Unbelievable: IRS Says Hard Drive that Lost Emails Destroyed

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US-POLITICS-IRS-LERNERThe IRS said Friday that Lois Lerner’s computer hard drive was destroyed three years ago, ending any chance of retrieving her lost emails.

In court papers, the IRS said the hard drive was destroyed after two sets of trained technicians tried to retrieve the data. The tax agency said it was standard procedure to destroy old data storage equipment that may have contained confidential taxpayer information.

The IRS says Lerner’s computer crashed in 2011, destroying an untold number of emails. At the time, Lerner headed the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status.

Lerner is a central figure in congressional investigations into the handling of applications by tea party and other conservative groups.

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Levin GOES OFF On Obama: ‘This Is A Very Sick Man’

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Photo Credit: markn3tel / flickr

Photo Credit: markn3tel / flickr

Radio host Mark Levin is furious with both President Barack Obama’s response to recent global turmoil, calling him “a very sick man.”

“None of this has to happen like this,” Levin said. “None of it.”

Levin started by saying that the Obama administration’s “incompetence” has caused the turmoil in Iraq, al-Qaida resurgence in Libya, China’s advances, and the border being flooded by “poor” and “sick” illegal aliens. He then turned his focus on the shot-down Malaysian plane.

“Does it not remind us, yet again, of 9/11 and acts that can occur in this country?” Levin asked. “I’m just saying, these tragedies are not tragedies. They are attacks, they’re intentional.”

The conservative talk show host warned that an attack is going to happen in the U.S. because, “among other things, Obama is into his fundraisers, like tonight. In the middle of all of this, he cannot cancel it!”

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House Staffer Arrested for Carrying Concealed Weapon at Capitol

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Photo Credit: iStock Image

Photo Credit: iStock Image

A staff member for a Pennsylvania congressman was arrested Friday for carrying a concealed weapon inside the Capitol complex.

A Capitol Police spokeswoman said Ryan Shucard, press secretary for Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., entered the Cannon House Office Building at 9:15 am carrying a Smith & Wesson 9 mm handgun and magazine. The weapon, which wasn’t loaded, was discovered during a routine X-ray security screening required of all congressional staffers.

Shucard was immediately taken into custody and arrested without incident, said police spokeswoman Lt. Kimberly Schneider. He was charged with carrying a pistol without a license, which is a felony.

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Nanny State Targets Grocery Stores

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

After having made her mark on school lunches, you know, replacing mac n’ cheese for quinoa salad thereby leaving kids across the nation hungry and unhappy, first lady Michelle Obama is moving on to bigger and better things, it seems.

Via The Washington Free Beacon:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is suggesting major changes to grocery stores to “nudge” Americans to purchase healthier foods when they shop.

The agency commissioned an “expert panel” to make recommendations on how to guide the more than 47 million Americans on food stamps into spending their benefits on fruits and vegetables.

The group released an 80-pagereportthis month presenting their ideas, which include talking shopping carts and a marketing strategy for grocery chains that would feature better store lighting for healthier items.

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WATCH: 400 lb Man Choked to Death by Police on New York City Street as He Yells ‘I Can’t Breathe!’

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Photo Credit: NYDN

Photo Credit: NYDN

The New York Daily News is reporting a tragic story out of New York City involving video footage of the NYPD choking out a 400 lb. man, who outside sources say was only guilty of breaking up a fight.

The asthmatic Staten Island dad Eric Garner, who is a husband and father to six, was clearly standing peaceably on the sidewalk when New York Police Department officers approached him and attempted to arrest him.

The man complained on video shot by 22-year-old Ramsey Orta that he was tired of being harrassed by police officers. The NYPD stated their accusation after the news story broke that he was suspected of selling untaxed cigarettes.

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D'Souza: Obama's Retreat From The World Enabled Airliner Tragedy

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

President Barack Obama is remaking the world according to his vision of a less influential America, and one result is chaos abroad that leads to disasters like the apparent shootdown this week of a passenger jet over war-torn Ukraine, conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza told Newsmax TV on Friday.

