[The Blaze] A top member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee asked the FBI on Thursday when it first learned that the IRS lost more than two years' worth of emails from Lois Lerner and other officials, and asked why it didn't seem to be aware of this problem much earlier. ...and report that fact [missing e-mails] to the Congress.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote a letter to FBI Director James Comey to ask why Comey didn't seem to be knowledgeable about the lost emails last week. In the letter, Jordan said the FBI's criminal investigation should have been unable to uncover this loss very early in its criminal investigation of the IRS. Could it be there was actually was no FBI investigation at all? [rhet]
#1
If Lois Lerner and her cell were the IRS liaison for White House, Senate, or Other Government Agency political, criminal or counterterrorism contacts, was the FBI one of her clients ?
#3
Well it is a bit telling. The FBI possesses one of the most sophisticated computer forensics capabilities in the entire world and no one has even suggested so much as a inter-gov't helping hand [assistance] be extended the poor, befuddled IRS ?
#6
The FBI has reason to believe that the person in the photograph to the right may have been involved in the Boston Marathon Bombings nefarious activities involving sensitive federal documents. If you or any other proles know this person or her whereabouts, please contact your local FBI office.
#9
Hey, even FBI agents don't like to get audited.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/08/2014 13:32 Comments ||
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#10
Government's confidence ratings are so low that stooped people would have to die to get it any lower. The only institution in which the people have a bit of confidence is the military. Sort of like Egypt...
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/08/2014 13:43 Comments ||
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#11
..except in Egypt the military are running the government. Apparently, that's the best the Egyptian people can get.
#13
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered a federal court hearing on the missing IRS emails be set for July 10! (Judicial Watch v. IRS (No. 1:13-cv–1559)
Maybe something will come of this. Sullivan is supposed to be a straight-up, no BS, judge.
#4
Ernst Rohm died in NAZI 1934 -"Night of the Long Knives" - probably most famous Nazi homosexual. (Seinfeld: "Not that there is anything wrong with that.") /sarc off
Via the Other McCain. A not heretofore known instance of trickery in advancing an agenda, the BBC decides that they will only present one side of the debate, since, their words, the science (and therefore debate) is settled. And why not? After all, 100 years of pressing the Robin Hood ideals until it just about collapses societies didn't bring on the Socialist Millenium, spurious scientific claims should, as long as they don't include alternative opinions.
Mark Steyn was right: Stalinists wished they had the pliant press our fascist overlords have. They could have avoided the stigma of arresting writers and smashing printing presses. Instead, printing handouts and calling it journalism is the order of the day.
BBC journalists are being sent on courses to stop them inviting so many cranks onto programmes to air 'marginal views'
The BBC Trust on Thursday published a progress report into the corporation's science coverage which was criticised in 2012 for giving too much air-time to critics who oppose non-contentious issues.
The report found that there was still an 'over-rigid application of editorial guidelines on impartiality' which sought to give the 'other side' of the argument, even if that viewpoint was widely dismissed.
Some 200 staff have already attended seminars and workshops and more will be invited on courses in the coming months to stop them giving 'undue attention to marginal opinion.'
"The Trust wishes to emphasise the importance of attempting to establish where the weight of scientific agreement may be found and make that clear to audiences," wrote the report authors.
#7
Welcome aboard Spano. Always great to have a counter-view from time to time. In case you missed yesterday's parade article, [which was an absolute hoot] slide on over to this link.
#8
That's rather odd because Marxism is VERY alike a form of economic-creationism, In that the market forces serving to reward those who match actual demand cause growth and change and accurate pricing and thus a surplus we call wealth, whereas those who deny complexity can arise without a economic god (aka marxists) seem to always end up with shortage AKA famine and murder.
[Al Ahram] Tunisians have shown a wave of cynicism on Twitter over the government's decision to impose taxes on marriage. Social media activists believe the decision will only increase the reluctance of young people to marry.
