Fort Hood Shooting Victims Struggle While Defendant Draws Big Salary (+video)

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Photo Credit: Bell County Sheriff’s Office handout/ReutersSoldiers wounded in the Fort Hood shooting spree in November 2009 have a new problem on their hands: getting the shooting’s classification changed from “workplace violence” to “combat related.”

As reported by Dallas-Fort Worth’s NBC 5 Investigates, the injured soldiers are struggling to pay their bills. Because the government doesn’t classify the shooting as an act of combat or terror, those injured don’t receive additional pay or Purple Hearts.

Receiving the “pay and medical benefits earned by those wounded in combat” would be a big help to these soldiers and their families, reports NBC 5.

Adding to the soldiers’ concerns: Major Nidal Hasan, the man charged in the shootings, continues to be paid his salary and has earned more than $278,000 since the shooting, which resulted in 13 deaths and 32 injuries.

The news team reported that the Department of Defense confirmed that Hasan has continued to receive his salary because he has not yet been proved guilty. The salary rule is documented in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (That Hasan would still receive his pay was first reported in 2011.)

Read more from this story HERE.

IRS Told Pro-Life Group to Swear It Would Not Protest Planned Parenthood (+video)

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Photo Credit: APSen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said Tuesday that a pro-life group in Iowa was told by an IRS agent that its application would not be approved until the group’s board of directors swore it would not protest Planned Parenthood.

“This comes directly from Iowa, one of my constituents attempted to establish 501(c)(3) charity called Coalition for Life of Iowa. She told my staff that an IRS agent told her ‘Your application’s ready to go. However, it will not be approved until you send a letter signed by your entire board under penalty of perjury saying that you will not protest at Planned Parenthood,’” Grassley said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democratic Senator Uses Okla. Tornado for Anti-GOP Rant Over Global Warming

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Photo Credit: Center for American ProgressWhile many Americans were tuned into news coverage of the massive damage from tornadoes ravaging the state of Oklahoma, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse took to the Senate floor to rail against his Republican colleagues for denying the theory of anthropogenic global warming.

Whitehouse spent 15 minutes chastising GOP senators and justified his remarks by alluding to states that seek federal assistance in the wake of natural disasters.

“So, you may have a question for me,” Whitehouse said. “Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings and disgrace ourselves? I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. We are stuck in this together. When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas.

Read more from this story HERE.

UPDATE: Oklahoma Tornado: 240 Injured, 24 Dead, ‘Horrific’ Damage (+video)

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Photo Credit: APBy LAUREN EFFRON and DEAN SCHABNER. At least 20 of the 51 people killed by a devastating monster tornado that ripped through Moore, Okla., were children, the Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner said this evening, as searchers picked through the rubble of schools, homes and businesses leveled by the storm.

Officials said they expect the total number of deaths to rise overnight as first responders continue to look for survivors. Two elementary schools were in the path of the tornado, but the medical examiner did not specify what school the deceased students attended.

Desperate parents stood around what was left of the devastated Plaza Towers Elementary School, many of them sobbing, as rescuers worked to help pull out school children and faculty.

“I know there’s a number of dead children from that school,” Oklahoma City Police spokesman Sgt. Gary Knight said.

Authorities said Briarwood Elementary School in Moore received a “direct hit” from the storm and was also destroyed, with its roof and walls blown off. Read more from this story HERE.

Authorities lower death toll to 24; number of injured hits 240, including 60 kids

Rescuers searched frantically for survivors Tuesday as the death toll from the massive tornado that leveled suburban Oklahoma City was dropped to 24.
The sharp decline from the original fatality list of 51 names was likely caused by double counting of victims, authorities said.

“We have got good news. The number right now is 24,” said Amy Elliott, chief administrative officer at the Oklahoma City Medical Examiner’s Office. She blamed the earlier high estimate on the large amount of “chaos” in the wake of the twister.

All but three of the bodies recovered have been identified and are being returned to their families, she said.

The number of injured was placed at 240, with 60 of them being children.

The National Weather Service gave a preliminary ranking of EF4 to the twister, meaning it is the second-most powerful type of tornado, with winds up to 200 mph. Read more from this story HERE.

Lou Dobbs: The President of the United States “Lies Through His Teeth” (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeLou Dobbs tells it like it is in an interview on Fox News this past week.

Among other things, Dobbs claims that Obama “lies through his teeth,” “is a President who has lost his way,” and is “Nixonian.”

