Tuesday, May 28, 2013

FUNNY VIDEO Obama Administration Scandals-- Seriously?

Are we going to see more Benghazis?


Gird your loins, America. President Obama intends to empty out Guantanamo Bay and send scores of suspected Muslim terror operatives back to their jihadist-coddling native countries. Goaded by anti-war activists and soft-on-terror attorneys (including those from Attorney General Eric Holder’s former private law firm), Obama announced Thursday that he’ll lift a ban on sending up to 90 Yemeni detainees home and will initiate other stalled transfers out of the compound.

This radical appeasement of Obama’s left flank is a surefire recipe for more Benghazis, more U.S.S. Coles and more innocent lives at risk.__
A little more than three years ago, the White House assured Americans that it would not release Yemeni detainees back to their al-Qaida-infested land. In January 2010, international press outlets reported that at least a dozen former Guantanamo Bay prisoners had rejoined al-Qaida to fight in Yemen. Yemen was also the terror training ground of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the jihadist who attempted to bomb Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day in 2009.

Abdulmutallab reportedly told the FBI there were countless al-Qaida trainees like him in Yemen. The CIA knew of Abdulmutallab four months before his bombing attempt and was aware of him meeting with terrorists in Yemen a month before his arrest. British media also reported that counterterrorism and intelligence officers were “aware of several British nationals and British residents who had trained at camps in Yemen’s ‘ungoverned spaces.’”

__From the very first days of Obama’s presidency, Americans in Yemen have been endangered. In late January 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Yemen came under gunfire. American diplomatic staff had been warned of a pending attack. That same month, two former Yemeni Gitmo detainees, Said Ali al-Shihri and Abu Hareth Muhammad al-Awfi, released a video flipping America the bird.

They publicly recommitted to “aid the religion,” “establish the rightly guided caliphate” and “fight against our enemies” after undergoing terrorism “rehab” in Saudi Arabia. Charlie Sheen’s rehab worked better than that of the Sauds.
Military review panels indicated that al-Shihri had traveled to Afghanistan two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, trained and funded jihadists outside Kabul, and coordinated travel for al-Qaida before being captured and held at Gitmo. After his release by the Bush administration, intel officials say he was involved in the deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, in September 2008.

Read More: from Bernard Goldberg



I support Lt. Col. Dooley. Do You?


 Lt. Col Matthew Dooley, a West Point graduate and highly-decorated combat veteran, was an instructor at the Joint Forces Staff College at the National Defense University. He had 19 years of service and experience, and was considered one of the most highly qualified military instructors on Radical Islam & Terrorism.

He taught military students about the situations they would encounter, how to react, about Islamic culture, traditions, and explained the mindset of Islamic extremists. Passing down first hand knowledge and experience, and teaching courses that were suggested (and approved) by the the Joint Forces Staff College. The course "Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism" ,which was suggested and approved by the Joint Forces Staff College, caught the attention of several Islamic Groups, and they wanted to make an example of him.

They collectively wrote a letter expressing their outrage, and the Pro-Islamic Obama Administration was all too happy to assist. The letter was passed to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , Martin Dempsey. Dempsey publicly degraded and reprimanded Dooley, and Dooley received a negative Officer Evaluation Report almost immediately (which he had aced for the past 5 years). He was relieved of teaching duties, and his career has been red-flagged.

“He had a brilliant career ahead of him. Now, he has been flagged.” - Richard Thompson, Thomas More Law Center

"All US military Combatant Commands, Services, the National Guard Bureau, and Joint Chiefs are under Dempsey's Muslim Brotherhood-dictated order to ensure that henceforth, no US military course will ever again teach truth about Islam that the jihadist enemy finds offensive ,or just too informative." - Former CIA agent Claire M. Lopez (about Lt. Col Dooley)

The Obama Administration has demonstrated lightning speed to dismiss Military brass that does not conform to it's agenda, and not surprisingly, nobody is speaking up for Lt. Col. Dooley.

IT'S A SAD DAY FOR THIS COUNTRY WHEN GOOD LOYAL MEN LIKE THIS GET THROWN UNDER THE BUS BECAUSE NOBODY HAS THE COURAGE TO STAND UP!

Share this if you would. Lets bring some attention to this.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

The Real Reason Gibson Guitar was Targeted by the Feds.

