‘OUTRAGEOUS ABUSE’: Tea Party Rejects IRS Apology for Tax Scrutiny
[FoxNews-AP]
Published May 10, 2013
Tea Party leaders refused to accept an apology from the IRS Friday in which the agency acknowledged that it inappropriately flagged conservative groups for additional review during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, said she wants to see resignations over what she called the “disturbing, illegal and outrageous abuse of government power.”
Republican lawmakers also seized on the acknowledgment, after having complained about the suspected harassment more than a year ago. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell called for a “government-wide review” to assure “these thuggish practices” are not in use elsewhere. House Republican Leader Eric Cantor later said the House would investigate.
Reaction was swift and harsh after Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, acknowledged the issue at a conference Friday sponsored by the American Bar Association.
She confirmed that organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status.
In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, she said.
Mitch McConnell Joins Filibuster Against Gun Control
[Breitbart.com]
by AWR Hawkins CWN Post: April 09, 2013
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says he will join GOP Senators to filibuster a bill expanding gun control regulations if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) brings it up for a vote this week.
This puts McConnell shoulder-to-shoulder with Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), and eight other Senators who have said they will block a push for gun control in the Senate.
Currently, Reid’s gun control package focuses on instituting universal background checks and new laws against gun trafficking. Reid has made it clear he will allow also amendments establishing an “assault weapons” ban and Sen. Richard Blumentahl (D-CT) has made it clear he will also try to add a “high capacity” magazine ban as an amendment.
McConnell says he now stands with Paul, Cruz, Lee, Rubio, Inhofe, and the other Senators who have vowed to oppose any “motion to proceed to any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for additional gun restrictions.”
Napolitano: Terrorists Enter U.S. from Mexico ‘From Time to Time’
[CNSNews.com]
By Edwin Mora
July 30, 2012
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(CNSNews.com)– Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress last week that terrorists intending to harm the American people enter the U.S. from Mexico “from time to time.”
At a July 25 hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.) asked Napolitano: “As you know, Madam Secretary, there have been anecdotal reports about material evidence of the presence of terrorists along our southern border. My question is, is there any credible evidence that these reports are accurate and that terrorists are, in fact, crossing our southern border with the intent to do harm to the American people?”
Napolitano answered: “With respect, there have been–and the Ababziar matter would be one I would refer to that’s currently being adjudicated in the criminal courts–from time to time, and we are constantly working against different and evolving threats involving various terrorist groups and various ways they may seek to enter the country.”
“What I can tell you, however, is that that southern border–the U.S.-Mexico border–is heavily, heavily staffed at record amounts of manpower, materiel, infrastructure and the like, and we are constantly making sure we’re doing all we can to make that border as safe as possible,” she said.
An August 2009 audit by the Government Accountability Office that focused on Customs and Border Protection (CBP) checkpoints said that in fiscal 2008 CBP reported “there were three individuals encountered by the Border Patrol at southwest border checkpoints who were identified as persons linked to terrorism.”
In April 2010, CNSNews.com reported that FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “In Detroit, Mahmoud Youssef Kourani was indicted in the Eastern District of Michigan on one count of conspiracy to provide material support to Hezbollah. … Kourani was already in custody for entering the country illegally through Mexico and was involved in fundraising activities on behalf of Hezbollah.”
Five years ago, in an August 2007 interview with the El Paso Times, then-Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell echoed what Napolitano told Congress last week about terrorist coming into the U.S. across the Mexican border.
“So, are terrorists coming across the Southwest border?” McConnell said in that interview. “Not in great numbers.”
“There are some cases?” asked the El Paso Times.
“There are some. And would they use it as a path, given it was available to them? In time they will,” said McConnell.
“If they’re successful at it, then they’ll probably repeat it,” asked the reporter.
“Sure,” said McConnell. “There were a significant number of Iraqis who came across last year. Smuggled across illegally.”
“Where was that?” asked the reporter.
“Across the Southwest border,” said McConnell.
Cordray Nomination Jeopardizes Constitutional Checks and Balances
[BigGovernment.com]
Posted Jan 7th 2012 at 1:41 pm
Forty-four of 46 Republican Senators vowed they would not approve “any consumer financial bureau director unless the agency was put under a five-member outside board, had its work checked periodically by bank examiners and had its budget approved by Congress rather than the Federal Reserve.”
So when Republicans refused to confirm the President’s nominee, Richard Cordray, to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, America’s number one duffer shouldn’t have been surprised.
Senate Republicans maintained that voting down the nomination of Cordray had everything to do with the Dodd-Frank financial reform agency lacking oversight, and nothing to do with the candidate Obama chose to head it up. In other words, Republicans wanted to take consumer protection a step further than the President was willing to go, vowing that they’d agree to confirm a director, but not before additional consumer safeguards and supervision are put in place.
As for Obama’s nominee Richard Cordray, besides being the former Attorney General of the state of Ohio and acting as chief enforcement officer at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for the last year, Cordray is a five-time undefeated Jeopardy champion. Which may be why, when chiding Republicans for blocking his appointment, the President kept mentioning game playing.
According to Barack Obama, champion Jeopardy player Cordray has the expertise to “protect American families from being taken advantage of by mortgage lenders, payday lenders and debt collectors.”
After his pick was rejected, posing a few questions of his own, an irritated Barack Obama wanted to know if “Republicans in Congress think our financial crisis was caused by too much oversight of mortgage lenders or debt collectors?”
GOP: Defeat of Health Law Repeal Is Step Toward Victory in 2012
FoxNews.com
Associated Press
Published February 03, 2011
WASHINGTON — To hear Senate Republicans tell it, the defeat of their attempt to repeal the Democrats’ health care overhaul was really a victory of sorts on the long the march to the 2012 congressional and presidential elections.
The repeal effort sank Wednesday along party lines, 51-47 as expected. But in the process, Republicans forced Democrats on the record in favor of President Barack Obama’s signature overhaul and launched what they described as a two-year effort to discredit it in the lead-up to a bid for a second term.
“These are the first steps in a long road that will culminate in 2012, whereby we will expose the flaws and the weaknesses in this legislation,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the party’s campaign chief.
“We think this is just the beginning,” said Republican leader Mitch McConnell. “This issue is still ahead of us.”
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