House GOP: Obama, Holder Undermining IRS Investigation; Special Counsel Needed

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst

House Republicans Friday introduced a resolution calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special counsel to investigate the IRS targeting scandal, blasting Holder for purposely failing to seriously investigate the agency.

Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, accused President Obama and his administration of having “publicly undermined the investigation on multiple occasions.”

“The Attorney General says he won’t share any information with Congress about the investigation, but looked the other way when information was leaked to the media signaling that no one would face criminal charges,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, who introduced the resolution. “This resolution calls for a real investigation by an unbiased investigator to get to the truth and hold those responsible for this illegal targeting accountable for their actions.”

The resolution has six cosponsors including House Oversight chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, and House Ways and Means chairman Rep. Dave Camp, South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, and Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany.

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Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Effectively Delayed Another Month

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Photo Credit: Brian Snyder, Reuters

Photo Credit: Brian Snyder, Reuters

In a classic Friday news dump, the Department for Health and Human Services has just effectively delayed the individual mandate in President Obama’s health care law for another month, until May 1.

This shift is the latest in a dizzying set of changes that have been made to the enforcement of a policy that the administration defended all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Starting in 2014, individuals who did not purchase government approved insurance were supposed to be subject to a penalty of $95 or 1 percent of taxable income. Under the original sequence of events, individuals would have had until Feb. 15 to purchase insurance without being fined. Last October, HHS created a “hardship exemption” that pushed the deadline to March 31 to coincide with the end of the open enrollment period for individuals seeking insurance through the federal exchange.

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Apple, Facebook, Others Defy Authorities, Notify Users of Secret Data Demands

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Major U.S. technology companies have largely ended the practice of quietly complying with investigators’ demands for e-mail records and other online data, saying that users have a right to know in advance when their information is targeted for government seizure.

This increasingly defiant industry stand is giving some of the tens of thousands of Americans whose Internet data gets swept into criminal investigations each year the opportunity to fight in court to prevent disclosures. Prosecutors, however, warn that tech companies may undermine cases by tipping off criminals, giving them time to destroy vital electronic evidence before it can be gathered.

Fueling the shift is the industry’s eagerness to distance itself from the government after last year’s disclosures about National Security Agency surveillance of online services. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google all are updating their policies to expand routine notification of users about government data seizures, unless specifically gagged by a judge or other legal authority, officials at all four companies said. Yahoo announced similar changes in July.

As this position becomes uniform across the industry, U.S. tech companies will ignore the instructions stamped on the fronts of subpoenas urging them not to alert subjects about data requests, industry lawyers say. Companies that already routinely notify users have found that investigators often drop data demands to avoid having suspects learn of inquiries.

“It serves to chill the unbridled, cost-free collection of data,” said Albert Gidari Jr., a partner at Perkins Coie who represents several technology companies. “And I think that’s a good thing.”

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‘Big Fat Lie’: Judicial Watch Strikes Back at Jay Carney’s Claim That Bombshell Emails Were ‘Not About Benghazi’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton struck back Thursday at White House press secretary Jay Carney’s claim that newly released Benghazi emails, being labeled a “smoking gun” by some on the right, were “not about Benghazi.”

“These documents, first of all, weren’t voluntarily disclosed,” Fitton told TheBlaze TV’s Dana Loesch. “We had to go to court to get access to the information. We’ve been sitting around since October of 2012 waiting for it.”

He said purposefully: “We sued for documents about talking points given to [former U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice] related to Benghazi. This document was produced to us in response to our lawsuit.”

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Federal Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin Voter ID Law

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A federal judge in Milwaukee has struck down Wisconsin’s voter Identification law, saying it unfairly burdens poor and minority voters.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman issued his long-awaited decision Tuesday. It invalidates Wisconsin’s law.

Wisconsin’s law would have required voters to show a state-issued photo ID at the polls…

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Edward Snowden: NSA Spies More on Americans Than Russians

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Photo Credit: NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP / Getty Images

Photo Credit: NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP / Getty Images

Edward Snowden told a crowd of fans Wednesday that the government’s surveillance programs collect more data on Americans than any other country.