 
The inexplicable raid nearly three years ago on a guitar maker for using allegedly illegal wood that its competitors also used was another targeting by this administration of its political enemies.
 
On Aug. 24, 2011, federal agents executed four search warrants on Gibson Guitar Corp. facilities in Nashville and Memphis, Tenn., and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. One of the top makers of acoustic and electric guitars, including the iconic Les Paul introduced in 1952, Gibson was accused of using wood illegally obtained in violation of the century-old Lacey Act, which outlaws trafficking in flora and fauna the harvesting of which had broken foreign laws.

In one raid, the feds hauled away ebony fingerboards, alleging they violated Madagascar law. Gibson responded by obtaining the sworn word of the African island's government that no law had been broken.
In another raid, the feds found materials imported from India, claiming they too moved across the globe in violation of Indian law. Gibson's response was that the feds had simply misinterpreted Indian law.

Interestingly, one of Gibson's leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Co. According to C.F. Martin's catalog, several of their guitars contain "East Indian Rosewood," which is the exact same wood in at least 10 of Gibson's guitars. So why were they not also raided and their inventory of foreign wood seized?

Grossly underreported at the time was the fact that Gibson's chief executive, Henry Juszkiewicz, contributed to Republican politicians. Recent donations have included $2,000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and $1,500 to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

By contrast, Chris Martin IV, the Martin & Co. CEO, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the Democratic National Committee over the past couple of election cycles.

"We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted," Juszkiewicz said at the time, adding the matter "could have been addressed with a simple contact (from) a caring human being representing the government. Instead, the government used violent and hostile means."

Read More: Investors Business Daily

An Old Tombstone of a Guy who really got it.


This tombstone is actually in the: 
Attica Cemetery  
Harper County Kansas


120 yr old tombstone: short and worth the view! 


And this guy died 120 years ago!

Saturday, May 25, 2013

OBAMA Three Time Memorial Day FAIL


For those too young to remember; Here is a photo of the The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France memorializing the fallen US soldiers of the D-Day Invasion to retake Europe from the Nazis.


There is also a D-Day Monument in Bedford , VA
... a relatively short 200 mile helicopter ride from the White House:

In all the years since D-Day 1945, there are only three occasions when the sitting President of the United States of America failed to go to the D-Day Monument that honors the soldiers killed during the Invasion. Only Three Times... The occasions were:

1. Barack Obama 2010

2. Barack Obama 2011

3. Barack Obama 2012

For the past 68 years, every single president, except Obama, has paid tribute to the fallen American soldiers killed on D-Day. Last year,(2012), instead of honoring the soldiers, he made a 3,000 mile campaign trip on Air Force 1 to California to raise funds for the upcoming election.
Priorities? - - It speaks volumes... doesn't it?


How Much Does Al Sharpton owe The IRS and Everybody Else?


The Rev. Al Sharpton’s nonprofit paid him nearly $242,000 — even as it carried $1.6 million in debt, according to documents obtained by The Post.

In all, the controversial activist and his empire, including the National Action Network and two for-profit companies, were $5.3 million in the red, public records show.

Most of NAN’s money woes stemmed from more than $880,000 in unpaid federal payroll taxes, interest and penalties. It also paid more than $100,000 to settle two lawsuits, byproducts of the unpaid bills.
And it still owed $206,252 in loans to Sharpton’s for-profit Bo-Spanky Consulting Inc. and Sharpton Media LLC, the records show.

Sharpton drew a $241,732 salary and perks that included first-class or charter air travel, tax filings show. He owes the IRS $2.6 million in income tax, and nearly $900,000 in state tax.

The defunct Rev-Al Communications Inc. owes the state almost $176,000, and Bo-Spanky is $3,500 behind on state-tax liens.

Sharpton has said he is on a repayment plan with state and federal-tax authorities.

NAN last year took in more than $3 million in donations, which allowed it to chip away at its tax burden. This year, its board of directors voted to resolve the tax issues and paid all back state taxes, said Executive Director Tamika Mallory.

The civil-rights group is also addressing the $883,503 it owes in federal payroll taxes, she added.

And it is close to finished repaying the Peabody Hotel in Memphis $106,981 owed since 2008, when NAN skipped out on its bill after its annual convention, according to its 2010 audited financial statements.

