~ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The staffs of the state’s top prosecutor and the governor’s office have been working in secret with General Assembly leaders on legislation to withhold records related to the police investigation into the Dec. 14 Newtown elementary school massacre — including victims’ photos, tapes of 911 calls, and possibly more.
The behind-the-scenes legislative effort came to light Tuesday when The Courant obtained a copy of an email by a top assistant to Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane, Timothy J. Sugrue. Sugrue, an assistant state’s attorney, discussed options considered so far, including blocking release of statements ‘made by a minor.’
‘There is complete agreement regarding photos etc., and audio tapes, although the act may allow the disclosure of audio transcripts,’ Sugrue wrote to Kane, two other Kane subordinates and to Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky, who is directing the investigation of the killings….
I smell b.s. and suspect that limiting access to the records from the Newtown shooting has nothing to do with looking out for the families and everything to do with never letting a good crisis go to waste.
Moreover, I think that this might be setting a precedent for government officials who are opposed to transparency to now keep Americans in the dark and ignorant to their nefarious deeds.
My strong-willed niece, whom I raised, at the age of 12 besides being defiant, always had to get a word in, if not the last, edgewise. I lost track of how many times I would say to her, “Keep digging that hole, Terrell” and true to form, she would do exactly that. (Sidebar: twenty she finally gets it.)
Perhaps, when one gets down to it, there was no actual intent of malice or ill-will on behalf of the IRS to persecute conservative groups (there was of course), and the bottom line is that all of the administration’s IRS apparatchicks were just bloody stupid.
Such is the conclusion one derives after watching today’s attempt by embattled IRS official Lois Lerner to plead the Fifth before the House Oversight Committee, which blew up spectacularly in her face, after she made an actual statement protesting her innocence, which it appears, was in itself a waiver of the waiver.
As a result, committee Chairman Darrell Issa has ordered Lerner to be hauled back, and to answer the questions she evaded earlier today, after now having effectively waived her Fifth Amendment right in retrospect, or else be charged with contempt!
The farce is becoming so blatant it is almost as if someone is utterly desperate to make a complete mockery of the entire IRS scandal, and in the process shake the administration to the core, which more than anything is being exposed as utterly incompetent to boot. Of course, the real question is what is the public’s attention being distracted from….
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. ~Dorothy Nevill
In an excellent piece of journalism, Fox 19 news of Cincinnati, Ohio, has uncovered the names and connection of six IRS employees involved in the IRS scandal who corresponded with entities and individuals that stand in opposition to Barack Obama’s Progressive ideology and countless acts of treason.
The names of the six civil servants who it is alleged to have betrayed the trust of the American people are Mitchell Steele, Carly Young, Joseph Herr, Stephen Seok, Liz Hofacre and a female worker identified as Ms. Richards.
Seok is an IRS supervisor agent while the others are IRS agents.
The agents each have a different manager and above that manager, there exists a different territory manager for each agent. However, there is one supervisor that they all have in common and her name is Cindy Thomas, the Program Manager of the Tax Exempt Division.
Note the chain of command above Thomas in the following screenshot.
When an application for tax exempt status comes into the IRS, agents have 270 days to work through that application. If the application is not processed within those 270 days it automatically triggers flags in the system. When that happens, individual agents are required to input a status update on that individual case once a month, every month until the case is resolved.
Keep in mind, at least 300 groups were targeted out of Cincinnati alone. Those applications spent anywhere from 18 months to nearly 3 years in the system and some still don’t have their non-profit status. 300 groups multiplied by at least 18 months for each group, means thousands of red flags would have been generated in the system.
So who in the chain of command would have received all these flags? The answer, according to the IRS directory, one woman in Cincinnati, Cindy Thomas, the Program Manager of the Tax Exempt Division. Because all six of our IRS workers have different individual and territory managers, Cindy Thomas is one manager they all have common.
It turns out Cindy Thomas’ name is one we have heard before…
Amazing isn’t it that the more the Obama administration lies to the citizens, the more their lies unravel.
This is not an operation run by one or two rogue operatives. This is big and it goes directly to the top. John Boehner is right. Who is going to jail?
John Boehner is right. Who is going to jail?
You know it’s bad when Democrats are this displeased putting them at the same level of displeasure as Republicans while boldly expressing that discontentment so loudly and so often.
Under the headline, ‘Yes, heads should roll at the IRS,’ Ezra Klein points out that, at the very least, ‘A number of IRS employees developed criteria that was politically biased both in appearance and in effect. They were reined in once by their superiors, and then they changed the criteria again, and had to be reined in a second time. Their actions called the fairness of the agency into question and kicked off a national scandal. Even if their intent was pure, they showed bad judgment, more than a bit of incompetence, and perhaps even a touch of insubordination.’
That’s reason enough to fire them, he concludes, ‘even if the process is difficult.’ He is absolutely right. But….
Whenever such a question arises about the nation’s civil servants on local, state and federal levels, the next thing we hear is that they are under a union contract.
Well, I am tired of hearing this excuse. There must be accountability. If those who are hired to serve the people of the United States perform their jobs less than satisfactorily, if they betray those whom pay their salaries, if they break the law and if they are insubordinate, all of the above should immediately render their contract moot.