“Does the NSA know more about Americans in America than Russians in Russia?” Snowden said, appearing by live video during an awards ceremony in Washington. “We watch our own people more closely than anyone else in the world.”

Snowden also took several shots at the National Security Agency and its top officials, and criticized the agency for wearing two contradictory hats of protecting U.S. data and exploiting security flaws to gather intelligence on foreign threats.

“U.S. government policy directed by the NSA … is now making a choice, a binary choice, between security of our communications and the vulnerability of our communications,” Snowden said, suggesting the government was biased toward the latter activity.

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Mike Lee Wants to Fight Cronyism in Government to Restore American Exceptionalism

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) spoke about the problems of cronyism in American government during a speech he gave at the Heritage Foundation Wednesday.

“Cronyism simultaneously corrupts our economy and our government, turning both against the American people,” Lee said. “It forces American families who ‘work hard and play by the rules’ to prop up, bail out, and subsidize elite special interests that don’t.”

Cronyism is leading to unequal opportunity in the United States. Lee said the GOP must address this threat to American exceptionalism by rooting out cronyism privilege and restoring fairness.

“Free enterprise works—morally and materially—because it aligns the interests of the individual and society,” Lee said. “It’s a system governed by an ‘invisible hand’ that rewards the creation of value, and by an ‘invisible foot’ that punishes complacency, especially at the top.”

Lee went after both indirect and direct subsidies in his speech.

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Largest Coal Producing State Slams Administration Over EPA Rules

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The American coal industry is accusing the Obama administration of using the Environmental Protection Agency to end the use of coal despite the president’s claim of having an “all of the above” energy policy.

Earlier this year, the EPA issued its Mercury Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which the agency said will eliminate 90 percent of mercury and acid gas released into the air by coal-fired power plants.

“I would say this administration is certainly unfriendly towards coal,” Wyo. Governor Matt Mead said. “And in my view it is a war on coal.”

Mead proudly pointed out that Wyoming is currently the nation’s largest coal producing state. “We export more coal than any other state by far…about 400 million tons per year. Wyoming coal produces a lot of electricity in this country,” he said.

He and others in the coal industry are concerned, however, that the EPA’s MATS rules, which go into effect in January 2016, will devastate coal production in America and force many older power plants to close because the cost of retrofitting them will be too high.

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Cruz: ‘Where We Are Today Reminds Me a Great Deal of the Late 1970s’ & Carter

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The economic and political scene in America today is similar to what was occurring in the late 1970s, but this is not all bad news for conservatives because “it took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a tele-town hall sponsored by the conservative group ForAmerica.

“I understand that looking at what’s happening in this country, it’s easy to be demoralized, to feel despondent at the continual assault on our liberty,” said Cruz. “But I want to encourage everyone — it often takes things getting really bad, to wake people up. It took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan.”

Cruz drew a comparison between what was happening under President Jimmy Carter with the last five years under President Barack Obama, along with other observations about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), youth unemployment, the national debt, foreign policy, and the Benghazi scandal.

ForAmerica, which sponsored the tele-town hall on April 29, was founded by author, columnist, and activist L. Brent Bozell III. ForAmerica supports personal freedom, a limited, constitutional government, a strong national defense, and a commitment to Judeo-Christian values.

Bozell is also the president of the Media Research Center, the parent organization of CNSNews.com.

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Obama’s 2014 Golf Outings Cost Taxpayers Nearly $3M

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Photo Credit: AP / Jacquelyn Martin

Photo Credit: AP / Jacquelyn Martin

President Obama’s golf outings in 2014 cost taxpayers nearly $3 million – $2,952,278 – for just flight expenses alone, according to records from the Department of the Air Force obtained by Judicial Watch.

“According to the Department of Air Force documents, the flights to and from, Palm Springs for the February 17-20, 2014 trip totaled 9.8 hours at $210,877 an hour, which comes to a total of $2,066,594.60 in flight expenses,” according to Judicial Watch. “The total cost for flights to and from Key Largo, Florida for the March 7-9 trip totaled 4.2 hours at $210,877, which comes to a total of $855,683.40 for flight expenses.”

The trip in Key Largo was spent at the exclusive Ocean Reef Club, which “boasts two championship 18-hole courses, a rarity in the Florida keys…

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