Plus, it paid $5,500 to a Phoenix developer to settle a legal dispute over the rental of chapter offices.

Reported by: The NY Post

Al Sharpton is an Idiot. More Proof Here

Obama Fail, ObamaCare Fail and Scandal Cartoons






Wednesday, May 22, 2013

What does Hillary Clinton's Personal Scapegoat have to say?


You may not have heard of Raymond Maxwell, former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs. For reasons that are still unknown, he was fired along with 3 other diplomats in the aftermath of the Benghazi attack.

Maxwell has never been given an explantion and says he had absolutely nothing to do with security decisions that resulted in the death of Ambassador Stevens. The other three department officials let go were involved in diplomatic security.

Maxwell has broken his silence and talked to Josh Rogin:

"The overall goal is to restore my honor," said Maxwell, who has now filed grievances regarding his treatment with the State Department's human resources bureau and the American Foreign Service Association, which represents the interests of foreign-service officers. The other three officials placed on leave were in the diplomatic security bureau, leaving Maxwell as the only official in the bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), which had responsibility for Libya, to lose his job.
"I had no involvement to any degree with decisions on security and the funding of security at our diplomatic mission in Benghazi," he said.

Soon after being removed from his job, Maxwell was visited at his home late one evening and directed to sign a letter acknowledging his administrative leave and forfeiting his right to enter the State Department. He refused to sign, responding in writing that it amounted to an admission he had done something wrong.
"They just wanted me to go away but I wouldn't just go away," he said. "I knew Chris [Stevens]. Chris was a friend of mine."
The decision to place Maxwell on administrative leave was made by Clinton's chief of staff Cheryl Mills, according to three State Department officials with direct knowledge of the events. On the day after the unclassified version of the ARB's report was released in December, Mills called Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones and directed her to have Maxwell leave his job immediately.
"Cheryl Mills directed me to remove you immediately from the [deputy assistant secretary] position," Jones told Maxwell, according to Maxwell.
The decision to remove Maxwell and not Jones seems to conflict with the finding of the ARB that responsibility for the security failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi should fall on more senior officials.
"We fixed [the responsibility] at the assistant secretary level, which is in our view the appropriate place to look, where the decision-making in fact takes place, where, if you like, the rubber hits the road," Pickering said when releasing the ARB report.
Maxwell may have revealed the reason for his leave; he was set to retire. Rather than go after someone with their career still viable, it is not unknown to fire someone who is retiring anyway. 

Maxwell doesn't have any direct knowledge of the attack and is not a whistleblower. He is simply someone caught up in the CYA efforts of the State Department - and the effort to salvage Hillary Clinton's political career.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013

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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Obama Met With IRS Union Leader Day Before They Targeted Conservatives…


Is President Obama directly implicated in the IRS scandal?

Is the White House Visitors Log the trail to the smoking gun?

The stunning questions are raised by the following set of new facts.
March 31, 2010.

According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the anti-Tea Party National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White House at 12:30pm that Wednesday noon time of March 31st.

The White House lists the IRS union leader’s visit this way:

Kelley, Colleen Potus 03/31/2010 12:30
In White House language, “POTUS” stands for “President of the United States.”

The very next day after her White House meeting with the President, according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s Report, IRS employees — the same employees who belong to the NTEU — set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America. 

The IG report wrote it up this way:

“April 1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit, suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed.”

In short: the very day after the president of the quite publicly anti-Tea Party labor union — the union for IRS employees — met with President Obama, the manager of the IRS “Determinations Unit Program agreed” to open a “Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases.” As stated by the IG report.

Thank You: Weasel Zippers


Sunday, May 19, 2013

FLASHBACK VIDEO Bob Woodward: Obama Admin Didn't Tell Truth on Benghazi

Department of Justice vs School Choice


Claiming that private schools in Milwaukee are discriminating against students with disabilities, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a letter to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) demanding that private schools participating in the Milwaukee school choice program comply with Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act. As Professor Patrick Wolf explains over at Education Next, the DOJ is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law.

