NHL Announces Support For Gay Rights, Will Fight 'Homophobia' With New Initiative

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The National Hockey League (NHL) has offered its support of gay rights with the announcement of a new partnership to combat homophobia in sports.

The NHL has teamed up with the You Can Play Project, an organization that promotes equality in sports, to develop “what appears to be the most comprehensive measure by a major men’s league in support of gay rights,” according to The New York Times. The initiative will include training and counseling on gay issues, along with participation in public service announcements.

“Our motto is Hockey Is for Everyone, and our partnership with You Can Play certifies that position in a clear and unequivocal way,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said in the statement obtained by the Times. “We are delighted to reaffirm through this joint venture with the NHL Players’ Association that the official policy of the NHL is one of inclusion on the ice, in our locker rooms and in the stands.”

Patrick Burke, president of You Can Play and a Philadelphia Flyers talent scout, expressed how this move represents a huge milestone. In a statement to The Huffington Post, Burke said:

Today marks a historic step for LGBT equality in sports. The NHL and the NHLPA [NHL Players’ Association] are stepping up to ensure that the hockey community is welcoming — not begrudging, not tolerant — welcoming to LGBT players, coaches, management or fans. Now with the culture of the hockey community behind us, we can do the important educational outreach to help everyone know how to be accepting. The NHL has long had a slogan — “Hockey Is For Everyone.” We will work alongside our partners in the NHL and the NHLPA to continue to make that true.

Read more from this story HERE.

IRS Tracks Your Digital Footprint

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Photo Credit: MSN

The Internal Revenue Service is collecting a lot more than taxes this year — it’s also acquiring a huge volume of personal information on taxpayers’ digital activities, from eBay auctions to Facebook posts and, for the first time ever, credit card and e-payment transaction records, as it expands its search for tax cheats to places it’s never gone before.

The IRS, under heavy pressure to help Washington out of its budget quagmire by chasing down an estimated $300 billion in revenue lost to evasions and errors each year, will start using “robo-audits” of tax forms and third-party data the IRS hopes will help close this so-called “tax gap.” But the agency reveals little about how it will employ its vast, new network scanning powers.

Tax lawyers and watchdogs are concerned about the sweeping changes being implemented with little public discussion or clear guidelines, and Congressional staff sources say the IRS use of “big data” will be a key issue when the next IRS chief comes to the Senate for approval. Acting commissioner Steven T. Miller replaced Douglas Shulman last November.

“It’s well-known in the tax community, but not many people outside of it are aware of this big expansion of data and computer use,” says Edward Zelinsky, a tax law expert and professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and Yale Law School. “I am sure people will be concerned about the use of personal information on databases in government, and those concerns are well-taken. It’s appropriate to watch it carefully. There should be safeguards.” He adds that taxpayers should know that whatever people do and say electronically can and will be used against them in IRS enforcement.

IRS’s big data tracking
Consumers are already familiar with Internet “cookies” that track their movements and send them targeted ads that follow them to different websites. The IRS has brought in private industry experts to employ similar digital tracking — but with the added advantage of access to Social Security numbers, health records, credit card transactions and many other privileged forms of information that marketers don’t see.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mo. Highway Patrol Gave Feds All of State's Weapon Permits Data

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Missouri’s database of concealed weapon permits was twice given to federal authorities investigating Social Security disability fraud in a move that has enraged lawmakers already angry over potential abuses in a new driver’s licensing system.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Col. Ron Replogle was questioned for nearly an hour this morning by the Senate Appropriations Committee after he revealed to Chairman Kurt Schaefer yesterday that his agency had turned over the data.

The delivery of the information to federal authorities has become a huge issue for lawmakers since they began raising questions about new driver’s licensing procedures. A lawsuit from Stoddard County challenged the procedures that require all supporting documents — including certificates granting concealed weapon privileges — to be scanned and retained.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sequestration Solved: New GAO Report Identifies $95 Billion in Overlapping Programs

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Duplicative drug abuse and treatment services are strewn over 76 federal programs. Housing services are spread across 20 different agencies. Renewable energy projects go through 23 federal agencies and 130 sub-agencies.

Even federal catfish inspections are done by three different agencies. These are only a few of 162 examples identified by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency, of fragmented, duplicative federal programs and services.

