By Fox News. The secret intelligence court that signs off on giving the U.S. government the authority to monitor hundreds of millions of telephone records has renewed the government’s request to do so for another three months.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced Friday its authority to maintain the program expired on July 19 and that the government had sought and received a renewal from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
National Intelligence Director James Clapper announced the new order.
The surveillance program has been under intense scrutiny since June, when former CIA employee and National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of two top secret U.S. surveillance programs that critics say violate privacy rights. Read more from this story HERE.
Secret Court Renews NSA’s Phone Records Collection
By Todd Beamon. The FISA Court in Washington oversees U.S. surveillance programs. It consists of 11 federal judges, all whom have been appointed by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
The White House disclosed the FISA’s stamp of renewed approval of the court order in an effort at greater transparency after former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of the National Security Agency’s secret U.S. surveillance programs to the media.
But bipartisan criticism continues to mount on Capitol Hill over the NSA’s collection and stockpiling of millions of Americans’ phone records without individual warrants or suspicions of connections to terrorism.
“By renewing the FISA court order, the Obama administration would reconfirm its support for the dragnet collection of telephone metadata, despite public outcry,” Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, told The Guardian newspaper of London.
Meanwhile, Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, said the White House should have let the Verizon order expire. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-20 04:11:322016-04-11 11:18:50Secret Court OKs Continued US Phone Surveillance Program for Another Three Months (+video)
Photo Credit: Dale G. YoungBy Gary Heinlein. Ruling the governor and Detroit’s emergency manager violated the state constitution, an Ingham County Circuit judge ordered Friday that Detroit’s federal bankruptcy filing be withdrawn.
“It’s absolutely needed,” said Judge Rosemary Aquilina, observing she hopes Gov. Rick Snyder “reads certain sections of the (Michigan) constitution and reconsiders his actions.”
The judge said state law guards against retirement benefits being “diminished,” but there will be no such protection in federal bankruptcy court.
State-level legal skirmishing over the Chapter 9 bankruptcy effort by Snyder and Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr now will quickly move to the Michigan Court of Appeals. Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Fox Confusion in Detroit as judge challenges legality of bankruptcy
By Fox News.The ongoing crisis in Detroit took another — and confusing — turn Friday after an Ingham County judge ruled the city’s historic bankruptcy filing violates the state’s constitution and must be withdrawn.
“I have some very serious concerns because there was this rush to bankruptcy court that didn’t have to occur and shouldn’t have occurred,” Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said Friday in a spate of orders arising from three separate lawsuits.
There was no immediate response from Detroit Emergency Manger Kevyn Orr, who filed the bankruptcy document Thursday, and no indication if city officials planned to take any action in response to Aquilina’s ruling.
Aquilina said Michigan’s constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees, including those in the city of Detroit. She added that Gov. Rick Snyder and Orr overstepped their authority and violated state law by proceeding with the bankruptcy filing because they knew the outcome could affect benefits to thousands of Detroit residents. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-20 04:08:582016-04-11 11:18:51Largest Municipal Bankruptcy in History on Hold: Judge Says it’s Illegal (+video)
Photo Credit: Getty ImagesBy Peggy Noonan. The IRS scandal was connected this week not just to the Washington office—that had been established—but to the office of the chief counsel.
That is a bombshell—such a big one that it managed to emerge in spite of an unfocused, frequently off-point congressional hearing in which some members seemed to have accidentally woken up in the middle of a committee room, some seemed unaware of the implications of what their investigators had uncovered, one pretended that the investigation should end if IRS workers couldn’t say the president had personally called and told them to harass his foes, and one seemed to be holding a filibuster on Pakistan.
Still, what landed was a bombshell. And Democrats know it. Which is why they are so desperate to make the investigation go away. They know, as Republicans do, that the chief counsel of the IRS is one of only two Obama political appointees in the entire agency…
Mr. Hull [a retired, 48-year veteran of the IRS] told House investigators that at some point in the winter of 2010-11, Ms. Lerner’s senior adviser, whose name is withheld in the publicly released partial interview transcript, told him the applications would require further review [by the IRS Chief Counsel]…
The IRS chief counsel is named William Wilkins. And again, he is one of only two Obama political appointees in the IRS. Read more from this story HERE.
IRS Inspector Attacked by Democrats, Claims Liberals’ Treatment of IG is “Unprecedented”
By Fox News. The government watchdog who issued the report that found the IRS was targeting conservative groups was turned into a punching bag by Democrats in the second half of a tense hearing Thursday, leading Inspector General J. Russell George to chide lawmakers for their attacks on his office.
“This is unprecedented,” he said of his treatment before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the end of the hearing.