You tax what you want less of...
In the past few years Tunisia has been exposed to high rates of spinsterhood due to poor economic conditions.
According to the new budget law, a new tax is to be imposed worth 30 Tunisian dinars (TNDs). The tax imposed on marriage is among many other taxes aimed at reducing the budget deficit.
An official report revealed a high rate of spinsterhood in the country. The rate has increased to reach 60 percent this year.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2014 00:00 ||
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[Gulf News] A man was sentenced to one month in prison followed by deportation after he was apprehended for wearing women's accessories and makeup in Bahrain.
The expatriate Arab was nabbed Please don't kill me! by a police patrol as he was walking "in a feminine way" in the Bahraini capital Manama and attracted the attention of the servicemen.
He said that he worked in a women's beauty salon and that his profession demanded that he always looked elegant and wore the latest fashion accessories to set a positive example for his clients.
The public prosecution was not convinced by the arguments and charged him with encouraging debauchery. He was subsequently referred to a court that ruled to keep him in jail for one month.
Cross-dressing is banned in Bahrain and in the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states — Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and the UAE.
Foreigners who are apprehended for their "unacceptable looks" in public are often tossed in the calaboose Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! for a short period before they are sent home.
Local conservatives have regularly called for tougher measures against cross-dressers and gays, accusing them of spreading vice, particularly among young people.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2014 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] The French and American presidents on Monday urged their Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... to pressure pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine to hold talks with Kiev, a Gay Paree statement said. Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist... and Barack Obama Because I won... spoke by telephone for 45 minutes and "called on President Putin to pressure the separatists so that they agree to a dialogue with the Ukrainian authorities and to reinforce control over the Russian-Ukrainian border," said a French presidency statement.
Obama and Hollande also called for a meeting "as quickly as possible with separatist elements, with the view to reaching a bilateral ceasefire," it said. "A durable solution to the crisis in Ukraine can only be a political one."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
It should be a pic of Vlad laughing his head off.
[SUNTIMES] Eduard Shevardnadze, a groundbreaking Soviet foreign minister and later the president of an independent Georgia, died Monday at the age of 86, his spokeswoman said.
Marina Davitashvili said Shevardnadze died after a long illness. She did not say where he died.
Shevardnadze swept heroically across the international stage in the final years of the Soviet empire, helping topple the Berlin Wall and end the Cold War, but as the leader of post-Soviet Georgia his career in the public eye ended in humiliation and he was chased out of his parliament and forced into retirement..
As Soviet foreign minister, the white-haired man with a gravelly voice was the diplomatic face of Mikhail Gorbachev's liberalizing policies of glasnost and perestroika. Following the wooden Andrei Gromyko, Shevardnadze impressed Western leaders with his charisma, his quick wit and his commitment to Gorbachev's reform course.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Retreating pro-Russian turbans dug in on Monday in Ukraine's sprawling industrial hub of Donetsk after government forces scored a string of morale-boosting victories in the bloody battle for the future of the ex-Soviet state.
The eastern home of one million mostly Russian speakers has been flooded with convoys carrying hundreds of fighters and scores of anti-aircraft guns from five smaller surrounding cities where Ukrainian flags were flying for the first time in three months.
The rebels erected checkpoints along the main roads leading into Donetsk while the center of the riverbank city itself saw several restaurants and shops shutter their doors.
And two rail bridges were blown up just north and east of the city -- adding to another link damaged on Friday as part of a seeming campaign to help barricade Donetsk. Pictures showed a cargo train balancing perilously over a highway and one of the broken spans sagging under its weight.
The separatists' "tactical retreat" began on Saturday with the fall of their symbolic bastion Slavyansk and continued until government forces had reached the very gates of the region's main metropolis.
Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council deputy head Mykhailo Koval said on Monday that soldiers now intended to complete a "full blockade" of Donetsk and the neighboring stronghold of Lugansk -- both capitals of their own "People's Republics".