“This downing of the airplane is a small indication of what happens when American power is subtracted from the world,” D’Souza told “MidPoint” host Ed Berliner.

It’s an argument that coincides with the theme of D’Souza’s new docu-drama movie, “America: Imagine the World Without Her,” and companion book of the same title.

In print and on screen, D’Souza contends that the progressive moment’s relentlessly downbeat portrait of America emphasizes past failings, portrays national strengths as liabilities, and shuns the country’s essential contributions to global peace, prosperity and freedom.

D’Souza said President Obama, in withdrawing from the international stage and conceding management of global affairs to others, is helping to make the movie’s point.

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Small-Town Cops Stockpiling Weapons of War (+video)

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Photo Credit: paffairs_sanfrancisco

Photo Credit: paffairs_sanfrancisco

McMinn County is located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It boasts beautiful scenery, but its sheriff’s department can boast something else.

The department received more military surplus guns than any other local department in the state last year.

“We actually reconfigured the whole armory to accommodate all of this,” said Sheriff Joe Guy.

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Biden’s 7-Figure Hotel Bill for One Wild Brazilian Night Brings ‘Cost-Cutting Mission’ to Abrupt End

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Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

Remember last summer, when President Obama appointed Joe Biden to head the Campaign to Cut Waste to root out wasteful government spending?

Like you, we’ve been anxiously awaiting the results of the comprehensive report that’s surely coming any day now. In the meantime, it seems like he’s adding to the list of things to root out.

Last month it was reported that every weekend he gets a lift from D.C. to his home in Wilmington, Delaware, via Air Force Two — the V.P.’s airplane — and Marine Two — the V.P.’s helicopter. And he often gets a mid-weekend lift back to the Andrews Air Force Base for a round of golf with the President.

Based upon the $22,000 an hour cost for the airtime, that works out to about $1 million per year in shuttling costs. That doesn’t count the cost of the 20 condominiums that the Secret Service rents in Wilmington nor the cost of Air Force Two sitting and waiting for him while he plays 18 holes of golf.

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Chougule: Unfathomable Billions in Government Waste

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Photo Credit: Cliff Owen

Photo Credit: Cliff Owen

Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified before Congress that federal agencies made more than $100 billion in improper payments last year. To put that number in perspective, $100 billion is more than the combined total budgets of the Coast Guard, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Border Patrol, Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency — a lot more.

The GAO report is the latest example of why Washington must get serious about eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, and enacting sweeping reforms and spending cuts before any more damage is inflicted on American taxpayers.

Improper payments result when people collect money from government programs for which they are ineligible. For example, paying unemployment insurance to people who are secretly working is an improper payment, and needlessly adds to the already out-of-control deficit.

The GAO thinks it’s likely the amount of improper payments is even higher than the $105.8 billion reported. In its own words, “the federal government’s inability to determine the full extent to which improper payments occur” represents a serious limitation on their estimates. Some programs, such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families welfare program, do not bother reporting estimates of improper payments at all.

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Convert, Pay Tax, or Die, Islamic State Warns Christians

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Photo Credit: Beth Rankin

Photo Credit: Beth Rankin

Islamist insurgents have issued an ultimatum to northern Iraq’s dwindling Christian population to either convert to Islam, pay a religious levy or face death, according to a statement distributed in the militant-controlled city of Mosul.

The statement issued by the Islamic State, the al Qaeda offshoot which led last month’s lightning assault to capture swathes of north Iraq, and seen by Reuters, said the ruling would come into effect on Saturday.

It said Christians who wanted to remain in the “caliphate” that the Islamic State declared this month in parts of Iraq and Syria must agree to abide by terms of a “dhimma” contract – a historic practice under which non-Muslims were protected in Muslim lands in return for a special levy known as “jizya”.

“We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract – involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword,” the announcement said.

A resident of Mosul said the statement, issued in the name of the Islamic State in Iraq’s northern province of Nineveh, had been distributed on Thursday and read out in mosques.

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