The first half of the hearing was devoted to testimony from IRS officials who claimed higher-ups in Washington, D.C., were involved in applying additional scrutiny to Tea Party and other groups. Read more from this story HERE.
Rep. Chaffetz Lets Administration Have It Over Misleading Nation on IRS Scandal
“When you have the spokesman for the president of the United States make a definitive statement that it was two rogue agents, and start poking at these people who have no power to do anything about it, that is wrong,” Rep. Chaffetz stated during congressional hearings on the IRS scandal today.
Photo Credit: J.D. PooleyLargest City in History of US Files for Bankruptcy
By Dominic Rushe. Sinking under huge debts and decades of mismanagement, Detroit formally filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, becoming the biggest US city ever to take such a drastic measure.
Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s emergency manager, took the decision after failing to broker a deal between the city’s bondholders and its pension funds.
The filing sets a new record for municipal bankruptcies and dwarfs the previous record filings by Jefferson County, Alabama, and Stockton, California. No other city of Detroit’s size has ever gone bust.
Orr and the city’s creditors and pensioners will now begin a fraught legal consultation period while a court determines whether the city is eligible for “chapter 9” bankruptcy protection for its $18.5bn debts and liabilities.
In a letter posted with the filing, the Michigan governor Richard Snyder confirmed he had received Orr’s request to start the bankruptcy proceedings. He said it was “clear that the financial emergency in Detroit cannot be successfully addressed outside of such a filing, and it is the only reasonable alternative that is available.”
By Reid J. Epstein. President Barack Obama is monitoring Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy, a White House spokeswoman said Thursday, but has not committed any federal help for the beleaguered city.
“The president and members of the president’s senior team continue to closely monitor the situation in Detroit,” spokeswoman Amy Brundage said Thursday. “While leaders on the ground in Michigan and the city’s creditors understand that they must find a solution to Detroit’s serious financial challenge, we remain committed to continuing our strong partnership with Detroit as it works to recover and revitalize and maintain its status as one of America’s great cities.”
The tepid reaction Thursday comes after saving the Detroit auto industry was a central feature of Obama’s re-election campaign – when Democrats savaged Republican Mitt Romney for a New York Times op-ed headlined “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” Read more from this story HERE.
Related: Municipality Selling Off Museum Artifacts to Reduce Crushing Debt
By Rick Leventhal, Kathleen Foster. An East Coast city that’s been sitting on a Wild West gold mine is finally cashing in on the loot.
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s state capital, is auctioning off thousands of antique artifacts this week, hoping the sale will help pull the city out of debt.
Back in 1980, the citizens of Harrisburg elected Stephen Reed as mayor. He envisioned the city as a tourist destination, filled with museums, including one showcasing Harrisburg’s one-time claim to fame as the gateway to the West. He spent more than $8 million on roughly 10,000 pieces, including antique guns, old horse-drawn wagons, “Wyatt Earp’s Days of the Week Shaving Set,” Jesse James and Billy The Kid wanted posters and sheriff’s badges. The city built one museum, but went broke before it could build three more, as the mayor intended.
“He went about it in ways that were not exactly according to rules,” said Arlen Ettinger, President of Guernsey’s, the New York City-based auction house the city hired to sell the items.
“He took city monies to acquire things that he thought would look well in museums, and he was a great fan of the old West.” Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-19 04:46:202016-04-11 11:18:55Largest City in History of US Files for Bankruptcy (+video)
Photo Credit: BetterBizIdeasStephen Rakes, a former South Boston man who had waited decades for a chance to testify against James “Whitey” Bulger, was found dead in the Mill Street area in Lincoln on Wednesday, authorities said today.
The cause of death is being determined by the state medical examiner’s office. An autopsy found no signs of trauma on the body; toxicology tests are underway and generally take several weeks to complete, authorities said this afternoon.
The case is being investigated by State Police and Lincoln police, according to a statement released by Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan.
District attorney’s spokeswoman Stephanie Chelf Guyotte said the prosecutor’s office is conducting a “death investigation.’’
Steve Davis, the brother of alleged Bulger murder victim Debra Davis, said he became close friends with Rakes. He said Rakes was physically fit, swimming year-round in the bay outside the L Street annex in South Boston.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-19 04:40:202016-04-11 11:18:56Key Witness in Whitey Bulger Trial Found Dead, Without Wallet or Phone, Under Overpass (+video)
FOX News reporter Carl Cameron told Bill O’Reilly tonight that on Thursday House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) has information that will move the IRS scandal up into the White House.
