stories and public scolding to pile up.

Vernon Jordan, a close adviser to President Bill Clinton through his darkest days, told us: “It’s never all right if you’re the president. There is no smooth sailing. So now he has the turbulence, and this is the ultimate test of his leadership.” Jordan says Obama needs to do something dramatic on the IRS, and quick: “He needs to fire somebody. He needs action, not conversation.”

Obama’s aloof mien and holier-than-thou rhetoric have left him with little reservoir of good will, even among Democrats. And the press, after years of being accused of being soft on Obama while being berated by West Wing aides on matters big and small, now has every incentive to be as ruthless as can be.

This White House’s instinctive petulance, arrogance and defensiveness have all worked to isolate Obama at a time when he most needs a support system. “It feel like they don’t know what they’re here to do,” a former senior Obama administration official said. “When there’s no narrative, stuff like this consumes you.”

Republican outrage is predictable, maybe even manageable. Democratic outrage is not.

The dam of solid Democratic solidarity has collapsed, starting with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s weekend scolding of the White House over Benghazi, then gushing with the news the Justice Department had sucked up an absurdly broad swath of Associated Press phone records.

Democrats are privately befuddled by the White House’s flat-footed handling of this P.R. and legal mess, blaming a combination of bad timing, hubris and communications ineptitude. The most charitable defense offered up on background is that Obama staffers are scandal virgins, unaccustomed to dealing with a rabid press.

Chris Lehane, who spent so much time managing scandals in the 1990s that it inspired him to write a textbook on the subject, is among the contingent of Clinton-era scandal hands that thinks the Obama team has botched its second-term image. “One cannot get caught up with chasing news cycles in a crisis, as that is a prescription for putting out inaccurate information that does not withstand scrutiny or the test of time,” said Lehane, whose book is titled “Masters of Disaster.”

One Democrat who likes Obama and has been around town for many years said elected officials in his own party are no different than Republicans: They think the president is distant and unapproachable.

“He has never taken the Democratic chairs up to Camp David to have a drink or to have a discussion,” the longtime Washingtonian said. “You gotta stroke people and talk to them. It’s like courting: You have to send flowers and candy and have surprises. It’s a constant process. Now they’re saying, ‘He never talked to me in the good times.’”

This makes it easier for Democrats like House Oversight and Government Reform Committee member Elijah Cummings to pop off, as he did on CNN on Tuesday, calling the IRS scandal “one of the most alarming things” he’s ever seen. Ouch.

None of this is going away. Top Republicans tell us the Benghazi investigations will last at least months, and probably until the midterms of 2014 and beyond. Same for the IRS scandal — and new scrutiny of how the Obama White House clamps down on its critics. Republicans are also working up plans to use the backdrop of government incompetence and over-reach to try to further undermine implementation of the new health care law.

This is a dangerous — albeit familiar — place for a second-term president. Once the dogs are released, they bark, they bite and it takes a very long time to calm them down. Bill Clinton got hit early and often, and George W. Bush never really recovered from it.

No doubt, the hysteria cools. But, once you hit this point, it takes time, often lots of it.

The long-term danger is that the political system and the public start to view the president, his motives and ideas through a more skeptical lens. The short-term danger is the press races for new details, new scandals, new expressions of indignity with each passing day. Read Tuesday morning editorial pages of every paper for a taste of things to come. Or watch a rerun of Tuesday’s “Morning Joe,” in which reporters made it sound like Obama is a latter-day Richard Nixon.

““And it goes beyond even the story,” National Journal’s Ron Fournier, who covered the Clinton and Bush scandals and was once the AP Washington bureau chief, said on the show. “One common thing with Benghazi and the IRS scandal, is we’re being misled every day. We were lied to on Benghazi, on the talking points behind Benghazi, for months. We were lied to by the IRS for months and now they’re sending a clear message to our sources:

‘Don’t embarrass the administration or we’re coming after you.’”

Katie Glueck contributed to this report.

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Monday, 22 April 2013 18:00
Russian FSB Reportedly Contacted FBI About Tamerlan Tsarnaev

According to CBS, the FBI initially denied contacting Tsarnaev, but this apparently changed after his mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, said they had contacted her son in an interview with Russia Today (RT).

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews...erlan-tsarnaev

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“By Svea Herbst-Bayliss Reuters – Sun, Apr 21, 2013

Tsarnaev was shot in the throat and had tongue damage, said a source close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We don’t know if we’ll ever be able to question the individual,” Menino told ABC’s “This Week” program. He did not elaborate.

http://news.yahoo.com/boston-maratho...031410096.html “

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“MOTHER OF BOMBING SUSPECTS: My Sons Would Never Do This And My Older Son Is Still Alive

Michael Kelley|Apr. 23, 2013,
http://www.businessinsider.com/bosto...#ixzz2RJfUxsbf “

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“Boston bombing suspect cites U.S. wars as motivation, officials say