The 2013 edition of the annual report originally requested by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, is being released today and it concludes that not only does such managerial dysfunction hobble the federal government, it’s also extraordinarily costly.

“The $95 billion in overlap identified in this report, combined with the $200 billion in overlap identified in GAO’s previous two reports, could easily cover the costs of sequestration,” Coburn told The Washington Examiner.

“Yet, instead of preventing furloughs, reopening air traffic control towers and restoring public access to White House, Congress and the administration continue to defend billions of dollars in duplication programs that are little more than monuments to the good intentions of career politicians in Washington,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Persecution: California Moves to Strip Non-Profit Status from Boy Scouts, Other Groups that Ban Homosexuals, Transgendered or Athiests

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A bill aimed at pressuring the Boy Scouts of America to lift its ban on gay members by making the organization ineligible for nonprofit tax breaks cleared its first vote on Wednesday in the California Legislature.

The Senate Governance and Finance Committee voted 5 to 2 to move the first-of-its-kind bill to the Senate Appropriations Committee for review.

The Youth Equality Act, sponsored by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Long Beach, would deny tax-exempt status to youth groups that discriminate on the basis of gender identity, race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion or religious affiliation.

That means those groups would have to pay corporate taxes on donations, membership dues, camp fees and other sources of income, as well as sales taxes on food, beverages and homemade items sold at fundraisers.

Former Boy Scouts of America president Rick Cronk appeared before the committee on Wednesday, telling members that Scouting has had a positive impact on the state and that being taxed on fundraising sales would hurt local troops.

Read more from this story HERE.

Lawmakers Demand Army Apologize for Anti-Christian Briefing

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At least a dozen members of Congress have signed a letter demanding the Secretary of the Army rescind and apologize for a briefing that labeled Evangelical Christians and Catholics as religious extremist groups, sources on Capitol Hill tell me.

“This is astonishing and offensive,” read a draft of the letter written by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO). “We call on you to rescind this briefing and apologize for its content and set the record straight on the Army’s view on these faith groups by providing a balanced briefing on religious extremism.”

Lamborn is referring to an Army training session conducted last year that featured a presentation listing Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of extremism – alongside Al Qaeda and Hamas.

Army spokesman George Wright later said it was an isolated incident not condoned by the Dept. of the Army. And the slide, he said, was not produced by the Army nor did it reflect their policy or doctrine.

“To say that Evangelicals or Catholics are somehow in the same league with Al Qaeda or the KKK is outrageous,” Lamborn told me.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gun Control and Immigration Deals in the Works: Is the GOP Selling Us Out Again?

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

For the first time in a while, members of the two parties — at least some of them — appear to be talking about getting things done, even without the deadline of a manufactured crisis looming.

With Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) reaching a deal to expand background checks on firearms purchases, the way appears to have been cleared for the Senate to start debate on gun-control legislation. Although their provision is not as far-reaching as what President Obama proposed after the Newtown massacre in December, he praised it as “common sense.”

Another bipartisan deal also is in the offing, as a group of eight senators nears final agreement on a plan that would give illegal immigrants a path to legal status and, potentially, citizenship.

And Wednesday night, Obama continued his outreach to Senate Republicans, dining with a dozen of them to discuss the nation’s fiscal future and the budget he put forward earlier in the day. It was the second such dinner in a matter of weeks.

“What we did, we did right,” said Manchin in an interview Wednesday, referring to his background-check deal. “And you have to look at that in the toxic atmosphere that we’re in, that I’ve experienced for 2 1 / 2 years. Oh Lordy, if we’re able to get this, I think, good piece of legislation through, it’ll be a major accomplishment.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul Speaks at Black College: Reject the 'Caricature' of the GOP

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By Alexis Levinson. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), the 2010-vintage Tea Party insurgent who is now considering a 2016 presidential bid, told an audience Wednesday at the historically black Howard University that the Republican Party is still the party of civil rights, and that black voters should look at the substance of Republican ideas and how they would help everyone, rather than accepting the “caricature” of the party described by Democrats.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney overwhelmingly lost black voters in November, prompting an effort on the part of Republicans to reach out to minorities.