“What he said to me today was make sure to watch tomorrow’s hearing because he’s going to present the evidence to prove it…. That he can get it right up all the way into the White House before it was all revealed.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-18 03:13:512016-04-11 11:18:57Fox News Says Rep. Issa Will Reveal White House Connection to IRS Scandal at Today’s Hearing (+video)
Photo Credit: Daily CallerBy Katie McHugh. Former president Jimmy Carter condemned the effect U.S. intelligence programs had on U.S. moral authority in the wake of NSA revelations brought to light by leaker Edward Snowden, Der Spiegel reports.
“America has no functioning democracy,” Carter said at a meeting of The Atlantic Bridge in Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday.
Carter also claimed there was currently no reason for him to be “optimistic” about Egypt’s internal conflicts and mused whether the standards The Carter Center applies to foreign elections could be fulfilled by U.S. elections, which he believes are plagued by confusing campaign rules and a lack of restrictions on free speech in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.
The former president continued that democratic developments — fueled by sites such as Facebook and Twitter — might be damaged by the NSA revelations, essentially strangling emerging democratic revolutions in the cradle by casting doubt on the social media juggernauts’ independent credibility. Read more from this story HERE.
By Hadas Gold. The jury made the “right decision” in the George Zimmerman murder trial, former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday.
“I think the jury made the right decision based on the evidence presented, because the prosecution inadvertently set the standard so high that the jury had to be convinced that it was a deliberate act by Zimmerman that he was not at all defending himself, and so forth,” Carter told Atlanta news channel WXIA. “It’s not a moral question, it’s a legal question and the American law requires that the jury listens to the evidence presented.”
Carter said he agrees with President Barack Obama and accepts the jury’s decision. “So President Obama said he thought – it was — he regretted the decision, but he had to accept the results of the jury decision,” Carter said. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-18 03:09:432016-04-11 11:18:58Jimmy Carter: ‘America No Longer Has a Functioning Democracy’ (+video)
By Wall Street Journal. We’re starting to understand why Lois Lerner took the Fifth about her role in the IRS targeting of conservative groups. The testimony of at least three more employees in the IRS Washington office is now making clear that Ms. Lerner and other Washington IRS officials had a direct hand in slow rolling the tax-exempt applications of conservative groups in an election season.
The House Oversight Committee holds another hearing Thursday that will showcase some of these witnesses. According to Washington IRS tax law specialist Carter Hull, his supervisor Ronald Shoemaker and Manager of Exempt Organizations Technical Michael Seto, tea party applications were intentionally singled out for extra layers of review and put through an unusual process.
Mr. Hull told House investigators that normally his judgment about applications would have been enough to approve or deny their tax-exempt status. Instead of sending those applications through the normal channel, however, conservative applications were sent through Ms. Lerner’s office for review, and also directed to the IRS chief counsel. That process was highly unusual and created a vetting system in which applications were interminably delayed.
According to Mr. Hull, starting in April 2010, he was told by a supervisor to give extra attention to some tea party applications as a trial run for how the agency might handle such cases going forward. As part of that process, he was instructed to send the applications through Ms. Lerner’s office and the office of IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins for additional scrutiny.
Once he delivered them, however, the process stalled… Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Fox NewsHow high did it go? Republicans to step up pressure on IRS at scandal hearing
By Fox News. House Republicans plan to ratchet up scrutiny of the IRS during a hearing Thursday morning where agency workers are expected to discuss the involvement of high-level officials in slowing down applications from Tea Party groups.
For the first time, the House oversight committee has invited two key agency officials to testify. Republican leaders of the committee claimed Wednesday that one of them recently revealed that the IRS chief counsel’s office — led by a political appointee — played a role, along with embattled IRS official Lois Lerner, in scrutinizing conservative groups. Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: Daily CallerIRS lawyer says scandal was overseen by D.C., names names
By Patrick Howley. Top IRS officials in Washington, D.C. planned and oversaw the agency’s improper targeting of conservative groups, according to the 72-year old retiring IRS lawyer who will testify Thursday before the House Oversight Committee.
Retiring IRS lawyer Carter C. Hull implicated the IRS Chief Counsel’s office, headed by Obama appointee William J. Wilkins, and Lois Lerner, the embattled head of the IRS’ exempt organizations office, in the IRS targeting scandal and made clear that the targeting started in Washington, according to leaked interviews that Hull granted to the Oversight Committee in advance of Thursday’s hearing.
Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George will return to Republican chairman Darrell Issa’s committee Thursday along with two central characters in the IRS saga: Hull and Cincinnati-based IRS employee Elizabeth Hofacre, who previously gave Hull’s name to congressional investigators, fingering him as her Washington-based supervisor. Read more from this story HERE.
By Bob Unruh. The IRS, which has been in trouble for weeks now for targeting conservative, Christian and Jewish organizations seeking tax-exempt status with invasive and probably illegal questions, still is stalling, charges a legal team in the battle.
