Spy for Israel, Jonathan Pollard, Finally Granted Parole

/1 Comment/in , /by

Convicted spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard has been granted parole and will be released from an American jail on Nov. 21, his lawyer announced Tuesday.

Pollard’s release — exactly 30 years after his arrest — could help ease the tensions between the United States and Israel that have grown over the Iran nuclear deal, which President Barack Obama supports and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vehemently opposes.

Both the Justice Department and Pollard’s pro bono attorneys, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, confirmed his release date Tuesday.

“Mr. Pollard is looking forward to being reunited with his beloved wife Esther,” his lawyers said in a statement.

“Mr. Pollard would like to thank the many thousands of well-wishers in the United States, in Israel, and throughout the world, who provided grass roots support by attending rallies, sending letters, making phone calls to elected officials, and saying prayers for his welfare. He is deeply appreciative of every gesture, large or small,” his lawyers said. “We look forward to seeing our client on the outside in less than four months.” (Read more from “Spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard Granted Parole” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Obama: If I Ran for a Third Term, I’d Win [+video]

/5 Comments/in , /by

President Obama told the African Union Tuesday that he felt he had been a “pretty good” president and if he were allowed to run for a third term, he’d probably be victorious.

Obama made the remarks while criticizing leaders on the continent who wouldn’t step aside at the conclusion of their terms.

“Now, let me be honest with you,” Obama said. “I do not understand this. I am in my second term. It has been an extraordinary privilege for me to serve as the President of the United States. I cannot imagine a greater honor or a more interesting job. I love my work. But under our Constitution, I cannot run again” . . .

“I actually think I’m a pretty good president,” he said. “I think if I ran, I could win. But I can’t. So there’s a lot that I’d like to do to keep America moving, but the law is the law.” (Read more from “Obama: If I Ran for a Third Term, I’d Win” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

IRS Used Instant Messaging System to Hide Internal Communications

/1 Comment/in , /by

The IRS used a “wholly separate” instant messaging system that automatically deleted office communications, according to documentation released by the House Oversight Committee on Monday. The system appears to have been purposefully used by agency officials responsible for the targeting of conservative non-profits, in order to evade public scrutiny.

The system, known as “Office Communication Server” or OCS was used by IRS officials, including many in the Exempt Organizations (EO) Unit, which was headed by Lois Lerner.

As the Oversight Committee report states, the instant messaging system did not archive any communications, so it is not possible to know what employees of the EO unit discussed on it.

However, in an email uncovered by the Committee Lerner warns her colleagues about evading Congressional oversight:

“I was cautioning folks about email and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails – so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails.”

(Read more from “IRS Used Instant Messaging System to Hide Internal Communications” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

From Rents to Haircuts, Americans Feeling Price Hikes

/0 Comments/in , /by

Apartment rents are up. So are prices for restaurant meals, haircuts, gym memberships and a cup of coffee.

For American consumers who have become used to flat or even falling prices for several years, an unfamiliar sight has emerged in many corners of the economy: Inflation is ticking up.

The price increases remain modest. And in many cases, they’re canceled out by price declines for other items that are keeping overall inflation historically low.

Yet the stepped-up price tags for a range of consumer items are the largest since the Great Recession ended six years ago. They actually reflect a healthier economy: Many businesses have finally grown confident enough to pass their own higher costs on to consumers without fear of losing customers. Employers have added nearly 5.6 million jobs the past two years, allowing more people to absorb higher prices.

Signs of emergent inflation are a key reason the Federal Reserve, which is meeting this week, will likely raise interest rates from record lows later this year. Inflation has long trailed the Fed’s 2 percent target rate but is on track to return to that level in coming months. (Read more from “From Rents to Haircuts, Americans Start are Feeling Price Hikes” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Judge Orders Recovery, Release of Emails Proving Close Monitoring by Top IRS Officials of Tea Party Groups

/3 Comments/in , /by

Judicial Watch released 906 pages of newly recovered Lois Lerner emails from the IRS that are believed to recently have been recovered by the IRS’ internal watchdog – the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The IRS released the emails under a court order by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan. The new documents show that Lois Lerner and other top officials in the Exempt Organizations Unit of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), including soon-to-be Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller, closely monitored and approved the controversial handling of tax-exempt applications by Tea Party organizations. The documents also show that at least one group received an inquiry from the IRS in order to buy time and keep the organization from contacting Congress.