" Hundreds of youths have set fire to cars and attacked police and rescue services in poor immigrant suburbs in three nights of rioting in Stockholm, Sweden's worst disorder in years.
On Tuesday night, a police station in the Jakobsberg area in the northwest of the city was attacked, two schools were damaged and an arts and crafts center was set ablaze, despite a call for calm from Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
30 investigators from the Oklahoma Attorney Generals office are currently aggressively searching, and finding businesses that are in violation of the Emergency Price Stabilization Act.
After spending $33 last fall for a one gallon gas can and $5.00 for a bag of ice post-Hurricane Sandy last fall, I wish that I could be surprised that such despicable acts are being committed.
An FBI agent fatally shot a Chechen man in Orlando, Florida early Wednesday after the man allegedly turned violent as he was preparing to sign a written confession to his involvement in a 2011 triple homicide, according to authorities.
Ibragim Todashev, 27, was shot dead at his condo near Universal Studios just after midnight, FBI Special Agent Dave Couvertier confirmed to MailOnline.
Authorities say Todashev, who had ties to Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, pulled a knife on the agent, prompting him to fire his weapon in self defense. The agent was taken to a nearby hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
‘The agent, two Massachusetts State Police troopers, and other law enforcement personnel were interviewing an individual in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing investigation when a violent confrontation was initiated by the individual,’ the FBI said in a statement. ‘During the confrontation, the individual was killed….’
…Todashev, a mixed martial arts fighter, knocked a stranger unconscious in a bloody fight over a parking space at the Premium Outlet Mall earlier this month and was arrested on aggravated battery charges.
And a former training partner of Todashev’s from Boston described him as ‘an incredibly gifted athlete’ — with a temper.
But his close friends say the 27-year-old was a good guy, and emphatically deny he had any involvement in extremist activity. Instead, they say, federal agents zeroed in on Todashev in the days following the April 15 Boston bombings — and never relented….
Besides being in the United States legally, pursuant to his many videos posted on YouTube, Todashev was an extreme boxer like his friend Tsarnaev.
In the coming days or weeks, we will hear much about Ibragim Todashev and the events that led up to his death and while some things are not quite adding up at the moment, will they eventually.
As reported by SKY NEWS, riots broke out for a time tonight in London between police and the English Defense League in the aftermath of Islamic terrorist attack that resulted in the beheading of a British soldier outside army barracks in the Woolwich area of southeast London.
… A group of between 75 and 100 men gathered at The Queen’s Arms pub on Burrage Grove, where they sang nationalistic songs.
Sky News correspondent Alistair Bunkall, who is at the scene, said: ‘As soon as the EDL got into the town centre … it became not only a lot harder for the police to try and contain anything, but also the aggression (increased) quite considerably.
‘A few missiles have been thrown, glass bottles and the like. The police are trying to surround them and they’ve been charging them as well with batons….
“The attacks on freedom of thought start with language. Those who do not resign themselves to accept 'homophilia' ... are charged with 'homophobia'.” –Cardinal Giacomo Biffi
Writing for Townhall.com, May 20, 2013, Matt Barber brings to our attention an internal document of the Department of Justice (DOJ), which reeks of the thought tyranny of George Orwell's prescient Nineteen Eighty Four…
The Thought Police, the PC Police and their freaking bff's infringing upon the liberties of everyone else. Very much like the IRS infringing upon the liberties of Americans and Lois Lerner invoking the fifth amendment.
This administration’s management of the Obama Internal Revenue Service scandal so far consists of a slow-walking, rolling disclosure of facts; equal parts equivocation, amnesia and indignation from IRS witnesses; deer-in-the-headlights non-responses by the White House press secretary; parsed, lawyerly statements from the president himself; and now one of the central key players is taking the Fifth…
Indeed, we have come a long way in the past ten days. I suspect by now that Obama is regretting the planted question of Lois Lerner.
I say get the special prosecutor, expose everyone, then throw the indignant civil servants who for some reason have concluded that they are doing, we the people, a favor into a jail cell.
There has to be a recently/urgently revised memo somewhere within the IRS that says never answer a question with a straight forward "yes" or "no." Watch these videos and tell me if you see it any other way.
The rally we attended was "cased" by one of these vehicles. Not city PD, just DHS. WTF is that about? No, I did not get my damn camera up to my face in time. Others did in cities below. One wonders how many others.
It may seem a bit out of place these days to consider the limits & weakness of the Executive Branch. But, at this moment, the Executive Branch is facing no fewer than 3 individual scandals involving potential abuses of executive power. So, this may be as good a time as any to take a look at the powers of the Executive Branch in context with its written Constitutional limits.
Headed by the President of the United States, the Executive Branch is merely one of 3 branches in the U.S. Federal Government. It coexists with the Legislative and Judicial Branches. In order to protect the liberty of the People & the States, the Executive Branch was designed to be less powerful than Congress thereby preventing our Chief Executive from acting like a king. (1*) But, based on the current news reports out of the mainstream media, how many people actually know the limits to executive powers?
FOX 19