The federal tax agency had offered an “expedited review” if the groups would agree to “an arbitrary 60/40 standard” requiring them to devote 60 percent of their time and expenditures to activities promoting social welfare and limit their political activity to 40 percent or less.
“The IRS created this standard out of thin air in an effort to placate Americans who have been unlawfully and unconstitutionally targeted by the IRS because of their political beliefs,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice.
“This so-called solution is deeply flawed and does nothing to address and correct the real problem at the IRS: a pervasive and systematic assault on conservative organizations. The IRS remains an agency incapable of self-governance or self-correction. Our federal lawsuit is moving forward to stop this abusive targeting scheme and to hold those responsible for this disturbing conduct accountable,” he said.
The IRS discrimination has been well-documented. One IRS official pleaded the Fifth and declined to respond to questions from Congress, but others in the agency have admitted to cases cited by conservative groups who were told, for example, they had to reveal the content of members’ prayers or make promises about what they would or would not say. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-18 03:06:142016-04-11 11:18:58Now We Know Why Ms. Lerner Took the Fifth: the Tax Exempt Applications Literally Went Through Her Office (+video)
Photo Credit: ABC15Rolling Stone Boston bomber suspect photo stirs online controversy; CVS, Walgreens drop the issue
By Tracy Jarrett. Rolling Stone magazine sparked a heated social media debate Wednesday after releasing a cover image promoting an upcoming profile of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The Twitter and Facebook firestorm resulted in calls for boycotts and drugstore chains Walgreens and CVS announcing they would not carry the issue in their stores. Together, the pharmacies have more than 15,000 locations nationwide.
“As a company with deep roots in New England and a strong presence in Boston, we believe this is the right decision out of respect for the victims of the attack and their loved ones,” a statement from CVS said. CVS is headquartered in Woonsocket, R.I. Tedeschi Foods, a New England-based grocery chain with 200 outlets, also announced Wednesday that it would not carry the issue of the magazine.
The cover, released online as a preview to Friday’s edition with an in-depth article chronicling Tsarnaev’s life leading up to the Boston Marathon bombing, features a “selfie” — or self-taken photo– by Tsarnaev with the teen’s hair falling across his face. Read more from this story HERE.
In a statement, the magazine said its thoughts were “always with” the bombing victims and their families.
“The cover story we are publishing this week falls within the traditions of journalism and Rolling Stone’s long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day,” it said. “The fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is young, and in the same age group as many of our readers, makes it all the more important for us to examine the complexities of this issue and gain a more complete understanding of how a tragedy like this happens.”
While primarily a music magazine, the journal also has forged a reputation for hard-hitting pieces on national affairs, politics and popular culture. For example, journalist Michael Hastings wrote a 2010 profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal that led to the officer’s abrupt retirement. In his profile, Hastings quoted McChrystal and his staff criticizing and mocking key administration officials.
Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple said Rolling Stone should be out defending its article, because it’s “a pretty easy thing to defend.”
“What you have here is a story about a guy who was very integrated and well-balanced, by all accounts, member of our society until something happened,” Wemple said. “We don’t know precisely what happend and that was the whole point of this Rolling Stone story — to account for how he slid off the rails.”
Ex-Obama NSC spokesman the latest to criticize Rolling Stone bomber cover
By Jonathan Easley. President Obama’s former National Security Council spokesman is the latest to question Rolling Stone’s cover of the Boston Marathon suspect.
Tommy Vietor, the former spokesman, said he thought the Rolling Stone magazine cover glamorized Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is suspected of plotting and carrying out the bombing earlier this year that killed three people.
The cover photo shows an image of an angelic looking Tsarnaev, who is starting straight ahead. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-18 03:05:082016-04-11 11:18:59Rolling Stone Criticized for Putting “Rock Star” Photo of Boston Bombing Suspect on its Front Cover (+video)
Photo Credit: White HouseA Vancouver man who fired a shotgun to chase away alleged car prowlers pleaded not guilty Wednesday and cited Vice President Joe Biden as the reason he did this…
Barton reportedly admitted to deputies that he fired his weapon while chasing away people who he thought were breaking into his vehicles at 5804 NE 124th St. in the early morning hours Monday.
Deputies are investigating whether a large teen party that got out of control at a neighbor’s home may have been linked to the shooting. However, at this point, deputies have said there was no evidence of prowlers on Barton’s property.
Outside the courtroom Wednesday, Barton cited the vice president in defense of his actions.
“I did what Joe Biden told me to do,” Barton told KOIN. “I went outside and fired my shotgun in the air.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-18 03:04:522016-04-11 11:18:59Washington Man Charged with Shooting Shotgun, Says Vice President Biden Told Him To (+video)
