Why Darrell Issa Just Asked the IRS to Hand Over a Hard Drive

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Photo Credit: ThinkStockHouse Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa on Tuesday issued a subpoena to the Internal Revenue Service, ordering the agency to turn over the hard drive they claim is responsible for wiping out two years of critical email communications.

Issa has dramatically widened his probe into the IRS after the agency announced last week that it had lost the emails, which may have provided information about an IRS policy of targeting for extra scrutiny and delay many conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Issa is not only seeking emails, but wants equipment, “communication devices,” printed documents and just about anything else related to former IRS official Lois Lerner, who has refused to testify before Congress and who the GOP believes is a central player in the targeting scheme.

“After a year of beating down efforts by the Obama administration and its allies to obstruct an investigation into targeting, the IRS now says it lost perhaps the most critical evidence,” Issa said. “We still do not have answers about how and why the IRS tried to deceive Congress about these missing e-mails. This subpoena seeks those answers.”

This latest order comes a day after Issa suppoenaed IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to testify at an Oversight hearing on June 23.

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Federal Prosecutors Reopen Probe of Air Marshal Gun Scheme

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Photo Credit: Fox News The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia has reopened its criminal investigation into allegations of illicit gun-selling at senior levels of the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), multiple sources told FoxNews.com.

“They’re taking another look at everything. They appear to have received new information they did not have during their initial investigation,” one of the sources briefed on the case told FoxNews.com.

In addition to the criminal probe, sources said internal investigations within the Air Marshal Service and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have involved a larger number of senior officials than previously had been reported. Those senior officials may have illicitly purchased guns or been involved with a June 2009 contract bid awarded to Sig Sauer, the weapons manufacturer whose guns allegedly were involved in the gun-selling scheme.

Sources said the U.S. attorney’s office reopened the case following congressional inquiries into the matter and an April 10 FoxNews.com story revealing the existence of the investigation. The probe initially focused on allegations Danny Poulos, an Air Marshal supervisor, benefited from his professional relationship with Sig Sauer to receive free or discounted weapons, which were then allegedly sold to senior FAMS executives, including recently retired director Robert Bray.

A TSA spokesman, when asked about the case, confirmed the internal probe remained ongoing but referred FoxNews.com to the U.S. attorney’s office regarding the federal investigation. The spokesman said: “TSA has found no evidence of criminal misconduct by any senior FAM or TSA manager.”

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Rick Perry: Feds Gobble Up Available Rooms for Illegal Children — Nothing Left for Texans

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that the federal government has taken up every bit of spare available space in his state to house the tens of thousands of illegal children flooding over the U.S. border, leaving him with no rooms for Texans who might be left homeless in a natural disaster like a hurricane.

“Were we to have a major event, I literally would not have places to house our citizens because of this influx from Mexico,” he warned at a media luncheon hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

“I am greatly concerned about the huge catastrophe that could occur with those two events happening simultaneously,” he said of the potential for a hurricane hitting as the federal government continues to embrace illegal youths instead of sending them home.

Federal authorities are housing the youths in hotels and even military bases while they search for relatives to turn them over to.

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Social Security Administration CLOSES 597 Offices

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller Social Security has long-term financial challengers but the agency that administers it faces more immediate problems, according to a bipartisan report.

Sixty-four Social Security offices have closed since 2009, despite an ever-increasing backlog of applications for benefits, MarketWatch reports. The Senate Special Committee on Aging discussed these findings earlier this week.

Only 1,245 offices are currently operational in the country as of 2014, since 533 temporary mobile offices have also been closed, and of the offices still remaining, availability hours have been significantly reduced.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is in its largest five-year decline since it was created 79 years ago. Aside from offices, over 11,000 workers have been laid off in the last three years.

“They don’t do any kind of analysis on what would happen to a community when their field office closes, including figuring out how the most vulnerable populations would make their way to the next-closest office,” said Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, chairman of the Aging Committee.

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Cantor Replaced: Rep. Kevin McCarthy Selected as New House Majority Leader

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Photo Credit: APIn a GOP leadership shuffle, Republican lawmakers voted Thursday for California Rep. Kevin McCarthy to succeed Rep. Eric Cantor as House majority leader after Cantor’s unexpected primary defeat last week.

McCarthy, a fourth-term lawmaker who had held the No. 3 GOP position, was elected by secret ballot.

“America is struggling,” he said after the vote. “We’re struggling with a stagnant economy, a failed health care law, and so many are living paycheck to paycheck. They are looking for individuals that put people before politics. I make one promise: I will work every single day to make sure this conference has the courage to lead with the wisdom to listen.”