At July 1, 2015, status conference, Judge Sullivan ordered the IRS to begin producing, every week, the nearly 1,800 newly recovered Lois Lerner emails responsive to Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Despite the court order, the IRS did not produce any Lois Lerner emails until July 15. The IRS also failed to provide Judicial Watch a status report of the Lois Lerner email production issues, as also ordered by Judge Sullivan. Last week, Judge Sullivan ordered sua sponte the parties to appear for a status hearing for tomorrow (July 29) shortly after Judicial Watch raised concerns about the IRS’ failure to comply with his orders to release the newly discovered Lerner emails and status updates on its production of previously “missing” documents.

The developments come in Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit seeking documents about the Obama IRS’ targeting and harassment of Tea Party and conservative opponents of President Obama (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:13-cv-01559)). Judicial Watch’s litigation forced the IRS first to admit that Lerner’s emails were supposedly missing and, then, that the emails were on IRS’ back-up systems. . .

IRS Program Manager Cindy Thomas of the Cincinnati Exempt Organization [emailed] Lerner . . . detailing the pressure caused by the IRS’ Washington headquarters failure to move on the “advocacy cases.” Thomas warned of litigation and admitted that she authorized a letter for more information that was sent to one of the complaining groups to keep it from contacting Congress:

The backlog of work involves advocacy organizations. As of about a month ago, there were 161 of these cases sitting idle and we probably have more by now. The control dates for these cases go back to the end of 2009 and all through 2010. We’ve been waiting for EO in D.C. to get us a guidance/reference document with lessons learned from the c4 and c3 cases they worked and coordinated with Judy Kindell and Counsel. We’re getting calls from POAs wanting to know who has put the halt on working these cases and threatening to contact their Congressional offices. Just today, I instructed one of my managers to get an additional information letter out to one of these organizations — if nothing else to buy time so he didn’t contact his Congressional Office. Soon, we’re going to start getting TAO’s [Taxpayer Assistance Orders] from TAS [Taxpayer Advocate Service] or declaratory judgment cases filed —- then, I guess everyone will decide its time to start moving the cases when we have mounds of additional paperwork to process along with the cases (adding even more work for us to do).

(Read more from “Court Order Forces Recovery, Release of Emails Proving Close Monitoring by Top IRS Officials of Tea Party Groups” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Chattanooga Marine Unleashes BRUTAL Video on Obama, Says 9 Words That Are Going Viral

/3 Comments/in , /by

A U.S. Marine offered President Barack Obama a tough lesson in what it means to show respect for his fallen brothers-in-arms.

In the 11 minute video, the unnamed veteran, who said he is from Chattanooga, first called out the president on the manner he chose to speak following the Chattanooga shootings.

“The day of the attack, you delivered a statement. You didn’t even have the decency to stand up,” he said.

The Marine then ticked off a list of shootings or deaths that Obama did stand up for while he spoke to the nation, including the Charleston shooting, the Boston bombings, the Baltimore riots, Michael Brown’s death, and the Washington Naval Yard shooting. He even stood up when singer Whitney Houston passed.

Rather than standing out of a sign of respect for the warriors who just gave their lives in military service to their country, “You sit slumped down in a chair and ramble through some poorly scripted apology that sounds as sincere as ‘if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,’” he stated.

The Chattanooga resident then stood up and gave a short bio of each of the fallen and offered his condolences and prayers to their families. Some of the Marines had served multiple tours of duty overseas. (Read more from “Chattanooga Marine Unleashes BRUTAL Video on Obama, Says 9 Words That Are Going Viral” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

8 Illegal Alien Sex Criminals Arrested Near Texas Border

/1 Comment/in , /by

Eight illegal aliens with criminal convictions for sexual crimes were caught this past weekend near the Texas border.

The arrests took place in McAllen, Rio Grande City, and Kingsville, according information provided to Breitbart Texas by the U.S. Border Patrol.

