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Veteran Congresswoman Hammers IRS Contractor’s Questionable Veteran’s Disability Claim (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

At a House oversight hearing Wednesday on “questionable contracting practices at IRS,” Illinois Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth hammered an IRS contractor for claiming a suspect veterans disability to get a competitive advantage for his business.

Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran and double amputee eviscerated Braulio Castillo, the CEO of Strong Castle, Inc., who used an injury he sustained at a military prep school to qualify for a veterans disability, 27 years after the fact.

“I’m sorry that twisting your ankle in [prep] school has now come back to hurt you in such a painful way — if not also opportune for you to gain the status for your business as you were trying to compete for contracts,” Duckworth said.

According to a report on the matter House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa released Tuesday, Braulio Castillo was able to get a designation under the VA’s Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business program for his business — as a result of the injury he sustained at U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School, which he attended for one year.

Castillo went on to play football as a quarterback at San Diego City College and later played at the University of San Diego.

Read more from this story HERE.

Palin: Holes in the Border as Big as the Holes in Their Amnesty Bill

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Just like they did with Obamacare, some in Congress intend to “Pelosi” the amnesty bill. They’ll pass it in order to find out what’s in it. And just like the unpopular, unaffordable Obamacare disaster, this pandering, rewarding-the-rule-breakers, still-no-border-security, special-interests-ridden, 24-lb disaster of a bill is not supported by informed Americans.

I am an ardent supporter of legal immigration. I’m proud that our country is so desirable that it has been a melting pot making a diverse people united as the most exceptional nation on earth for over two centuries. But I join every American with an ounce of common sense insisting that any discussion about immigration must center on a secure border. The amnesty bill before the Senate is completely toothless on border security.

It’s beyond disingenuous for anyone to claim that a vote for this bill is a vote for security. Look no further than the fact that Senator Rubio and amnesty supporters nixed Senator Thune’s amendment that required the feds to finally build part of a needed security fence before moving forward on the status of illegal immigrants who’ve already broken the law to be here. And if shooting down the border fence wasn’t proof enough, they blew another chance by killing Senator Paul’s “Trust But Verify” amendment which required the completion of a fence in five years and required Congress to vote on whether the border is actually secure before furthering any immigration measures. And then they blew it yet again, nixing Senator Cornyn’s “Results” amendment, which also required border enforcement standards. Now the Senate’s pro-amnesty crowd is offering a fig leaf to security via the Corker-Hoeven Amendment, but this is really nothing more than empty promises. It’s amnesty right now and border security… eh, well, someday.

Read more from this story HERE.

“Lerner Bill” to Fire Federal Employees Who Refuse to Testify

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Photo Credit: Vimeo

Photo Credit: Vimeo

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) on Thursday proposed legislation that would require federal workers to be fired if they don’t answer questions from Congress.

The bill is a reaction to Lois Lerner, the IRS official who refused to answer questions about the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups during a congressional hearing last month. Lerner told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, “I have not done anything wrong,” then invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on the advice of her lawyers…

“This is a statement which should not be made by federally appointed officials before a congressional hearing if they are faithfully carrying out the duties of their office,” Brooks told The Hill on Friday of Lerner’s decision to plead the Fifth…

Brooks’s bill says simply, “Any federal employee who refuses to answer questions in a congressional hearing after being granted immunity shall be terminated from employment.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Allen West: I May Challenge Rubio for Senate Seat (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

Former U.S. Rep. Allen West said Wednesday that he hasn’t ruled out a challenge to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, even as the former congressman acknowledged that it would be a difficult and expensive road to take.

West, a favorite of conservatives who lost his House seat in 2012, said he’d draw on his faith to make a decision on a future political contest.

“We’ll see what happens down the pike,” West said on WMAL’s “Morning at the Mall” radio show. “God will set my feet on the right path.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Who Needs Term Limits? Obamacare Driving Congressmen into Retirement

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Photo Credit: AP

Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting.

The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.

Democratic and Republican leaders are taking the issue seriously, but first they need more specifics from the Office of Personnel Management on how the new rule should take effect — a decision that Capitol Hill sources expect by fall, at the latest. The administration has clammed up in advance of a ruling, sources on both sides of the aisle said.

If the issue isn’t resolved, and massive numbers of lawmakers and aides bolt, many on Capitol Hill fear it could lead to a brain drain just as Congress tackles a slew of weighty issues — like fights over the Tax Code and immigration reform.

The problem is far more acute in the House, where lawmakers and aides are generally younger and less wealthy. Sources said several aides have already given lawmakers notice that they’ll be leaving over concerns about Obamacare. Republican and Democratic lawmakers said the chatter about retiring now, to remain on the current health care plan, is constant.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin. Attempting to Ban as Racist Criminal Background Checks For New Hires

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Photo Credit: brettneilson

Are criminal background checks racist? That’s the startling new legal theory that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission unveiled this week in lawsuits against employers. It’s another example of how President Obama’s appointees are using regulation to achieve policy goals they can’t get through Congress.