The day’s second election, to succeed McCarthy as party whip, was a much tighter three-way competition among Reps. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Peter Roskam of Illinois and Marlin Stutzman of Indiana. Scalise, 48, scored the victory.

Scalise, who won his seat in a special election in 2008, campaigned as head of the Republican Study Conference, a group of that sometimes serves as a conservative thorn in the side of leadership.

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Kerry: Foreign Gov’ts Must Accept Same-Sex Spouses of US Personnel Stationed Abroad (+video)

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Photo Credit: AFPThe U.S. is leading by example in promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) rights at home and around the world, Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday.

He said the federal government recognizes same-sex marriages of foreign diplomats stationed in the U.S., and it expects all other countries to do the same in their treatment of U.S. personnel deployed abroad.

“Let me be clear: We oppose any effort by any country to deny visas for spouses of American staff,” he said. “It’s discriminatory, it’s unacceptable, it has no place in the 21st century.”

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Boehner: Obama’s ‘Wheels are Coming Off’

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday castigated the Obama presidency on a slew of issues, saying the White House was unprepared for, and often exacerbated, a series of crises at home and abroad.

Opening his weekly Capitol press conference, Boehner offered up a global tour of problematic flash points for the administration and blamed Obama for squandering U.S. gains in Iraq, the scandals at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Internal Revenue Service, lackluster economic growth and the influx of immigrant children flooding at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“You look at this presidency, and you can’t help but get the sense that the wheels are coming off,” Boehner said.
The Speaker and other congressional leaders met with Obama at the White House on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, and while he said he learned “a little bit,” it appeared to be less than the full strategy he was hoping the president would outline.

Boehner characterized Iraq in the context of what he described as a broader foreign policy failure by the administration.

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24 Things the Media Claim Were Caused by ‘Global Warming’

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Photo Credit: Flickr / Creative Commons It seems like with global warming embedded in our politics (for now), anything we don’t fully understand can now be ‘legitimately’ blamed on the weather. Forget the trusty old excuse about the dog eating your homework: A sampling of news stories tells us instead that global warming might really be the cause of all our problems. Allegedly, thanks to global warming:

Your breakfast got even less exciting. Your morning coffee is going to be more expensive. Also, the cost of cereal could climb by as much as 30 percent because of global warming according to an Oxfam report(their recommendation to General Mills and Kellogg’s: “intensify” effort to cut greenhouse gases, which ironically would also likely increase the cost of cereal and beverages). Thankfully, populations of feral cats and dogs are liable to increase, and these could suffice as possible “bridge food” for climate change refugees.

History and culture have been redefined. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack Dawson didn’t make it off the Titanic in 1912 thanks to global warming. Two years later the world engaged in WWI, followed by the Great Depression, and WWII, all of which apparently slowed the pace of global warming. In current cultural events, the arts world has been subjected to climate change…the musical. And a horror movie. Some congregations have been subjected to a new topic for bad sermons. And employees are less productive at work.

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NBC/WSJ Poll Finds 54% Have No Confidence in Obama’s Leadership (+video)

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Photo Credit: APThe sixth-year blues have caught up to Barack Obama … with a vengeance. In an NBC/WSJ poll taken before the meltdown in Iraq, Obama gets his lowest marks ever on foreign policy, where his claim to “smart power” has evidently reached its expiration date. But the real danger to Obama and to Democrats vying for office in less than five months is the vote of no confidence in Obama’s leadership:

The percentage of Americans approving of President Barack Obama’s handling of foreign policy issues has dropped to the lowest level of his presidency as he faces multiple overseas challenges, including in Iraq,according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Additionally, the public is evenly split on whether Obama is a competent manager of the federal bureaucracy. And a majority of respondents – 54 percent – believe the term-limited president is no longer able to lead the country…

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Price Index for Meats, Poultry, Fish & Eggs Rockets to All-Time High

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The seasonally-adjusted price index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs hit an all-time high in May, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In January 1967, when the BLS started tracking this measure, the index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs was 38.1. As of last May, it was 234.572. By this January, it hit 240.006. By April, it hit 249.362. And, in May, it climbed to a record 252.832.

“The index for meats, poultry, fish and eggs has risen 7.7 percent over the span [last year],” says the BLS. “The index for food at home increased 0.7 percent, its largest increase since July 2011. Five of the six major grocery store food group indexes increased in May. The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs rose 1.4 percent in May after a 1.5 increase in April, with virtually all its major components increasing,” BLS states.

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