By Scott Wilson, Greg Miller and Sari Horwitz,

From his hospital bed, where he is now listed in fair condition, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has acknowledged his role in planting the explosives near the marathon finish line on April 15, the officials said. The first successful large-scale bombing in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era, the Boston attack killed three people and wounded more than 250 others.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...70e_story.html “

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“Now officials claim Boston bombing suspect was NOT armed in boat showdown - despite police account of firefight and him 'shooting himself'

Officials now claim that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was unarmed as he hid in boat in Watertown

Contradicts Boston Police Commissioner's account of hour-long firefight with Tsarnaev
New York Times said M4 rifle had been found on boat
Police sources suggested Tsarnaev shot himself onboard

By Associated Press and Daily Mail Reporter
, 24 April 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz2RViUlSlA

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Ansar al-Sharia or Ansar al-Shariah may refer to:
Ansar al-Sharia (Yemen)
Ansar al-Sharia (Benghazi, Libya)
Ansar al-Sharia (Derna, Libya)
Ansar al-Sharia (Tunisia)
Ansar al-Sharia (Mali)
Ansar al-Sharia (Egypt)
Ansar al-Sharia (Morocco)

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The first time we heard the name Ansar al-Sharia was in early 2011, when Adil al-Abab, AQAP’s chief cleric, announced that Ansar al-Sharia was the name Al Qaeda used to introduce itself to people in Yemen. Just as bin Laden realized that the name “Al Qaeda” had become in Arabic almost a byword for terror, so too did AQAP come to the conclusion that the name Al Qaeda had too much negative baggage associated with it.

Adopting the name Ansar al-Sharia has basically been a rebranding attempt. We know that Nasir al-Wuhayshi heads both AQAP and Ansar al-Sharia. We know that the different emirs for Ansar al-Sharia accept the bay‘a or oath of allegiance on behalf of Wuhayshi. And we know that members claimed by Ansar al-Sharia are also claimed by AQAP.

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Sept. 14, 11:15 am

• We believe based on currently available information that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex.

• The crowd almost certainly was a mix of individuals from across many sectors of Libyan society. That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack.

• Initial press reporting linked the attack to Ansar al-Sharia. The group has since released a statement that its leadership did not order the attacks, but did not deny that some of its members were involved. Ansar al-Sharia's Facebook page aims to spread Sharia in Libya and emphasizes the need for jihad to counter what it views as false interpretations of Islam, according to an open source study.

• The wide availability of weapons and experienced fighters in Libya almost certainly contribute to the lethality of the attacks.

• Since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador's convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.

• We are working w/ Libyan authorities and intelligence partners in an effort to help bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of U.S. citizens.

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Ansar al-Shariah Brigade didn't participate in this popular uprising as a separate entity, but it was carrying out its duties in al-Jala'a hospital and other places where it was entrusted with some duties. The Brigade didn't participate as a sole entity; rather, it was a spontaneous popular uprising in response to what happened by the West.

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4:42 p.m. talking points: Changed "attacks in Benghazi" to "demonstrations in Benghazi."

Added: "On 10 September we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the Embassy [in Cairo] and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy." This news that a warning had been given was later removed.

Added: "The Agency [CIA] has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa'ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador's convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks." This news of advance warning of a threat was later removed.

Removed reference to "ties to al Qa'ida" and again changed "attack" to "violent demonstrations."

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Sept. 15, 11:26 am

• The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. diplomatic post and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.

• This assessment may change as additional information is collected and analyzed and currently available information continues to be evaluated.

• The investigation is ongoing, and the U.S. Government is working w/ Libyan authorities to help bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of U.S. citizens.

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Ansar al Shariah then claimed that the attack "was a spontaneous popular uprising" to a video released on YouTube that denigrated the Prophet Mohammed.

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Marriage Rights and Benefits
Learn some of the legal and practical ways that getting married changes your life.


Whether or not you favor marriage as a social institution, there's no denying that it confers many rights, protections, and benefits -- both legal and practical. Some of these vary from state to state, but the list typically includes:
Tax Benefits

Filing joint income tax returns with the IRS and state taxing authorities.
Creating a "family partnership" under federal tax laws, which allows you to divide business income among family members.

Estate Planning Benefits

Inheriting a share of your spouse's estate.
Receiving an exemption from both estate taxes and gift taxes for all property you give or leave to your spouse.
Creating life estate trusts that are restricted to married couples, including QTIP trusts, QDOT trusts, and marital deduction trusts.
Obtaining priority if a conservator needs to be appointed for your spouse -- that is, someone to make financial and/or medical decisions on your spouse's behalf.

Government Benefits

Receiving Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for spouses.
Receiving veterans' and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans.
Receiving public assistance benefits.

Employment Benefits

Obtaining insurance benefits through a spouse's employer.
Taking family leave to care for your spouse during an illness.
Receiving wages, workers' compensation, and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse.
Taking bereavement leave if your spouse or one of your spouse's close relatives dies.

Medical Benefits

Visiting your spouse in a hospital intensive care unit or during restricted visiting hours in other parts of a medical facility.
Making medical decisions for your spouse if he or she becomes incapacitated and unable to express wishes for treatment.

