Holder Backing Into Corner, Blasts Issa’s Conduct as “Unacceptable” and “Shameful” (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeDuring a House Judiciary Committee hearing today, a visibly agitated Eric Holder blasted Rep. Darrell Issa’s conduct as “unacceptable” and “shameful.”

As Holder continued to mouth off to Rep. Issa, Issa tried to gain control, asking the chairman to shut Holder up.

Holder responded, “No, no, no, that’s – I am not going to stop talking now.”

Holder, perhaps one of the most integrity-challenged attorney generals in recent US history then had the gall to say, “It is inappropriate and too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress. It is unacceptable. And it’s shameful.”

Obama Ousts Acting IRS Head After Agency is Caught Targeting Conservatives (+video)

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Photo Credit: APPresident Obama on Wednesday forced out the acting director of the Internal Revenue Service and pledged to work with Congress as it investigates why the tax agency was inappropriately targeting conservative groups that opposed Obama and other Democrats.

IRS Acting Director Steven Miller was asked to resign less than a week after the public learned that the agency was giving closer scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status and delaying approval of their status change.

“Americans are right to be angry about it — and I’m angry about it,” Obama said during a hastily scheduled briefing in the East Room of the White House. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”

Miller’s firing and the administration’s decision earlier Wednesday to release scores of emails about the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, marked the start of a what promises to be an extensive damage-control campaign by the White House to quell criticisms over a trio of controversies, including the IRS probing of conservative groups, the Justice Department’s spying on journalists and claims that the president misled the nation about the nature of the Sept. 11 Benghazi attacks that left an ambassador and three others dead.

Obama said other changes will be made at the IRS to prevent similar abuses in the future, but said nothing about additional firings.

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Rand Paul: Obama “Drunk on Power” (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeSenator Rand Paul hits a home run in this interview with Sean Hannity last night. Sen. Paul describes Obama’s presidency as “failing.” He also says that the President is “drunk with power.”

Hannity also asks about Paul’s presidential ambitions and discusses the broadening Internal Revenue Service scandal.

IRS Approved Obama’s Brother’s “Shady” Charity in Record Time (+video)

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Photo Credit: Vimeo Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.

According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval.

Lerner also appears to have broken with the norms of tax-exemption approval by granting retroactive tax-exempt status to Malik Obama’s organization.

The National Legal and Policy Center filed an official complaint with the IRS in May 2011 asking why the foundation was being allowed to solicit tax-deductible contributions when it had not even applied for an IRS determination. In a New York Post article dated May 8, 2011, an officer of the foundation admitted, “We haven’t been able to find someone with the expertise” to apply for tax-exempt status.

Nevertheless, a month later, the Barack H. Obama Foundation had flown through the grueling application process. Lerner granted the organization a 501(c) determination and even gave it a retroactive tax exemption dating back to December 2008.

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‘Spirit of the Cold War’: Russia Says US Diplomat was Trying to Recruit for CIA (+video)

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Photo Credit: aussiegallEvoking the spy games of the Cold War, Russia said Tuesday that it had detained an American diplomat who was carrying cash, two wigs and technical equipment and was trying to recruit a Russian intelligence official to work for the CIA.

Russia ordered the expulsion of the American diplomat, whom it identified as Ryan Christopher Fogle, third secretary of the political division of the U.S. Embassy. The State Department said only that an officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow had been detained and released.

American officials said they did not expect a rift in U.S.-Russian relations. U.S. officials are trying to improve those relations, and to persuade Russia to help resolve a civil war in Syria.

Russia used stronger language, calling the matter provocative and in the spirit of the Cold War.

A statement by the Russian Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, said that Fogle was taken to the service’s headquarters and then to the U.S. embassy after his arrest Monday night.

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Navy Launches First Ever Drone From Carrier (+videos)

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Photo Credit: defensetech.The U.S. Navy for the first time launched a drone from an aircraft carrier in what officials hailed as a historic milestone in naval aviation.