Wolf is part of a team of researchers that has studied the Milwaukee school choice program over five years. Their statistical analysis “confirmed that no measure of student disadvantage—not disability status, not test scores, not income, not race—was statistically associated with whether or not an 8th grade voucher student was or was not admitted to a 9th grade voucher-receiving private school.” This is exactly what the law requires. Wisconsin law forbids discrimination on the basis of disability and requires schools participating in the voucher program to accept students on a random basis. 
Moreover, the DOJ is wrong on the law in treating private schools participating in the program as though they were government contractors. As Wolf explains:

Private organizations normally are exempt from Title II of ADA but the DOJ argues that the law applies to private schools in the MPCP because the government is contracting with them to provide a public service (the education of K-12 students). This claim flies in the face of the facts and case-law surrounding the program. The voucher program does not involve any contracts, of any kind, between any government organization and the participating private schools. Students need to meet certain eligibility restrictions to participate in the program, as do interested private schools. Once both are deemed eligible by the state, students choose schools and government funds flow to the private schools based on the choices families have made and consistent with the laws governing the program, not based on any “contract.” In fact, the Wisconsin State Statute that governs the MPCP, §119.23, is entirely separate from Wisconsin State Statute §119.235 entitled “Contracts with Private Schools and Agencies.” Nothing could make the point clearer that the MPCP is not a case of government contracting for education services.

Wolf suspects that the DOJ’s letter came as a result of the Wisconsin DPI’s report that 1.6 percent of choice students have a disability. Since the DPI is not authorized to collect that information, they estimated the number of students with disabilities using the number of choice students given accommodations on the state accountability exam. However, as Wolf explains, that is a highly flawed proxy since only a minority of students with disabilities are given such accommodations. Wolf’s team of researchers estimated that the number of choice students with disabilities between 7.5 and 14.6 percent, with their best estimate being 11.4 percent.

The DOJ’s overreach may be unsurprising in light of other recent scandals, but it also sets a terrible precedent. Parents choosing to use their vouchers at private educational institutions do not render those institutions “government contractors” any more than grocery stores become “government contractors” when citizens use their EBT cards to purchase food there. The Obama administration’s unlawful and misguided attempt to hamper school choice programs with additional red tape should be vigorously resisted.

Another Great Article From: THE CATO INSTITUTE


Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Is the EPA Playing Favorites? More Corruption?


Conservative groups seeking information from the Environmental Protection Agency have been routinely hindered by fees normally waived for media and watchdog groups, while fees for more than 90 percent of requests from green groups were waived, according to requests reviewed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

CEI reviewed Freedom of Information Act requests sent between January 2012 and this spring from several environmental groups friendly to the EPA’s mission, and several conservative groups, to see how equally the agency applies its fee waiver policy for media and watchdog groups. Government agencies are supposed to waive fees for groups disseminating information for public benefit.

“This is as clear an example of disparate treatment as the IRS’ hurdles selectively imposed upon groups with names ominously reflecting an interest in, say, a less intrusive or biased federal government,” said CEI fellow Chris Horner.

Most green groups, including Earth Justice, The Waterkeeper Alliance, and Greenpeace, saw their fees waived. In fact, according to the report, 92 percent of requests from green groups were waived by the EPA.

But of the requests that were denied, “the EPA said the group either didn’t respond to requests for justification of a waiver, or didn’t express intent to disseminate the information to the general public,” Conger reports, citing documents obtained by the Examiner

Read More: The Blaze

Lamar Alexander: Sebelius and an Iran-Contra style Health Care Scandal


Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander says Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius may be involved in an Iran-Contra-style health care scandal and he wants Congress to investigate it.

The Washington Post reported Friday that Sebelius is asking private companies involved in health care to contribute funds to Enroll America, a nonprofit that is working to help implement the Affordable Care Act by enrolling the uninsured and educating Americans on the new law. Congress has turned down requests from the Obama administration for additional funds to help implement the ACA.

Alexander, the ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, called for an investigation into Sebelius’ actions Saturday, saying it “may be illegal, should cease immediately and should be fully investigated by Congress.”

“Such private fundraising circumvents the constitutional requirement that only Congress may appropriate funds. If the secretary or others in her department are closely coordinating the activities of Enroll America, which is headed by a former White House aide, then those actions may be in violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act,” he said.

He compared such behavior to the Iran-Contra scandal, “when Reagan administration official Oliver North raised funds and directed their spending through private entities in support of Nicaraguan rebels even though Congress had refused to appropriate such funds.”