Death Benefits

Consenting to after-death examinations and procedures.
Making burial or other final arrangements.

Family Benefits

Filing for stepparent or joint adoption.
Applying for joint foster care rights.
Receiving equitable division of property if you divorce.
Receiving spousal or child support, child custody, and visitation if you divorce.

Housing Benefits

Living in neighborhoods zoned for "families only."
Automatically renewing leases signed by your spouse.

Consumer Benefits

Receiving family rates for health, homeowners', auto, and other types of insurance.
Receiving tuition discounts and permission to use school facilities.
Other consumer discounts and incentives offered only to married couples or families.

Other Legal Benefits and Protections

Suing a third person for wrongful death of your spouse and loss of consortium (loss of intimacy).
Suing a third person for offenses that interfere with the success of your marriage, such as alienation of affection and criminal conversation (these laws are available in only a few states).
Claiming the marital communications privilege, which means a court can't force you to disclose the contents of confidential communications between you and your spouse during your marriage.
Receiving crime victims' recovery benefits if your spouse is the victim of a crime.
Obtaining immigration and residency benefits for noncitizen spouse.
Visiting rights in jails and other places where visitors are restricted to immediate family.

Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, and Domestic Partnerships

If you are in a same-sex marriage in one of the states where same-sex marriage is allowed (Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and D.C.), or if you are in a domestic partnership or civil union in any of the states that offer those relationship options, none of the benefits of marriage under federal law will apply to you, because the federal government does not recognize these same-sex relationships. For example, you may not file joint federal income tax returns with your partner, even if your state allows you to file taxes jointly. And other federal benefits, such as Social Security death benefits and COBRA continuation insurance coverage, may not apply.

To learn more about the rights and benefits available to same-sex couples, consult a lawyer with expertise in this area and see Making It Legal:A Guide to Same-Sex Marriage, Domestic Partnerships & Civil Unions, by Frederick Hertz with Emily Doskow (Nolo).
Getting Married?

If you are considering getting married, check out Nolo's free articles on marriage requirements and prenuptial agreements.

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Pakistan’s highest court rules U.S. drone strikes illegal

Judges said that since innocent civilians have been killed, the strikes should be considered war crimes
By Natasha Lennard

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Topics: Drones, CIA, Pakistan, Al-Qaida, peshawar high court, United Nations, UN, Drone strikes, News
Pakistan's highest court rules U.S. drone strikes illegal (Credit: Shutterstock)

The highest court in Pakistan ruled Thursday that U.S. drone strikes are illegal. The Peshawar High Court advised the Pakistani government to to move a resolution against the attacks in the United Nations, the U.K.’s Independent newspaper reported.

The ruling bolsters recent claims made by U.N. human rights expert Ben Emmerson Q.C., following a visit to Pakistan, that authorities in the country gave no consent, tacit or otherwise, for the CIA strikes to be carried out in its tribal regions. However, reporting by Mark Mazzetti suggests that a secret deal, forged between the CIA and the Pakistani military, gave the go-ahead for U.S. drone strikes in return for the initial targeting of an enemy of the Pakistani state (not an al-Qaida operative).

The high court’s decision Thursday declared that the drone strikes court must be declared a war crime as they killed innocent people. In March of this year, the Pakistani government said that “at least 400” have been killed by drone strikes in the country. The British Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates a similar figure.

The Independent reported on Thursday’s Peshawar High Court ruling, which human rights advocates are celebrating as a landmark:

Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, who headed a two-judge bench that heard the petitions, ruled the drone strikes were illegal, inhumane and a violation of the U.N. charter on human rights. The court said the strikes must be declared a war crime as they killed innocent people.

“The government of Pakistan must ensure that no drone strike takes place in the future,” the court said, according to the Press Trust of India. It asked Pakistan’s foreign ministry to table a resolution against the American attacks in the U.N.

“If the U.S. vetoes the resolution, then the country should think about breaking diplomatic ties with the U.S.,” the judgment said.

Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com. More Natasha Lennard.

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The Corner

IRS Inquisition Update

By Kevin Williamson

May 11, 2013 9:40 AM

Along with targeting tea-party groups, the IRS may also have given extra-special attention to the tax-exempt status of some Jewish groups for political reasons.

From the Jewish Press:

The passionately pro-Israel organization Z STREET filed a lawsuit against the IRS, claiming it had been told by an IRS agent that because the organization was “connected to Israel,” its application for tax-exempt status would receive additional scrutiny. This admission was made in response to a query about the lengthy reveiw of Z STREET’s tax exempt status application.

In addition, the IRS agent told a Z STREET representative that the applications of some of those Israel-related organizations have been assigned to “a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.” . . .

And at least one purely religious Jewish organization, one not focused on Israel, was the recipient of bizarre and highly inappropriate questions about Israel. Those questions also came from the same non-profit division of the IRS at issue for inappropriately targeting politically conservative groups. The IRS required that Jewish organization to state “whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel,” and also demanded the organization “[d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel.”

More bureaucratic snafus?

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