Koval said their containment would be followed by "corresponding measures that will force the separatists, the bandidos to lay down their arms."
His carefully-worded comments underscored the dilemma facing Western-backed President Petro Poroshenko as he seeks to fulfill his May 25 election promise to quickly end Ukraine's worst crisis since independence in 1991.
The conflict has claimed the lives of nearly 500 people and displaced tens of thousands across an economically-vital region that has long viewed the more nationalistic west of Ukraine and Kiev with a mixture of hostility and mistrust.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2014 00:00 ||
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[FRANCE24] Three representatives of the Algerian military will take part in La Belle France's "Bastille Day" celebrations on July 14, a decision that has caused anger among far-right groups as well as in the former French colony.
"Algeria will participate in the same way as 80 other nations whose citizens were killed on the battlefields of the First World War," he told news hounds. "Algeria recognises its history and honours its contribution to world freedom."
In June, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said there was "nothing shocking" about the presence of Algerian troops in Gay Paree.
Between 1914 and 1918, some 170,000 Algerians, many of them French settlers, took part in the fighting in La Belle France. 23,000 of them were killed.
In Algeria, many feel that remembering the First World War alongside La Belle France is unacceptable, as many of the Algerians who fought were conscripted by force, often in the belief that fighting would give them citizenships and equal rights with French colonists.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2014 00:00 ||
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#2
Being an American, I am, of course, completely ignorant of geography. But isn't there like an entire country between Central America and the United States?
Hard to believe a literal army of illegals could move that far without some very pointed looking the other way at a number of levels.
#5
the flood which is not expected to stop coming any time soon.
Why would it stop? Obama's been inviting them for years, and has yet to send the first one back.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/08/2014 9:11 Comments ||
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#6
SteveS, the entire coyote program takes in money which includes the usual lubricant to pols in Mexico. The only stipulation is that the product keeps moving and those that do stay are for the use of locals (sex slaves et al). How do you think the cartels move product. Same mechanism.
#7
I am beginning to see the end game. Declare them refugees and decendants of the first citizens and create a Gaza strip for them. And we'll all just live happily ever after in a two-nation state.
Posted by: regular joe ||
07/08/2014 14:07 Comments ||
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#8
My guess is that most of the refugees are of Indian heritage. They've always been mistreated south of the border. In fact most of our illegals are from Mexico's Indian populations.
I think a number of governments are taking the opportunity to get rid of a population they aren't fond of, exporting their poor and hoping the poor will then send checks back home that will help their corrupt economies.
#12
According to Rush today, there is a law dating from the Clinton era that if an unaccompanied minor crosses into the USA and he's not from a bordering country, he can't be deported. e.g. Nicaragua. Is this true?
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/08/2014 19:25 Comments ||
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#14
The 2008 law during W's administration took aim at human trafficking. These kids could be sent back if they were not at risk. Whether they will be sent back is doubtful under Obama. His answer is to ask for $3.7B to hire lawyers for these kids. His end game is to force passage of amnesty by creating a problem. Right out of Alinsky.
#15
They were trying to get these guys into the military recently but the outcry shut that down, for the moment. When they can pull it off, the military no longer is America's, its Obama's.
[Gulf News] India's Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition seeking to ban Sharia courts, but stressed that they had no legal power over Mohammedans and that their decisions could not be enforced.
India's 150 million Mohammedans follow their own laws governing family life and other personal issues such as marriage and divorce, with Sharia courts often ruling on such matters and offering a mediatory role during disagreements.
The top court said that Islamic judges, who interpret religious law, could only rule when individuals submitted voluntarily to them and their decisions, or fatwas. The fatwas were not legally binding either, the court ruled.
"Sharia courts are not sanctioned by law and there is no legality of fatwas in this country," C.K. Prasad said on Monday as he read out the judgement from a two-judge bench.
