Photo Credit: GOP The Daily DosePresident Obama, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, broke with the tradition of returning the salute of the U.S. Marine outside Marine One Friday morning.
Perhaps Obama suddenly realized, or perhaps someone onboard the helicopter said something to him, because Obama promptly walked back down the steps to go shake hands with the Marine.
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Photo Credit: YouTubeComedian Steven Crowder’s recent “Jesus vs. Muhammad” video – just posted this week – has gone viral, generating almost 250,000 views.
Why? Its content is a bit edgy, calling out Muhammad for pedophilia and the Koran for its incitement of violence.
As one might expect, that has generated significant backlash. Crowder is reporting from his Twitter account that he has received many death threats, profanity-laced insults, and other not-so-nice reactions from Muhammad defenders on social media.
Here’s the video that’s created all the fuss:
Photo Credit: ReutersThe woman who heckled President Barack Obama during his speech at the National Defense University on Thursday gained access to the closed event by saying she was a member of the press, the university said.
Medea Benjamin, the leader of the human rights activist group Code Pink, stood and shouted several times as the president gave his national security speech focused on drone use and closing down the Guantanamo detention center.
Officials at the university, located at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., later said Benjamin was able to get into the invite-only speech by saying she was with the news media. It was unclear which media outlet she told them she was with.
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Photo Credit: Screenshot On the late night talk show circuit lately, President Barack Obama has been on the receiving end of a barrage of jokes from “The Tonight Show” host Jay Leno, who has spent the past week opening his nightly monologue with a series of jokes at the White House’s expense.
In reaction to news of a prostitution ring being run out of a retirement home. “Boy, that Obamacare is amazing! It just provides everything!”
On a new IRS commissioner: “They’re called ‘acting commissioner’ because you have to act like the scandal doesn’t involve the White House.”
On comparisons to Nixon: “At least he’s not being compared to President Carter.”
On the Miami Heat beating Obama’s beloved Chicago Bulls: “You now what that means? LeBron James is going to get audited by the IRS.”
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Photo Credit: Jessie BarnhartThe Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River collapsed Thursday evening, dropping two vehicles into the water and injuring three people.
Both the northbound and southbound portions of the bridge collapsed into the river sometime before 7 p.m., according to Washington State Patrol trooper Mark Francis.
Xavier Grospe, 62, who lives near the river, said he could see three cars with what appeared to be one person per vehicle. The vehicles were sitting still in the water, partially submerged and partly above the waterline, and the apparent drivers were sitting either on top of the vehicles or on the edge of open windows.
Rescue crews in several boats were able to pull all three people from the semi-submerged vehicles, which were tangled in the wreckage of the bridge.
All three were taken taken to a local hospital and the extent of their injuries is not known. Nobody was killed in the collapse.
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Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott ApplewhiteBy Mark Hemingway. Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency’s growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS harassed hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups for over two years, Lerner has been criticized for a number of untruths—including the revelation that she apparently lied about planting a question at an American Bar Association conference where she first publicly acknowledged IRS misconduct…
[P]rior to joining the IRS, Lerner’s tenure as head of the Enforcement Office at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was marked by what appears to be politically motivated harassment of conservative groups.
Lerner was appointed head of the FEC’s enforcement division in 1986 and stayed in that position until 2001. In the late 1990s, the FEC launched an onerous investigation of the Christian Coalition, ultimately costing the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours in lost work. The investigation was notable because the FEC alleged that the Christian Coalition was coordinating issue advocacy expenditures with a number of candidates for office. Aside from lacking proof this was happening, it was an open question whether the FEC had the authority to bring these charges.
James Bopp Jr., who was lead counsel for the Christian Coalition at the time, tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD the Christian Coalition investigation was egregious and uncalled for. “We felt we were being singled out, because when you handle a case with 81 depositions you have a pretty good argument you’re getting special treatment. Eighty-one depositions! Eighty-one! From Ralph Reed’s former part-time secretary to George H.W. Bush. It was mind blowing,” he said.
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Lois Lerner: ‘I have not done anything wrong’ at IRS
By Susan Ferrechio. The head of the Internal Revenue Service division that targeted conservative groups told a congressional committee Wednesday that she did nothing wrong and is not to blame for the wrongdoing, but then invoked her Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and refused to answer lawmakers’ questions.
Lois Lerner was a witness lawmakers hoped would help finally answer the fundamental questions about who authorized the IRS to target the Tea Party and other conservative groups opposed to President Obama ahead of last year’s election.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., dismissed Lerner from the hearing after she invoked the Fifth Amendment. He said he may recall Lerner to testify at a future hearing, saying she may have waived her Fifth Amendment rights when she first delivered an opening statement proclaiming her innocence. To force Lerner to return and testify, Issa refused to adjourn the hearing at the end of the day, instead gaveling it into recess.
“I am looking into the possibility of recalling her,” Issa said. Read more from this story HERE.
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Rep. Gowdy Grills Former IRS Commissioner
Photo Credit: ITV NewsClutching a bloodied meat cleaver, the suspected killer who executed a soldier on a crowded street declared: ‘you and your kids will be next’.
In a chilling rant captured on camera, the knife-wielding man declared: ‘The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers.’
The man who launched the terrifying diatribe in Woolwich, south-east London, is believed to be Michael Adebolajo, who has been identified on Twitter and web forums as one of the two people arrested.
He added, in the video obtained by ITV News: ‘Remove your governments – they don’t care about you. You think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start bursting our guns? You think politicians are going to die?
Yesterday the serviceman, wearing a Help for Heroes top, was run down by a car before being brutally attacked in Woolwich, just 200 yards from the barracks.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: YouTubeSen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Wednesday that he doesn’t trust members of his own party to negotiate a budget conference report.
Cruz’s remark came after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he thought it was “bizarre” that a member of his own party was objecting to forming a conference committee with the House to work out a budget.
McCain said the objections suggested Senate Republicans didn’t trust House Republicans to hold the party line in negotiations.
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Photo Credit: dipfanThe staffs of the state’s top prosecutor and the governor’s office have been working in secret with General Assembly leaders on legislation to withhold records related to the police investigation into the Dec. 14 Newtown elementary school massacre — including victims’ photos, tapes of 911 calls, and possibly more.
The behind-the-scenes legislative effort came to light Tuesday when The Courant obtained a copy of an email by a top assistant to Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane, Timothy J. Sugrue. Sugrue, an assistant state’s attorney, discussed options considered so far, including blocking release of statements “made by a minor.”
“There is complete agreement regarding photos etc., and audio tapes, although the act may allow the disclosure of audio transcripts,” Sugrue wrote to Kane, two other Kane subordinates and to Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky, who is directing the investigation of the killings.
The bill that’s being crafted has not been handled under routine legislative procedures — it hasn’t gone through the committee process, which includes a public hearing, for example. Sugrue’s email Tuesday indicated that a draft of the bill was being worked on by leaders in both the House and Senate, and might be ready as soon as the end of the day.
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Photo Credit: YouTubeAt a House Oversight Committee hearing today, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass) said that, if IRS officials continue to dodge questions, the committee have no choice but to get a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of the scandal.
Rep. Lynch warned that, if that’s the case, there “will be hell to pay.”
Read more from this story HERE.