House Budget Punishes IRS with 15% Cut, Halts Obamacare Enforcement

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner The Internal Revenue Service is about to get slapped with a harsh payback for messing around with conservative groups, blowing wads of tax dollars on employee conferences and helping implement Obamacare.

The House Appropriations Committee is set to OK an IRS budget of $10.9 billion, $1.5 billion under President Obama’s request for fiscal year 2015, reducing the agency’s budget to 2008 levels.

The goal is to keep the tax agency focused on its “core duties,” and eliminate efforts to judge the political activities of tax-exempt groups and brake its implementation of Obamacare.

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Arpaio: ‘Border Patrol Is Too Busy Changing Diapers’ To Go After Illegal Immigrants

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Photo Credit: Sandy Huffaker / Getty ImagesMaricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says the Border Patrol is too busy babysitting to actually do their jobs.

“The Border Patrol is too busy changing diapers and not going after dope peddlers and illegal immigrants,” Arpaio told Fox News Monday night.

More than 47,000 mostly Central American unaccompanied children have been caught illegally crossing the Mexican border into Texas since October. That’s left border agents in Texas overwhelmed and unable to process so many children. Within the last week, more than 1,000 of them have been transferred to a warehouse in Nogales, Ariz., where they are being processed before being sent to shelters in various states and then reunited with family members.

Arpaio believes President Barack Obama knew this influx of illegal immigrants was going to happen in an effort to push forward immigration reform.

“I think the president knew this was going to happen, so it’s going to help him on his executive orders if Congress doesn’t take this mission up,” Arpaio told Fox News. “It might backfire because of the inhumane situations.”

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Lawmakers: IRS Knew for Months of ‘Lost’ Lerner Emails, More Documents Missing

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Photo Credit: APRepublican lawmakers charged Tuesday that the IRS knew for months they had “lost” a massive trove of emails from embattled ex-IRS official Lois Lerner, but kept it “secret” until this past Friday.

The lawmakers noted that during this period, newly appointed Commissioner John Koskinen nevertheless assured Congress the agency would produce the documents, which are considered critical to their efforts to probe the targeting of Tea Party and other groups. Further, lawmakers said records from six other IRS workers appear to have gone missing as well.

“It looks like the American people were lied to and the IRS tried to cover-up the fact it conveniently lost key documents in this investigation,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., said in a statement.

Republicans on the committee said the agency knew as early as February that emails were missing.

Yet the IRS only revealed last Friday that it had lost an untold number of emails when Lerner’s computer crashed in 2011. Lerner used to head the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status.

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Benham Brothers, Fired By HGTV, To Speak At Conservative Gathering

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller David and Jason Benham — the two would-be reality stars who lost their planned home renovation show on the Home and Garden Television network last month after they came under attack for their past activism on marriage and abortion — are scheduled to address conservatives at a political gathering in Washington this week.

In a phone interview with The Daily Caller on Tuesday, the Benham Brothers previewed their remarks ahead of the Road to Majority conference and reflected on HGTV’s decision to cut ties with them because of their history of speaking out against gay marriage, abortion and divorce.

“I’ll be asking political leaders to stand strong in the face of opposition, and recapping a little bit of our history, our nation’s history,” David Benham told TheDC. “Why it’s important for us to be men and women of values and stand for those values.”

“Change happens from the inside out,” Jason Benham added. “True and lasting change will only happen from the inside out. Politics oftentimes feels from the outside in.”

The Road to Majority conference, sponsored by the Faith and Freedom Coalition, bills itself as the “premier event for people of faith and conservative activists.” It will be held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel from Thursday to Saturday.

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Hypocrisy Much? Clintons Took Pains To Avoid Taxes They Publicly Support

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Photo Credit: IJ Review According to Bloomberg, in 2010 the Clintons changed the ownership status of their New York home, which they bought in 1999 for $1.7 million, to take advantage of current estate tax rules.

What they did is divide the ownership into two separate trusts that pass to on to Chelsea after 10 years. After that period they will have to pay rent to her, but any growth in the value of the home remains outside of their estate. And thereby limit estate taxes.

Doesn’t everyone do that if they have the financial wherewithal? Isn’t it the responsible thing to do?

Of course and of course.

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As Long as U.S. Leaders Game the System, So Will Illegals

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Photo Credit; TownHall In 2012, the current administration made it clear that certain unaccompanied illegal minors would not be deported if caught. This helped create an atmosphere of tolerance that would be conducive to the current rash of illegal dumping of thousands of children from south of the border into the United States. Now we have a humanitarian crisis that appears to have been manufactured for political reasons.