A report from the Joint Select Committee charged with investigating the Iran-Contra incident determined that “Congress’s exclusive control over the expenditure of funds cannot legally be evaded through the use of gifts or donations to the executive branch,” Alexander noted.

Read More: The Daily Caller



Sunday, May 12, 2013

Bad news just keeps coming for Obamacare


Obamacare goes fully into effect on Jan. 1, 2014, and the people who imposed it on a reluctant country -- President Obama and congressional Democrats -- are no longer celebrating their handiwork. The first prominent Democrat to wring his hands in public was Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., who two weeks ago voiced his fear that implementation of the law was becoming a "train wreck." This emboldened other Democrats to express their own forebodings after fingering their worry beads in private for the last several months. Things got so bad that even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- normally Obama's most consistent Senate advocate -- embraced Baucus' train wreck metaphor.

It seems that nothing concentrates the mind like a hanging or an election in November 2014. A week after his public blubbering, Baucus threw in the towel on his re-election effort and, as National Journal's Josh Kraushaar reported Friday, plenty of his Democratic colleagues may be having similar thoughts: "In the face of intraparty criticism that implementation of his health care law will be a 'train wreck,' new polls showing support for the law near all-time lows, and even the Democratic nominee in next week's House special election calling the law 'extremely problematic' -- there's plenty of evidence piling up to believe health care will be a political millstone for Democrats in 2014."

Making the millstone even heavier was a study published this week by the New England Journal of Medicine. The study compared two large samples of low-income people. Roughly half of them got expanded health benefits through Medicaid while the other half did not. Megan McArdle summarized the results in the Daily Beast: "People who had more generous coverage consumed more health care. But they weren't healthier. In fact, the people who had less generous coverage reported being less worried about their health and taking less sick time, presumably because they weren't going to the doctor to find things to worry about."

That result was devastating news for Obamacare advocates, because, as The Washington Examiner's Philip Klein reported, "during the health care debate, liberals argued that government had a moral duty to enact legislation that expanded health insurance among lower-income individuals. This was rooted in the assumption that obtaining health insurance translates into improved health."

Read More: The Washington Examiner 



Saturday, May 11, 2013

12 Strange but interesting happenings from WW11 events.

You might enjoy this from Col D. G. Swinford, USMC, Ret and history buff. You would really have to dig deep to get this kind of ringside seat to history:


1. The first German serviceman killed in WW II was killed by the Japanese ( China , 1937), The first American serviceman killed was killed by the Russians ( Finland 1940); The highest ranking American killed was Lt Gen Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps.

2. The youngest US serviceman was 12 years old: Calvin Graham, USN. He was wounded and given a Dishonorable Discharge for lying about his age. His benefits were later restored by act of Congress.

3. At the time of Pearl Harbor, the top US Navy command was called CINCUS (pronounced 'sink us'); The shoulder patch of the US Army's 45th Infantry division was the swastika. Hitler's private train was named 'Amerika.' All three were soon changed for PR purposes.

4. More US servicemen died in the Air Corps than the Marine Corps. While completing the required 30 missions, an airman's chance of being killed was 71%.

5. Generally speaking, there was no such thing as an average fighter pilot. You were either an ace or a target. For instance, Japanese Ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa shot down over 80 planes. He died while a passenger on a cargo plane.

6. It was a common practice on fighter planes to load every 5th round with a tracer round to aid in aiming. This was a big mistake. Tracers had different ballistics so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet tracers instantly told your enemy he was under fire and from which direction. Worst of all was the practice of loading a string of tracers at the end of the belt to tell you that you were out of ammo. This was definitely not something you wanted to tell the enemy. Units that stopped using tracers saw their success rate nearly double and their loss rate go down.

7. When allied armies reached the Rhine, the first thing men did was pee in it. This was pretty universal from the lowest private to Winston Churchill (who made a big show of it) and Gen. Patton (who had himself photographed in the act).

8. German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City, but they decided it wasn't worth the effort.

9. German submarine U-120 was sunk by a malfunctioning toilet.

10. Among the first 'Germans' captured at Normandy were several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese Army until they were captured by the Russians and forced to fight for the Russian Army until they were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for the German Army until they were captured by the US Army.