”All eight men had previously been charged with sexual crimes to include lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14, sexual assault, lewd and lascivious behavior against a child—fondling, and first degree sexual abuse by forcible compulsion,” the information provided by USBP revealed. (Read more from “8 Illegal Alien Sex Criminals Arrested Near Texas Border” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Salon Columnist: How Bill Clinton Is Like Bill Cosby

/0 Comments/in , /by

Camille Paglia, the political and cultural critic, has been a brave and brilliant provocateur on Salon for almost 20 years now. Paglia seemed to be on the winning side of the wars over feminism and political correctness in the 1990s, but recently those battles have been reopened. Suddenly we’re talking again and in very different ways about sexual culture on campus. Comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Maher talk about the return of a stifling political correctness. And we’re staring at the potential rematch of a Clinton and a Bush.

There were so many stories that we wanted Paglia’s take on: Bill Cosby, Donald Trump, the state of the Democratic Party. So we spent two hours discussing all of them on Monday, and we’ll present her thoughts over the next three days. Stand back: Paglia does not hold back on anything.

Over the next two days, she’ll hold forth on the GOP presidential field in devastating ways, and offer surprising thoughts on how she thinks Clinton vs Sanders will end. We start today with thoughts on Bill Cosby, Bill Clinton, campus political correctness and modern feminism.

The banner on the Drudge Report this morning is that Kathleen Willey is starting a site to collect harassment claims against Bill Clinton. New York magazine, meanwhile, has the stories of 35 women who say they were raped or assaulted by Bill Cosby. I wonder if you see a connection between the two stories: Would Bill Clinton’s exploits be viewed more like Cosby’s if he was in the White House now, instead of in the 1990s?

Right from the start, when the Bill Cosby scandal surfaced, I knew it was not going to bode well for Hillary’s campaign, because young women today have a much lower threshold for tolerance of these matters. The horrible truth is that the feminist establishment in the U.S., led by Gloria Steinem, did in fact apply a double standard to Bill Clinton’s behavior because he was a Democrat. The Democratic president and administration supported abortion rights, and therefore it didn’t matter what his personal behavior was. (Read more from “Camille Paglia: How Bill Clinton Is Like Bill Cosby” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

This University Offers Six Choices for Gender Identity

/0 Comments/in , /by

The University of California admissions department believes students can be whatever they want to be.

At least when it comes to their gender.

Admission applications used by the UC system are giving potential students a host of choices for gender-related questions – including six varieties to describe “gender identity.” The questions, which will go into circulation this fall, are voluntarily answered and responses don’t impact the admissions process, a UC spokesperson told The College Fix.

Applicants can choose male, female, trans male/trans man, trans female/trans woman, gender queer/gender non-conforming and “different identity” to describe their “gender identity.”

By contrast, some of the other questions seem downright limiting in potential answers. For instance, “what sex were you assigned at birth” has only two choices: male or female. A question about sexual orientation features three possible responses: “heterosexual or straight,” “gay or lesbian” or fill-in-the-blank. (Read more from “This University Offers Six Choices for Gender Identity” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Mystery Solved: Mysterious Jamestown Settlers Identified

/0 Comments/in , /by

Four lost leaders of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas have been identified, thanks to chemical analysis of their skeletons, as well as historical documents.

The settlement leaders were mostly high-status men who were buried at the 1608 Jamestown church in Virginia. And all played pivotal roles in the early colony.

“They’re very much at the heart of the foundation of the America that we know today,” said Douglas Owsley, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., who helped identify the bodies . . .

One of the men was Ferdinando Weyman, who died in 1610 at around age 34. He was the uncle of Sir Thomas West, the governor of Virginia. Weyman was also related to another of the men identified, Captain William West. This man perished in 1610 after a fight with the Powhatan Indians. . . Both West and Weyman were buried in human-shaped coffins with a distinctive pattern of nails. . .

Another of the newly identified men was Captain Gabriel Archer, who died during the starving time in 1609 at the age of 34. . .The last man of the group was Reverend Robert Hunt. Unlike the more affluent men, he was buried in a simple shroud, facing west, toward the congregation he headed. Hunt died in 1608 around the age of 39. (Read more from “Mystery Solved: Identities of Mysterious Jamestown Settlers Identified” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.