The different personal laws followed by India's religious minorities are a sensitive political issue. The new Hindu nationalist government is committed to bringing in a common legal code for all.
Vishwa Lochan Madan, who petitioned the Supreme Court to disband Sharia courts, told AFP on Monday that his demand had been rejected. "The Supreme Court observed that Sharia courts have no legal sanctity. But if people still want to approach these courts, it's their will," he said.
He filed his petition in 2005 and cited a case in which a woman was told to leave her husband and children and live with her father-in-law who had raped her. "No religion is allowed to curb anyone's fundamental rights," the court added in its judgement while taking note of the case.
Qasim Rasool Niyazi, from the Mohammedan Personal Law Board, said the Supreme Court ruling vindicated his group's contention that Sharia courts were not a parallel judiciary.
They issue notices which are not legally binding, he explained. "It is just like an arbitration," he told the NDTV news channel, adding that qadis (Islamic judges) were required to follow the law of the land.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday dismissed bail plea of a local leader of the All Pakistain Moslem League, Sialkot, facing charges of killing eight members of a family.
The suspect, Bilal Gondal, in his petition stated the case registered against him was fake and politically motivated.
The prosecution told the court that the suspect killed eight members of a family, including an eight-month-old girl. It further said the suspect was also involved in dozens of criminal cases, including kidnap for ransom and murder.
The suspect had also hired tribal men to execute his criminal activities, it added.
Justice Abdul Sattar Asghar heard both sides and dismissed the bail petition.
Private security guards of Gondal offered resistance when Sialkot police tried to arrest the suspect after cancellation of his bail plea. However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... the police placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! him.
LHC security summoned Mozang police who also arrested the guards.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2014 00:00 ||
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The Narendra Modi government has asked the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to vacate the government bungalow housing its office in the heart of the Capital, in a sign of its toughening stand towards the UN mission.
The Indian Express has learnt that South Block has asked the UNMOGIP to vacate the bungalow — 1AB, Purana Qila Road — which has been serving as its office for the last four decades. The government accommodation — a Type VII bungalow, about 7,000 square feet — was allotted to the UN mission "free of charge".
Sources said in its recent communication to the UN, the government has conveyed that the UNMOGIP's role has been overtaken by the Simla Agreement and the consequent establishment of the Line of Control. New Delhi is of the view that the UNMOGIP has "no relevance or role to play whatsoever".
The UNMOGIP, established under a UN Security Council Resolution, was meant to supervise the ceasefire line established under the Karachi Agreement of July 1949.
The government's decision is being seen as a move to convey Delhi's desire to not engage with the UN mission in Delhi. "They should stay in Srinagar and do what they want. In case they want to be stationed in Delhi, they should hire premises in a private property and not occupy the government accommodation," said a senior official requesting anonymity.
When contacted, UNMOGIP's Military Information Officer Major Tomas Malm, who is based in Srinagar, confirmed that the government has asked them to vacate the premises. "UNMOGIP's response is to relocate to another location in Delhi," he said. Asked if they have been told the reason for this directive, he said, "The Indian authorities' reason is unknown to UNMOGIP."
Asked if the move reflected New Delhi's stand towards UNMOGIP, he said, "You have to ask the Indian government regarding their attitude towards us".
According to a source familiar with the arrangement between South Block and UNMOGIP, the bunglow "was allotted to the UNMOGIP as part of a gentleman's agreement between Indian officials and the UN mission over 40 years ago. It was meant to be a short-term arrangement, and the UNMOGIP officials were supposed to move to a private hired accommodation. But that never happened."
Even as South Block officials are yet to get the property vacated, the Ministry of External Affairs' finance department has told them that it will not be able to provide budgetary support for such "goodwill gestures".
Posted by: John Frum ||
07/08/2014 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
[SUNTIMES] Eduard Shevardnadze, a groundbreaking Soviet foreign minister and later the president of an independent Georgia, died Monday at the age of 86, his spokeswoman said.