11. Following a massive naval bombardment, 35,000 United States and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands. 21 troops were killed in the assault on the island…………….. It could have been worse if there had actually been any Japanese on the island.

12. The last marine killed in WW2 was killed by a can of spam. He was on the ground as a POW in Japan when rescue flights dropping food and supplies came over, the package came apart in the air and a stray can of spam hit him and killed him.

White House tells Cabinet Members to talk up ObamaCare during Commencement Speeches



White House officials have been instructed to use college commencement ceremonies as an opportunity to praise the health care law.

“To counter the criticism, the White House has told all Cabinet members and senior officials to use commencement speeches to drive home for graduating college students and their parents the benefits they gain from a provision of the law that allows young adults to stay on their family’s insurance plans until they turn 26,” Bloomberg reports.

And it appears the president’s political allies have no problem complying with this request.

“That’s a big thing for a young person coming out of school,” said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday.

She took extra time to talk about how great it is that the law contains a provision that allows grown adults to stay on their parents’ insurance policies until they’re 26-years-old.

“We just think it’s really going to be liberating,” she said.
The push to encourage young Americans to love the bill, as the Washington Examiner’s Joel Gehrke notes, stems from the Obama administration’s fear that they will refuse to participate in the health insurance exchanges once their parents kick them off the plan, thus crippling the law.

“Here is the specific problem: Insurance companies worry that young people, especially young men, already think they are invincible, and they are bewildered about the health-care reform in general and exchanges in particular,” Ezekiel Emanuel, the president’s health policy czar during the Obamacare debate, wrote in the Wall Street Journal this week.

“They may tune out, forego purchasing health insurance and opt to pay a penalty instead when their taxes come due. The consequence would be a disproportionate number of older and sicker people purchasing insurance, which will raise insurance premiums and, in turn, discourage more people from enrolling. This reluctance to enroll would damage a key aspect of reform,” he adds.

Courtesy: The Blaze

Friday, May 10, 2013

IRS Targets Conservatives


The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

Organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

"That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review," Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.
"The IRS would like to apologize for that," she added.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice.

Agency officials found out about the practice last year and moved to correct it, the IRS said in a statement. The statement did not specify when officials found out.

About 75 groups were inappropriately targeted. None had their tax-exempt status revoked, Lerner said.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called on the White House to investigate.

"Today's acknowledgement by the Obama administration that the IRS did in fact target conservative groups in the heat of last year's national election is not enough," McConnell said. "I call on the White House to conduct a transparent, government-wide review aimed at assuring the American people that these thuggish practices are not under way at the IRS or elsewhere in the administration against anyone, regardless of their political views."

Read More: Associated Press

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Keep Safe from Drones with One Simple Device.


A Washington, D.C.-based engineer is working on the "Drone Shield," a small, Wi-Fi-connected device that uses a microphone to detect a drone's "acoustic signatures" (sound frequency and spectrum) when it's within range.

The company's founder, John Franklin, who has been working in aerospace engineering for seven years, says he hopes to start selling the device sometime this year. He is using the Kickstarter-like IndieGoGo to finance the project.

The device will cost $69 and will be about the size of a USB thumb drive. It will use Raspberry Pi – a tiny, $25 computer – and commercially available microphones to detect drones. He says he imagines that people will attach the Drone Shield to their fences or roofs to protect their home from surveillance.
"People will get the alert and then close their blinds," Franklin says.

He is currently working on an open-source database of drone sounds that the detector will check what it's hearing against. Other devices with motors, such as lawn mowers and weed-whackers, will also be included to reduce false positives. Drone owners will be asked to record the sound of their drones to be included in the database. When the Drone Shield identifies a drone, it'll flash and send an email and text message alert to a homeowner.

Franklin says that most commercially available drones have to come relatively close to a home in order to spy. More sophisticated drones, such as Predators, would fly too high to detect.

He got the idea for the device after getting into a bit of hot water with his neighbor, which Franklin says alerted him to the reality of people's concerns about drones.

"I bought a [drone] from Amazon and was going to use it to look at my roof. The wind took it and I crashed it into my neighbor's yard. It freaked him out once he noticed it had a camera on it," Franklin says. "It sort of dawned on me that it's so easy to invade someone's privacy with a couple hundred dollar drone."

VIDEO: USNews