DOJ Siezed Associated Press Phone Records in “Massive and Unprecedented Intrusion”

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Photo Credit: EspartaThe Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know,” Pruitt said.

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Revealed: The 55 Questions the IRS Asked One Tea Party Group – Including Demands for Names of All Its Donors and Volunteers

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Photo Credit: FacebookThe Internal Revenue Service wrote to the Richmond Tea Party last year demanding to know the names of all its financial donors and volunteers, as part of a 55-question inquisition into its application for tax-exempt status, MailOnline has learned.

The agency wanted to know ‘the names of the donors, contributors, and grantors’ for every year ‘from inception to the present.’

It also demanded ‘the amounts of each of the donations, contributions, and grants and the dates you received them.’

‘How did you use these donations, contributions, and grants?’ the IRS asked. ‘Provide the details.’

And in addition to the names of board members, officers and employees, the nation’s taxing authorities insisted on knowing the names of everyone who helped the Richmond Tea Party without compensation. ‘Please identify your volunteers,’ the January 9, 2012 letter from the IRS read.

The agency also required the Virginia conservative group to provide copies of sections of its website that only its members can access.

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Insurers Predict 100%-400% Obamacare Rate Explosion

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Internal cost estimates from 17 of the nation’s largest insurance companies indicate that health insurance premiums will grow an average of 100 percent under Obamacare, and that some will soar more than 400 percent, crushing the administration’s goal of affordability.

New regulations, policies, taxes, fees and mandates are the reason for the unexpected “rate shock,” according to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which released a report Monday based on internal documents provided by the insurance companies. The 17 companies include Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Kaiser Foundation.

The report found that individuals will face “premium increases of nearly 100 percent on average, with potential highs eclipsing 400 percent. Meanwhile, small businesses can expect average premium increases in the small group market of up to 50 percent, with potential highs over 100 percent.”

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Multiple Agencies Involved with IRS Intimidation

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Photo Credit: APTea party groups’ allegations that the IRS has long been targeting them for their political beliefs were recently confirmed by an apology from the IRS. The scandal gained traction as congressional leaders began efforts to hold the IRS accountable and understand the depths of the federal government’s politically-motivated abuses of power.

Yet given the history of such abuses, the problem may extend further than the IRS, and require a “government-wide” probe across several agencies, as Senate [Minority] Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has suggested.

The issue was initially believed to only involve groups with “Tea Party” or “patriots” in their names being singled out for greater scrutiny by the IRS, but recent admissions reveal that a wide range of conservative and constitution-oriented groups were singled out by the federal government. Most media outlets have focused on 2012 as the year the abuses occurred, but one prominent Tea Party-initiated organization, True the Vote, began to run into alleged federal government abuses in 2010–from a variety of agencies.

True the Vote, a Houston-based nonprofit which focuses on election integrity issues, was formed by Catherine Engelbrecht and her King Street Patriots Tea Party group. True the Vote applied to the IRS for their 501(c3) non-profit status in July 2010, and almost immediately their problems began.

Within two years, multiple federal agencies, along with an EPA-affiliated Texas state agency, began auditing True the Vote and its founders, visiting their group, their businesses, and asking questions of people who knew them. The IRS was not the only governmental agency involved.

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Monthly Federal Tax Revenues Hit All-Time Record in April; Individual Income Taxes Up 36%

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Photo Credit: APFederal tax revenues hit an all-time non-inflation-adjusted monthly high of approximately $406.7 billion in April, according to newly released data from the U.S. Treasury.

Overall federal tax revenues in April 2013 were up 28 percent from April 2012, and individual-income-tax revenues specifically were up 36 percent.

Because federal income tax returns are due on April 15, April is almost always the peak month for federal tax revenues. (Over the past twelve years, the only year that deviated from that pattern was 2010, when the federal government took in $251 billion in July compared to $245.3 billion in April.)

Prior to this April, nominal federal monthly tax revenues had hit their historic peak in April 2008, when they reached approximately $403.8 billion. The third highest month for federal tax revenues was April 2007, when they hit $383.6 billion, and the fourth highest month was April 2012, when they hit $318.8 billion.

The $406.7 billion in overall tax revenue the Treasury raked in this April was an increase of about 28 percent from the $318.8 billion raked in last April.

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Benghazi Scapegoat Remains in Prison for Film

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Photo Credit: APThe man who made the anti-Islam film that Obama administration officials erroneously blamed for the Benghazi, Libya, terror attacks remains in federal prison eight months later, serving a yearlong sentence for probation violations committed as a result of his involvement with the video.