The batwing-shaped craft, known as the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System, or UCAS, on May 14 was catapulted 11:18 a.m. local time from the deck of the USS George H.W. Bush in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia Beach, Va., according to the service.

The drone, made by Northrop Grumman Corp., was controlled by an operator aboard the ship but flew largely autonomously. After multiple approaches to the nuclear-powered carrier, it crossed the Chesapeake Bay and landed at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., about an hour later. (The vehicle is set to attempt a landing aboard a carrier at sea this summer after completing a shore-based arrested landing earlier this month.)

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Father Dies After Begging For Life While Cops Struck Him With Batons; Cellphone Videos Seized

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Photo Credit: KERO-TVA California father of four died after being beaten by police outside of a Bakersfield hospital, while witnesses say he begged for his life. A couple witnesses filmed the gruesome scene, but say they were later forced to give their cellphones to authorities and have yet to receive their devices back.

The Bakersfield Californian reported 33-year-old David Sal Silva died early Wednesday morning in the hospital after he was struck an unknown amount of times by nine authorities seeking to subdue him. Silva was considered possibly intoxicated and an autopsy is expected to reveal if he was killed by injuries sustained in the beating or other complications.

Police and county sheriffs were responding to a call regarding a possibly intoxicated man outside Kern Medical Center Tuesday night and say Silva resisted them.

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19 Shot in Mother’s Day Shooting in Louisiana (+video)

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Photo Credit: WWITVIt started out with the sound of music and ended with the sound of gunshots.

An annual Mother’s Day second line in the Seventh Ward that normally draws hundreds came to a tragic end Sunday when gunmen fired into the crowd, striking 19 people, including two children.

The shots rang out as the celebration was winding to an end at N. Villere and Frenchmen Streets, around 1:45 p.m. Neighbors expressed both shock and outrage.

“Everybody was having fun for Mother’s Day, and next thing you know when they got right there to the stop sign, pow pow, everybody went to running,” said Lisa Garner, who lives nearby.

Just down the street, two victims collapsed on Bernadette Tyler’s porch. One was shot six times.

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Mother of Slain Benghazi Official to Hillary: ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerOn Saturday’s episode of Fox News Channel’s “Huckabee,” Pat Smith, mother of Sean Smith, an information management officer killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, expressed her frustration with the Obama administration for not being more forthcoming about what happened in that attack.

But first Smith had some words for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Mother’s Day.

“I’m still waiting for answers to just about everything,” Smith said. “I do want to say just one thing, though. I want to wish Hillary [Clinton] a happy Mother’s Day. She’s got her child. I don’t have mine because of her.”

According to Smith, immediately following the deaths of her son and three other Americans, including then-U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens, Clinton blamed an infamous anti-Islam YouTube video, which was said to be a non-factor in last week’s House Oversight Committee hearings on the attack.

“She blamed the video just like all the rest of them did and she also told me she was going to get back to me,” Smith said. “She was going to keep on checking on it and she would get back to me with answers. She has not. Neither has anybody else.”

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John McCain Refuses to Back Impeachment of Obama Over Benghazi (+video)

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Photo Credit: Huffington PostAs Republicans are increasingly calling the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi attacks a cover-up worse than Watergate and even floating impeachment, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) urged a note of caution on Sunday, saying he wasn’t yet willing to go that far.

“With all due respect, I think this is a serious issue,” said McCain on ABC’s “This Week.” “I will even give the president the benefit of the doubt on some of these things. We need a select committee.”

On Thursday, Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) accused President Barack Obama of overseeing “the most egregious cover-up in American history.” He added that “people may be starting to use the ‘I word'” before long.

Former Arksansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) also said on his radio show this week, “I believe that before it’s all over, this president will not fill out his full term. As bad as Watergate was because it broke the trust between the president and the people, no one died. This is more serious because four Americans did in fact die. And President Obama has yet to explain why did they die.”

McCain also defended Obama against impeachment during a late February town hall, saying, “I do not believe that the president has committed impeachable offenses — that’s high crimes.”


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