One would not have to be incredibly bright to predict that families in South and Central America, as well as in Mexico, would recognize a veiled invitation to get their children into the United States with little chance of deportation. Of course, the media are asking opponents of the administration for solutions to this crisis. Almost anything these opponents suggest will be either harsh, making them appear cruel and callous, or weak, making them appear to be amnesty supporters. Either way, they will take a political hit.

Meanwhile, the administration can stay above the fray and receive the political benefit of gratitude from many legal and illegal immigrants. It’s a clever and effective ploy with the added benefit of redistributing even more American wealth. It remains to be seen how many people will be hoodwinked.

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Iraq Crisis: Saddam’s Men Return to Power in City Once Held By US (+video)

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Photo Credit: Anadolu Agency / GettyIt was once the emblem of US military success in Iraq – the city where American forces defeated their adversaries twice. First they drove out the army of Saddam Hussein, and later the Islamist militants who rose up against the occupation.

Less than a decade later, the two US foes have joined forces to seize back Tal Afar, and the machine guns and armoured vehicles that American troops left behind to defend its new-found freedom are being used by the very insurgents they sought to defeat.

The arrival of the jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham in northern Iraq has brought on sectarian insurgency anew, and loyalists to the late Saddam Hussein have once again picked up their arms to fight.

On Sunday, Isis jihadists, backed by local Baathist remnants from Saddam’s old regime, overran Tal Afar, causing the exodus of most of the city’s Shia community.

“It is Baathists from Tal Afar who enabled Isis to take over the town. They have a strong presence and are very well organised,” said one senior Iraqi intelligence officer from the area. “This is the return of Saddam’s men.”

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Justice for Justina: Judge Orders Connecticut Girl to Be Returned to Family

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Photo Credit: Fox News Justina Pelletier is coming home.

A Massachusetts judge ordered the 16-year-old Connecticut girl, who was taken from her family by child welfare advocates more than a year ago, to be returned to her mother and father effective Wednesday. The ruling caps a long-running medical custody dispute that began when two highly-respected Boston hospitals clashed over the girl’s diagnosis. The case sparked national outrage, and led Lou and Linda Pelletier, of West Hartford, Conn., to wage a bitter legal battle.

“To hear the news is overwhelming,” Lou Pelletier told FoxNews.com moments after learning of the ruling. “Now we can certainly begin the healing process.”

The case began when the girl’s parents disagreed with a psychiatric diagnosis given by Boston Children’s Hospital and said they wanted their daughter returned to her original physician at Tufts Medical Center, who had previously treated Justina for mitochondrial disease, a group of rare genetic disorders affecting cellular energy production. The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families moved in, claiming Justina was the victim of “medical child abuse.”

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Senior DHS Adviser: ‘Inevitable that ‘Caliphate’ Returns’

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Photo Credit: APA controversial senior adviser to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is receiving criticism for tweeting that the recent takeover of Iraqi cities by a violent terror group is proof that a Muslim “caliphate” is making an “inevitable” return.

Mohamed Elibiary, a controversial figure and member of DHS’s Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC), discussed what he described as the “inevitable” return of a Muslim caliphate Friday on Twitter.

“As I’ve said b4 inevitable that ‘Caliphate’ returns,” Elibiary tweeted in response to a question about the terror group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (also known as ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham), which is currently seeking to overthrow the Iraqi government and instate strict Sharia law in the country.

“Choice only whether we support [European Union] like Muslim Union vision or not,” wrote Elibiary, who has “advised numerous federal, state and local law enforcement organizations on homeland security-related matter,” according to his biography on DHS’s website.

Elibiary has come under heavy criticism in the past for claiming that America is “an Islamic country with an Islamically compliant constitution.” Critics have said that such rhetoric makes him unfit to serve as an adviser for DHS, which is tasked with defending the U.S. border from terrorism.

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Record Number of Expatriates Renounce U.S. Citizenship

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Photo Credit: Julia FolsomPatricia Moon was born in Dayton, Ohio, to a family descended from Quakers who settled in the New World before the American Revolution.

As a young woman, Moon fell for a Canadian man and moved to Toronto. The 59-year-old homemaker, who still visits the U.S. to see relatives, said she feels American in her bones, even after three decades abroad. Yet despite her deep roots, Moon walked into a U.S. consulate two years ago, raised her right hand and recited an oath renouncing her U.S. citizenship. Afterward, she said, “I bawled my eyes out.”

Moon is among record numbers of Americans cutting ties. U.S. offices abroad reported that 1,001 U.S. citizens and green-card holders had renounced their allegiance in the first three months of the year…

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