On Tuesday the EEOC accused retailer Dollar General DG -0.04% and a U.S. unit of German car maker BMW BMW.XE +1.26% of violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act by using criminal checks as part of their employment decisions. The logic? Blacks have higher conviction rates than whites, and therefore criminal checks discriminate against blacks.

The EEOC alleges that BMW discriminated against blacks because it screened contractors in South Carolina for convictions for “Murder, Assault & Battery, Rape, Child Abuse, Spousal Abuse (Domestic Violence), Manufacturing of Drugs, Distribution of Drugs, [and] Weapons Violations,” and more blacks than whites are convicted of those crimes.

The suit says 70 black BMW contractors and 18 non-black contractors had criminal convictions, and the company declined to hire them. The suit seeks redress, such as hiring the plaintiffs, back pay, legal costs and more, but only for the black contractors.

In its Dollar General suit, the agency says that 10% of blacks and 7% of non-black applicants failed the retailer’s criminal screening. The EEOC calls that three-percentage-point difference a “gross disparity” that is “statistically significant” enough to qualify as discrimination.

Read more from this story HERE.

Vice President Biden: Cruz, Paul Control the GOP

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Photo Credit: Matt Rourke

By Dave Boyer. At a fundraiser late Friday night in San Francisco, Mr. Biden said there is no one in the Republican Party in Congress with whom the administration can negotiate anymore.

“There’s no one with whom to deal with and there’s no one in charge anymore,” Mr. Biden said, at one point pounding the podium with his fist.

Referring to Mr. Paul and Mr. Cruz, both first-term senators, the vice president said he’s never before seen lawmakers with their conservative views.

“They are the ones that control the Republican party right now, literally,” Mr. Biden said. “I’ve never seen a time in all the years I was in the Senate that two freshmen have so much impact on the entirety of the Republican party.”

He did call them “bright young guys.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Biden slaps GOP for letting Cruz, Paul ‘control’ the party

By Paul Bedard. Just six months after he cut a fiscal cliff deal with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Vice President Joe Biden declared Friday night that the GOP has no adult leadership and he said it is being pushed around by two “bright new guys,” Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

“This is not your father’s Republican Party, it’s fundamentally different,” he said at a San Francisco Democratic Party fundraiser. “There’s no one with whom to deal with and there’s no one in charge anymore.”

In December and January, Biden worked closely with senior GOP leaders like McConnell to work out a budget deal that halted the nation’s fall over the so-called fiscal cliff.

But in his 10 minute address at the home of Dawn Ross and Doug Hickey, the CEO of BinWise, a beverage distribution company in San Francisco, Biden forgot all that to slam the emergence of Tea Party-backed Cruz and Paul, part of the group GOP Sen. John McCain dubbed “wing nuts.” Read more from this story HERE.

Democrat: Obama has Epic Database that has “Information about Everything on Every Individual” (+video)

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Barack Obama now holds a database “no one has ever seen before in life” that has “information about everything on every individual.”

The confirmation comes from U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., named “dishonorable mention” on an online list of most corrupt politicians…

In a video now getting attention once more, Waters said, “I think some people are missing something here. The president has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life.

“That’s going to be very, very powerful. That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before,” she continued.

“And whoever runs for president on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They’re going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can’t get around it. And he’s [President Obama] been very smart. It’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place,” she said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Americans’ Confidence in Congress Falls to Lowest on Record

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Americans’ confidence in Congress as an institution is down to 10%, ranking the legislative body last on a list of 16 societal institutions for the fourth straight year. This is the lowest level of confidence Gallup has found, not only for Congress, but for any institution on record. Americans remain most confident in the military, at 76%.

Photo Credit: Gallup

Small business and the police also continue to rank highly, with 65% and 57% of Americans, respectively, expressing “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in these institutions. Joining Congress at the bottom of the list are Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and organized labor. Congress’ low position is further underscored when one looks at the percentage of Americans who have little or no confidence in each institution. The slight majority of Americans, 52%, have this level of confidence in Congress, compared with 31% for HMOs.

Americans’ confidence in several institutions measured in the June 1-4 Gallup poll has shifted since last year. Americans have become more confident in banks, organized religion, and public schools, and less confident in the U.S. medical system, the Supreme Court, and Congress.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rep. Huelskamp: Obama Admin. “Creating Tyrannical Culture of Political Correctness in the Military”

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A Midwestern lawmaker is calling on his colleagues in Congress to offer cover to an Army soldier under fire for his conservative political views and religious faith, and accusing the Obama administration of “creating a tyrannical culture of political correctness in the military.”

Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., is introducing an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prevent the Army from conducting a court martial of Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers until the military first files a report for Congress to review.

“The Secretary of the Army shall provide to Congress a report on activities with respect to Master Sergeant Nathan Sommers at least 90 days prior to taking any further disciplinary or administrative action against that individual,” states Huelskamp’s amendment.

The amendment would also allow service members to sue in the event their First Amendment rights are violated. Huelskamp said the legislation will “unblock the courthouse door so that service members whose First Amendment rights have been violated by the federal government can seek redress like any other American.”

“Sgt. Sommers is the poster child for an increasingly pervasive pattern of persecution,” Huelskamp told Fox News.

Read more from this story HERE.