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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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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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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Feds Lowball Number of Children Crossing the Border

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Photo Credit: WNDBy Aaron Klein.

The Department of Homeland Security appears to have low-balled its estimates of the number of unaccompanied alien children it’s publicly claiming will arrive in the U.S. during the fiscal year of 2014.

DHS claimed in its new budget proposal that current trends lead it to estimate 60,000 unaccompanied alien children, or UACs, will cross illegally this year.

A closer look at DHS’s own numbers, however, show that as of May 31, a total of 47,017 UACs has already arrived, mostly from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

If those trends continue, the numbers could eclipse 100,000 by the end of the year.

Indeed, earlier this month, Breitbart News cited a leaked internal draft memo from Deputy Chief of Border Patrol Ronald D. Vitiello that revealed the DHS expects UAC apprehensions this year to be about 90,100 and 2015 to see 142,000 unaccompanied alien children enter the country.

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Photo Credit: Sara A. Carter / TheBlaze‘They Keep Coming’: The ‘Rehearsed’ Answers Illegal Immigrants Are Using at the Border to Gain Entry Into the U.S.

By Sara Carter.

A Honduran woman clutched her small baby boy from the back of a Border Patrol transport truck. She was sitting with 12 other people, mostly children, who had just made their way from Reynosa, Mexico, across the Rio Grande by the Anzalduas port of entry in Texas.

The mother, who had crossed first with one baby, had left her infant and older son along the banks of the river in Mexico. Her two children followed in a second raft and joined their mother after the Border Patrol took her into custody.

“We’re fleeing gang violence,” the mother told the Border Patrol agent, who detailed the conversation to TheBlaze on the condition that he not be named. The group did not run, but voluntarily turned themselves in to U.S. federal custody and claimed what is known as credible fear to apply for asylum in the U.S.

They all knew it was only a matter of time before they would be set free.

Border Patrol agents along the southwest border have been directed not to speak with journalists after the public became aware that more than 47,000 undocumented children have illegally entered into the country over the past eight months. Most of the undocumented children crossed through the Rio Grande Valley sector and many times, they traveled alone.

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Bloomberg’s Top Advocate Admits Gun Control Proposals Wouldn’t Stop Mass Shootings

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Photo Credit: TownHallMeet Mark Glaze, the former executive director and face of Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown For Gun Safety, a group that used to be called Mayors Against Illegal Guns [MAIG]. Whenever a mass shooting occurs (which despite popular belief and hysteria from the media, isn’t happening more frequently than it used to), Glaze takes to the airwaves to demand new gun control legislation, specifically expanded background checks.

As of Friday, Glaze left his post with MAIG Everytown and is admitting in an exit interview with the Wall Street Journal that the proposals outlined by the gun control group and sent to Congress, would not have prevented mass shootings in the past and won’t stop them in the future. (bolding is mine)

Mr. Glaze said the movement hasn’t solved one of its signature problems: Many mass shootings wouldn’t have been stopped by tighter regulations proposed by gun-control advocates, even if they might have prevented other gun crimes.

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Obama to Bar Gay Discrimination By Federal Contractors

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Photo Credit: APPresident Barack Obama plans to sign an executive order barring federal contractors from hiring or firing employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, senior administration officials said Monday, in a move that could energize Democratic voters in November’s midterm elections.

The White House announcement is a curtain raiser to Mr. Obama’s appearance Tuesday at a Democratic fundraising gala with gay-rights supporters in New York.

Mr. Obama isn’t expected to sign the executive order for weeks, as the White House finalizes details, including possible exemptions for religious nonprofit organizations. Administration officials said Mr. Obama decided to act unilaterally in the absence of momentum for legislation with broader protections, and said he intends to use the issue to draw a contrast with Republicans.

“An executive order along these lines would not be a substitute for robust congressional action,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. “Unfortunately this is yet another example of Republicans blocking Congress on the kind of issue that has pretty strong support all across the country.”

House Republicans have declined to allow a vote on legislation that would bar most employers, not just federal contractors, from discriminating against gay, lesbian and transgender workers, saying it could lead to frivolous lawsuits and affect the religious liberty of employers.

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House GOP Investigators Argue IRS Targeting Influenced by Obama

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Photo Credit: APHouse Republicans seeking a direct link between President Obama and the IRS targeting of conservative groups — a connection Democrats say is essential for a legitimate White House scandal — have released a report detailing dozens of examples that they say prove the president and fellow Democrats pressured the agency to act.

The influence campaign unofficially started during Obama’s January 2010 State of the Union Address in which he “delivered a stunning rebuke” of the Supreme Court decision in favor of the group Citizens United, among the IRS’s first and biggest targets, according to the 77-page report released Monday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The decision in part allowed campaign donors to remain anonymous.

“The Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests,” Obama said in the address. “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse by foreign entities. … And I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.”

The report attempts to show that Obama combined his master oratory skills with the “indisputably powerful” presidential bully pulpit to sound a clarion call that was heard by news outlets shaping the national agenda and that led IRS official Lois Learner to start targeting Tea Party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status.

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