Schizophrenia or is Champ and Holder having a little tiff?
The controversy over the government's secret subpoena of Associated Press telephone records has revived legislation that protects journalists from having to reveal their sources to federal investigators -- and the White House is endorsing the idea.
The proposal wouldn't provide blanket protection for a journalist from having to reveal who he or she spoke to confidentially. But the government would have to convince a federal judge that the confidential source had compromised national security in speaking to the journalist.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., says he and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., will reintroduce the so-called media shield bill pursued unsuccessfully four years ago. President Barack Obama said Thursday that the point of a media shield law was to strike the right balance between national security needs and a free press that "helps our democracy function."
"I think now's the time for us to go ahead and revisit that legislation," Obama said. "I think that's a worthy conversation to have, and I think that's important."
Back in 2009, after the House passed a media shield bill, the action shifted to the Senate, where the Obama administration lobbied to add provisions aimed at protecting national security. That led to a compromise bill that would protect reporters' sources, but grant the government authority to override that in certain national security cases. Despite those concessions, the bill garnered the support of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
In the AP case, the Justice Department secretly obtained telephone records of the news organization's reporters and editors for more than 20 separate telephone lines in April and May 2012. AP was not told of the seizure until after the fact, provoking angry responses this week from the company's president and CEO, other news outlets and members of Congress. The department hasn't said whether it got permission from a judge, but subpoenas are often issued by grand juries at the request of prosecutors.
Had a shield law been in effect, it might have forced the government to at least go through a federal judge to obtain the records.
I got a glimpse of the added work that certain 501(c)4′s were being forced to go through, and they really made it difficult!
Dear organization applying for 501 (c) 4 status:
In order to keep your 501(c)4 status, we have a few straight-forward requests.
For groups with Tea Party in name or something Constitution-related in mission:
Please send us a notarized copy of form 27(b) and attached straw, spun into gold.
Please return a signed copy of this form along with three millet seeds picked out of a heap of lentils, located over the glass sea east of the Sun and west of the Moon and guarded by a three-headed troll.
On completion of form 478(b) we can send you instructions for defeating the troll, but only if the form is notarized during a full moon.
To expedite completion of this form, you can sign form 37(b)4-Part D, giving us your first-born child in perpetuity, but be warned that the notarization process must take place in the middle of an electrical storm. Give yourself ample time.
Sign, notarize, and-write the first 3,094 digits of pi on the back of this form.
Alternatively, you can name your second child George W. Bushs Presidency Was A Mistake and Ronald Reagan? More Like Satan Satan and bypass forms AA-MM, but you still must complete the remaining 17 forms to the best of your ability.
Append, along with records of all bodily functions performed by volunteers for your organization during the past fiscal year, sixteen signed copies of form 17B-c4, one folded neatly into an origami swan.
And on, and on...
What is love?
All of these forms must be delivered by pigeon to a gap that 8 inches wide that opens in an enchanted rock in the Toledo office between 3:32 and 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 29, if you are pure in heart and whisper the password. The password is on the 930th page of Prousts Remembrance of Things Past, but it is only visible to people who have read all six volumes. Afterwards, take the pigeon home and teach it how to love.
Go back in time and kill Hitler. Then, go back in time to repair the damage you have done by doing so. Take a picture of yourself standing behind him at Munich to prove it and append it with form 9222222-gggionqet.
Truly understand the musical contributions of Prince. Include six doves with form 93as93as93 who will testify for you.
Im thinking of a number. What is it? Whisper it to a reed. Clip the reed, bring it to my daughter, and successfully answer the three riddles she will pose you. Be careful of the elf!
Also, photocopy your drivers license eight times. Burn all copies. Photocopy it six more times and mail Joe Biden your favorite. Enclose his response letter with form F945.
And finally ...
Call 202-466-893[weird smudge] with any questions.
Groups Without Tea Party or Constitution in names
Please draw a picture of a spider.
Here are three wines. Taste them. Compare them. If you like, drop Carol a note to say which one was your favorite. But no pressure, obviously.
Did you enjoy the chocolates we sent? Good. This wasnt a question, I just felt like checking in!
Draw a picture of something that makes you happy
How great is President Obama? (A) Great (B) Just super! (Either answer is acceptable.
Here is a blank page. Write your name really big.
Sign this form and mail it back for a free phone! Otherwise, no sweat.
This form just contains the phone numbers of six young men we think would be good matches for your programming director Dana. Go get em, Tiger!
Make a dreamcatcher! Or dont. Just thought you might have fun.
Smile!
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/18/2013 09:23 ||
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#1
That's pretty funny, for the Washington Compost. I wonder how it slipped through?
Tea party groups' allegations that the IRS has long been targeting them for their political beliefs were recently confirmed by an apology from the IRS. The scandal gained traction as congressional leaders began efforts to hold the IRS accountable and understand the depths of the federal government's politically-motivated abuses of power.
Yet given the history of such abuses, the problem may extend further than the IRS, and require a "government-wide" probe across several agencies, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has suggested. Hows about a bottom-up scrub [with a wire brush]....of the entire government, agency by agency? Didn't someone promise a similar review before the 2008 election ?