Paul acknowledged that he was in potentially unfriendly territory.

“Some people have asked if I’m nervous about speaking at Howard. They say ‘You know, some of the students and faculty may be Democrats,’” Paul joked at the start of the speech.

But, he said, “My hope is that you will hear me out, that you will see me for who I am, not the caricature sometimes presented by political opponents.” Republicans, he said, are not the party of rich white men that they have been portrayed to be. Read more from this story HERE.

Paul gets cool reception at Howard

By Francesca Chambers. Located just minutes away from the U.S. Capitol in northern Washington, DC, Howard University – one of the nation’s oldest black colleges – offered the perfect opportunity for Kentucky Senator and 2016 hopeful Rand Paul to test out the Republican Party’s new message of “Growth and Opportunity.”

Since President Barack Obama’s reelection, in which he carried 95 percent of the black vote, Republican party leaders have sought to convey that not only does the GOP want to be the Grand Old Party, it also wants to be the party of the young and less fortunate.

“Some have said that I’m either brave or crazy to be here today. I’ve never been one to watch the world go by without participating,” Paul told Howard’s students. “I take to heart the words of Toni Morrison of Howard University, who wrote: “If there is a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

And while Paul spoke to a packed house, the message from attendees at Paul’s speech Wednesday was clear: We’re willing to listen, but don’t expect us to change our party affiliation anytime soon.

“I don’t think he changed any minds,” one student said, noting that Howard has a tradition of allowing controversial figures speak at their university in order to get a broad range of viewpoints. Read more from this story HERE.

AFL-CIO: We Will 'Steamroller' any Lawmakers Who Oppose Amnesty

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A principal official at the AFL-CIO, one of America’s biggest labor unions, said Wednesday the organization would politically demolish any politician who opposes mass amnesty for the country’s at least 11 million illegal immigrants.

“Politicians know that if they stand in the way of citizenship we will steamroller them,” AFL-CIO director of immigration Ana Avendaño said, according to the Financial Times. “That’s a fun evolution.”

Avendaño (pictured) has been involved in the immigration reform negotiations between the labor community, the business community, and the bipartisan Gang of Eight U.S. Senators.

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Leaders Dismiss Obama’s Budget Plan

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By Neil Munro. Republican budget leaders dismissed President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget plan as mess of fiscal gimmicks, shirked duties, accounting flim-flam and escalating debt.

The 10-year budget claims to cut $1.8 trillion from future borrowing, but actually trims only $119 billion from the 10-year, $46.5 trillion spending plan, Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House’s budget committee, said April 10.

The removal of the budget tricks “knocks you down to $119 [billion] in actual deficit reduction,” he said. Promised spending reductions are also postponed way into the future, Ryan said. Obama’s budget writers “don’t even start deficit reduction until four years after he’s left office,” he said.

“We are not seeing responsible leadership,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, chairman of the Senate’s budget committee. The administration is “under the mis-impression that deficit don’t matter [and] that they can continue to borrow and spend.”

In his Rose Garden speech today, Obama touted his budget, saying “the numbers work. There’s not a lot of smoke and mirrors in here.” Read more from this story HERE.

President Obama’s budget includes $1 trillion tax hike and $744 billion deficit

By Brian Hughes. President Obama on Wednesday unveiled his $3.8 trillion budget proposal for 2014, calling for higher taxes in exchange for cost reductions in Social Security and Medicare, a proposal swiftly rejected both by his Republican rivals and Democratic allies.

The president’s budget — which would produce a $744 billion deficit next year — includes about $1 trillion in new taxes over the next decade, including nearly doubling the federal tax on cigarettes to $1.95 a pack, increasing the estate tax, and eliminating some tax deductions and loopholes for wealthier Americans.

The budget would raise the national minimum wage to $9 an hour and spend an additional $50 billion on public works projects that could generate jobs.

From the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday, the president said he would support cuts to entitlement programs only if Congress approves his proposed tax increases.

“If anyone thinks I’ll finish the job of deficit reduction on the backs of middle-class families or through spending cuts alone that actually hurt our economy short-term, they should think again,” the president said. “When it comes to deficit reduction, I’ve already met Republicans more than half way.” Read more from this story HERE.