Dobbs also links Obama directly to the IRS controversy:

True the Vote Founder Hounded by Obama’s IRS, OSHA and ATF (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeCatherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote has been harassed by seventeen separate visits from federal agencies since her efforts to start a national vote integrity organization, based in Texas.

She told Governor Huckabee this weekend that the the federal persecution included not just information requests from the IRS but also visits from OSHA, the FBI, and the ATF.

The IRS wanted to see very Facebook post, every tweet, and every place she’d spoken.

The FBI wanted to know the identity of those who were coming to the True the Vote meetings.

Even more outrageous, the ATF actually inspected her gun safe:

Romney Hammers Obama on Tonight Show (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeMitt Romney was in good form on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Leno covered the current Obama Administration scandals including the Department of Justice subpoenaing the Associated Press’s phone records. Romney criticized this apparent attack the First Amendment.

Leno and Romney also discuss the “Benghazi Cover-up”.

Romney refused to take the bait as to whether any of these scandals would have made the difference in his campaign.

He did say, however, that he would never “lose another election” because he would never run again:

Bill Maher: GOP Guilty of ‘Treason’; Michael Moore: ‘They Hate America’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: david_shankboneOn Friday’s “Real Time” on HBO, two of the most prominent liberal personalities, Bill Maher and Michael Moore, said the Republican Party’s opposition to President Barack Obama at almost every turn amounts to anti-American criminality.

According to Maher, the show’s host, House Republicans’ efforts to repeal Obama’s health care reform and Senate Republicans’ blocking of his judicial nominations go beyond loyal opposition and could rise to the level of treason.

“What about trying to repealing [Obamacare] for the 37th time? Is that a wise use of our resources and time? I mean, at some point obstruction becomes, I don’t know, treason, you know? I mean they’ve also blocked Obama’s head of the EPA. There’s no head of the circuit court in D.C. You know, at some point it just becomes more about hating him than loving your country.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Joe Scarborough, Piers Morgan: Obama Scandals Prove Gun Advocates aren’t Crazy (+videos)

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Photo Credit: breitbartHow big of a wake-up call are the Obama scandals, especially the ones surrounding the seizing of phone records from the Associated Press and the IRS’s targeting of conservatives? So big that two of the media’s most shameful and shameless gun control advocates — Joe Scarborough and Piers Morgan — have finally conceded that arguments made by pro-Second Amendment activists against the expanding of background checks might not be so ridiculous.

In a roundtable discussion on Friday’s “Morning Joe,” Scarborough said that because of the IRS scandal, “My argument is less persuasive today because of these scandals.” He added: “People say, ‘Hey, if they do this with the IRS, asking people what books you read, then how can I trust them with information about my Second Amendment rights?’”

Read more from this story HERE.

The Scathing Speech that Got a Standing Ovation During the IRS Hearing (+videos)

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Photo Credit: APBy Jonathon M. Seidl. The gallery at the House Ways and Means Committee Friday had to be called to order after it burst into applause and some gave a standing ovation following an impassioned diatribe against the IRS by Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Kelly.

Kelly took his time during the hearing on the IRS’s targeting of conservatives to lambaste outgoing head Steven Miller, reminding Miller that while the IRS would like to chalk the organization’s recent actions up to a mistake, regular Americans do not get that luxury when dealing with the IRS. Read more from this story HERE.

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See Paul Ryan’s Tense Exchange with IRS Head on Why He Withheld Targeting Info in July Despite Knowing About it.

By Jonathon M. Seidl. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) hammered outgoing IRS interim head Steven Miller on Friday, demanding to know why Miller did not reveal details about the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups in a July hearing despite having known about it since at least last May and despite having been asked specifically about it in Capitol Hill two months later.

“The law … requires you to not only tell the truth, but to tell the whole truth,” an annoyed Ryan said. “You ‘cannot conceal or cover up, by any trick scheme or device, any material fact.’ How was that not misleading this committee? You knew the targeting was taking place. You know the terms ‘Tea Party’ [and] ‘Patriots’ were being used. You just acknowledged a minute ago they were outrageous. And then when you were asked about this after you were briefed about this, that was the answer you gave us? How can we not conclude that you mislead this committee?”

Miller’s July answer included a general response that “we did group these organization together to ensure consistency, to ensure quality.”

“Sir, that was a lot of questions, sir,” Miller responded to Ryan on Friday. Read more from this story HERE.