The issue was initially believed to only involve groups with "Tea Party" or "patriots" in their names being singled out for greater scrutiny by the IRS, but recent admissions reveal that a wide range of conservative and constitution-oriented groups were singled out by the federal government. Most media outlets have focused on 2012 as the year the abuses occurred, but one prominent Tea Party-initiated organization, True the Vote, began to run into alleged federal government abuses in 2010--from a variety of agencies. Our betters in gov't appear to quickly share very private IRS information on it's citizens, but can't seem to share [across agencies], vital terrorism threat information. Strange, very strange.
True the Vote, a Houston-based nonprofit which focuses on election integrity issues, was formed by Catherine Engelbrecht and her King Street Patriots Tea Party group. True the Vote applied to the IRS for their 501(c3) non-profit status in July 2010, and almost immediately their problems began.
Within two years, multiple federal agencies, along with an EPA-affiliated Texas state agency, began auditing True the Vote and its founders, visiting their group, their businesses, and asking questions of people who knew them. The IRS was not the only governmental agency involved. Names and cards, did you get the names and cards of the fellows wearing fedoras and long black leather coats?
True the Vote's experiences with the IRS's abuse of power were recently discussed by Catherine Engelbrecht in a previous interview with Breitbart News. She said:
We applied for nonprofit C-3 status early in 2010. Since that time the IRS has run us through a gauntlet of analysts and hundreds of questions over and over again. They've requested to see each and every tweet I've ever tweeted or Facebook post I've ever posted. They also asked to know every place I've ever spoken since our inception and to whom, and everywhere I intend to speak in the future. Obviously she's hiding something.
Engelbrecht's application with the IRS for non-profit status allegedly triggered aggressive audits of one of her family's personal businesses as well. The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) began a series of inquiries about her and her group; the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) began demanding to see her family's firearms in surprise audits of her and her husband's small gun dealership--which had done less than $200 in sales; OSHA (Occupational Safety Hazards Administration) began a surprise audit of their small family manufacturing business; and the EPA-affiliated TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environment Quality) did a surprise visit and audit due to "a complaint being called in." A Russian intelligence tip no doubt. The bureau is always quick to sort those out.
The Democratic Party of Texas filed a lawsuit against her, as did an ACORN affiliated group. Both the FBI and the BATF continued to poke around her life, the lives of people in her Tea Party group, and her businesses. Texas has democrats ?
Yes, they do. Recall, until George W. Bush was elected governor, Texas was history was dominated by ferociously corrupt Democrats pretty much all the way down. Link This is why today's Democrats think they have a shot a flipping the state back.
Ultimately, the IRS determined that it actually owed a refund to Engelbrecht; the BATF found nothing wrong in any of its repeated visits and audits; OSHA's fine-toothed comb found reason to demand $25,000 from Engelbrecht's family business; and TCEQ demanded the Engelbrechts spend $42,000 on additional storage sheds. Clean bills of health coming shortly after November 2012 I take it ?
"This is what the beginning of tyranny looks like," Engelbrecht said. "My family and I have lived with great concern that we would be subject to even greater government abuses if we were vocal about what they were doing to us because of our political views and our efforts to increase governmental accountability. Obviously a legitimate concern following the 2nd or 3rd threatening, multi-agency visit and investigation.
"We are now convinced the only way to protect ourselves from our government is to speak out and bring our story straight to the American people. If such politically-motivated governmental abuses of power can happen to us, they can happen to anyone," said Engelbrecht. Prophetic, that last statement.
#1
Id like to say that the following is unbelievable, but its not. Unfortunately, it is all too believable.
You want "unbelievable"? Wait until the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented. Allowing a despicable, power hungry, socialist ideologue from the Chicago democratic machine to assume high office has consequences. Most, if not all of the readership here saw this coming more than 5 years ago. It's likely to get worse, much worse.
#3
Dont agree with Dear Leader's politics? Have funn getting proper medical care. We are becoming the Soviet Union. When do they open up the gulags for "reeducation"?
#8
Just add this to the list of ... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
Probably qualifies for the 2013 version of ... He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
There is no curse on the second term of presidents. When presidents lose credibility, when trust vanishes and their word is no longer accepted, they have only themselves to blame. That was true for President Nixon, among many others, and now its true for President Obama.
In confronting the Benghazi and IRS scandals, Obama has relied on the three tactics favored by politicians in trouble: lies, spin, and obfuscation. The main objective is to mislead the press and public. A lesser aim is to sidetrack the controversies and reduce them to a debate over tangential issues.
Lies. Even when hes been publicly corrected, Obama repeats mistruths. At his press conference last week, the president spoke of the attack on the American facility in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012. The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism, Obama said. Only he hadnt.
What Obama actually said in the Rose Garden on September 12 was: No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. It was a generic mention of terror, not directed at the Benghazi attack.
We know this because Obama was interviewed immediately after his Rose Garden statement by Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes. Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack? Kroft asked. Well, its too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans, Obama answered.
#1
He will cry like a baby and the media but he has gotten nearly everything he wants and with his army of programed robots in all areas of government. Remove him and another is there egger to take his place. Same thoughts same desires.
#3
Building a list of lies, deceits, scandals, corruptions usually isn't a good thing. Looks like he'll fulfill his mentor's prediction "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce". -
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
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.
In order to keep your 501(c)4 status, we have a few straight-forward requests.
Go back in time and kill Hitler. Then, go back in time to repair the damage you have done by doing so. Take a picture of yourself standing behind him at Munich to prove it and append it with form 9222222-gggionqet.