Mark Basseley Youssef, who made the film “Innocence of the Muslims” under the pseudonym Sam Bacile, was sentenced in November after pleading guilty to four violations of a supervised release order, which included lying to his probation officer, using aliases, and using the Internet, according to court records.

“There has been no change in his status that we’re aware of,” an official with the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Central District of California, the office that charged him, said Monday on condition of anonymity. The Federal Bureau of Prisons lists his release date as Sept. 26.

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Indian Point To Become First Nuclear Plant To Operate With Expired License

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Photo Credit: Mario Tama/GettyImagesOne of two reactors at the Indian Point nuclear plant north of New York City will soon be operating with an expired license.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said Monday that the situation resulted in part from a complicated license-renewal process for nuclear reactors, the Journal News reported.

Indian Point 2′s 40-year license expires on Sept. 28. NRC regional administrator Bill Dean said that’s at least a year before any decision will be made on whether to extend it for another 20 years.

Dean said the reactor can keep operating because Entergy Nuclear, its owner, filed for renewal more than five years before the expiration date.

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George Will Suggests Impeachment Could Follow Obama’s IRS Tea Party Targeting (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller By Jeff Poor. George Will joined the chorus talking about the prospect of impeachment for President Barack Obama after last week’s admission from the Internal Revenue Service that it had targeted groups with the phrases “tea party” or “patriot” in their tax-exempt applications for extra audits.

On Sunday’s broadcast of ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Will proposed a scenario wherein the Bush administration had targeted groups with the word “progressive” in their names and concluded the situation would be much different in terms of expressions of outrage.

“Mr. Hicks, when he was in Libya, said his jaw dropped at the explanation back here,” Will said. “This was a jaw-dropping moment. In response to a question at American Bar Association convention, a second-level IRS person said, ‘Oh by the way, we did target these people.’ Read more from this story HERE.

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By Fox News. Washington Republicans on Sunday characterized the IRS targeting Tea Party groups and other conservative political organizations as “chilling” and intimidating acts that heighten Americans’ mistrust in government.

Their comments follow the IRS acknowledgment Friday that the agency targeted such groups during the 2012 election cycle to see whether they were violating their tax-exempt status — a revelation followed by a report that such activity dated back to the previous year.

“The conclusion that the IRS came to is that they did have agents who were engaged in intimidation of political groups,” Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers told “Fox News Sunday.” “I don’t care if you’re a conservative, a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, this should send a chill up your spine. It needs to have a full investigation.”

Evidence that the IRS was flagging such groups in 2011 was included in a draft inspector general’s report obtained Saturday by Fox News and other news organizations and is expected to be released in full later this week.

That information seemingly contradicts public statements by IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who told congressional investigators in March 2011 that specific groups were not being targeted. Read more from this story HERE.

Smitten Teen Girls Drive Social Media Campaign to Free Boston Marathon Bombings Suspect “Jahar”

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Photo Credit: NY PostThousands of American teen girls are crushing on Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar “Jahar” Tsarnaev, 19 — and leading a social-media movement to exonerate him.

The swooning teens will not accept allegations that the bushy-haired college kid — whom they refer to by his nickname, “Jahar” — and his brother, Tamerlan, 26, killed three and maimed hundreds by setting off bombs at the April 15 race and killed an MIT police officer during the ensuing manhunt.

While some scrawl the hashtag “#FreeJahar” on their hands with markers, an 18-year-old in Topeka, Kansas, is going to the extreme — she wants the Dzhokhar’s words inked on her arm forever.

“Getting one of Jahar’s tweets tattooed on me tomorrow. Guess you could say I’m a #FreeJahar supporter,” “@keepitbluntedd” tweeted on May 7.

The tatted-up teen, Alisha, told The Post she’d soon put Tsarnaev’s April 7 tweet on her upper inside of her arm. It will read, “If you have the knowledge and the inspiration all that’s left is to take action.”

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Rep. Steve King: ‘I Have No Moral Obligation’ to Help Illegal Aliens Stay in USA

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Photo Credit: APIn an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, straight talking Rep. Steve King (R-IA) makes a seldom heard argument that cuts to the heart of the immigration problem. Congressman King said:

I was talking to someone about immigration reform and I told him what I thought was wrong with the approach on the bill.

He looks at me and he says “What are you going to do? How are you going to solve this problem of eleven million illegal immigrants?”

So, I gave my answer which is not a new idea; seal the border. But as I drove home that night I realized I didn’t give the correct answer.

My real answer is, “Why do I have to do anything to solve a problem that people created willingly for themselves?”

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