Report: Top IRS Aides Visited White House 300 Times

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last month many were questioning why Internal Revenue Service chief Douglas Shulman had visited the White House so often. Now, despite claims that there was no coordination between the White House and the IRS, a new report indicates that Shulman’s top aide visited the President’s residence perhaps as often as 300 times.

In May after news broke that the IRS had intimidated conservative and Tea Party groups trying to obtain an official tax status, reporters began to look into the activities of IRS chief Douglas Shulman. It wasn’t long before news emerged that Shulman appears on the White House visitor logs nearly 200 times.

This high number of visits occurred despite that the fact that both Shulman and President Obama claimed to have no knowledge of the IRS intimidation tactics. Both also said there was no coordination between the IRS and the White House.

Officials at the IRS and President Obama still maintain that there was no coordination between the White House and the IRS, of course, but this latest revelation makes that still harder to believe.
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Report: Top IRS Aides Visited White House 300 Times”


Labor Unions Hail Federal Sale of Low Powered Radio Frequencies

-By Warner Todd Huston

Labor unions and ACORN-styled community groups based in America’s big cities are hailing a new decision by the Federal Communications Commission to auction hundreds of low power FM radio frequencies in compliance with the federal Local Community Radio Act passed in 2010.

After a 15-year campaign to force the federal government to open up the dial to low power radio stations, the Prometheus Radio Project was finally able to convince Congress to pass the Local Community Radio Act (LCRA) which changed the law to allow more stations to be licensed by the FCC.

Originally new stations on the FM dial could only be licensed if the frequency requested was more than “three clicks away” on a digital dial from an existing station (for instance, from 96.1 to 96.3 is one click on the dial). The new law would allow for frequencies at three or only two clicks from existing stations with the stipulation that the new station would not cause interfere with existing stations. Hence why they would be 100 watt, low power stations.

The FCC has finally acquiesced to Congress’ law and will put thousands of new frequencies up for auction available only to non-profit groups between October 15 and October 29 of this year.
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Labor Unions Hail Federal Sale of Low Powered Radio Frequencies”


Colorado Sen. Who Spearheaded Anti-Gun Laws Close to Recall

-By Warner Todd Huston

In the aftermath of the crime at a Colorado movie theater where 12 people were murdered, the Colorado State legislature quickly moved to adopt stricter gun laws and Senate President John Morse led that effort. But now, after his anti-gun bills were successfully passed into law, Morse faces a recall election that could turn him out of office.

On June 18, Colorado certified that the recall effort had gained enough signatures to move forward making Senator leader Morse the first legislator to ever be recalled in the state’s history.

Morse, a Democrat from Colorado Springs, has been in the legislature for seven years and for a short time was the police chief of Fountain, Colorado. He became Senate majority leader in 2009 after the former occupant of that office resigned to join the Obama administration.

Senator Morse not only supported but championed the new laws that limited ammunition magazines to 15 rounds or less and mandated that background checks be performed even for private transactions on gun sales. Morse also strongly supported several other, even stricter measures but they failed to pass.

Despite the complaints of constituents, the Senator is wholly unapologetic for his strong support of the new gun laws.
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Colorado Sen. Who Spearheaded Anti-Gun Laws Close to Recall”


National Review Hammers the ‘Gang of Eight’ Immigration Team

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a new editorial, the folks at National Review came out strongly against the immigration plan being sponsored by the so-called “gang of eight” Senators, a group that includes Florida Senator Marco Rubio, calling the bill “Rubio’s Folly.”

NR urges Senator Rubio to vote against the bill he has helped craft, disparaging the proposed legislation as, “an amnesty-first, enforcement-maybe program drawn up mainly to reflect the priorities of 11 million citizens of other countries rather than the concerns of more than 300 million citizens of the United States.”

NR goes on to point out that many of the bill’s “security triggers” are little else but “paper tigers” that are undermined before they even fairly begin. For instance, the requirement that prospective new citizens must have a “clean criminal record” is undermined by the fact that they can actually have two misdemeanors and up to two convictions for drunk driving yet still qualify.
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National Review Hammers the ‘Gang of Eight’ Immigration Team”


IRS To Hire ‘Diversity and Inclusion Specialist’ At $123,758 Salary

-By Warner Todd Huston

After repeated scandals, the IRS is looking to hire a new “Diversity and Inclusion Specialist” and is offering a generous $123,758 annual salary plus benefits.

The opening was announced on June 11 and will be advertised until June 24.

According to the description this “diversity” officer will “serve as a change agent to provide strategies, solutions, training, tools, resources and thought leadership on diversity and foster inclusion” as well as “build internal awareness” in the IRS.

This officer will be tasked with hearing and resolving complaints from employees and to “effect minor disciplinary measures, such as warnings and reprimands.” The new position will also assist in creating employee training programs.
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IRS To Hire ‘Diversity and Inclusion Specialist’ At $123,758 Salary”


Miss Alabama 2013 Proves American Freedom is Dying

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mary Margaret McCord, the dull witted “beauty queen” from Alabama, said during the 2013 Miss USA contest that she’d trade freedom and liberty for safety. This empty-headed twit proves that the liberals have won. We have lost our freedom if people care so little about it that they would trade liberty and freedom for government-sponsored “security.” Our system of mis-education, an edifice so infested with liberals, did this to us all. The liberals are killing America. But conservatives are also at fault here. They are at fault for allowing our educational system to be taken over by the anti-American, hardcore left.

This Ben Franklin axiom is obviously no longer taught in our schools:

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
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Miss Alabama 2013 Proves American Freedom is Dying”


Big Three Networks Have Stopped Reporting on IRS Scandal

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently the Big Three TV networks have decided that the IRS intimidation scandal is over and it seems that reporting on the issue has disappeared from the airwaves.

When the story first broke after IRS official Lois Lerner admitted that the taxing agency had unfairly targeted conservatives and Tea Party groups seeking a tax status, the Big Three jumped into the story with both feet. But now, only a month later, coverage of the matter has slowed to a trickle.

A new review by the Media Research Center of the first month of coverage of the IRS scandal shows that three quarters of the stories hit in the first two weeks after the news broke.

MRC analysts reviewed each of the morning and evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC from May 10 through June 12 (ABC’s World News, Good Morning America, CBS’s Evening News and This Morning, and NBC’s Nightly News and Today show), and found 127 full stories, interviews or anchor briefs that focused on the IRS scandal. Analysts determined that 76 percent of the IRS stories were aired within the first two weeks, while 24 percent of the stories arrived in the latter period, a huge drop-off.

MRC found that CBS hit the story the most (49 stories), while NBC came in second (at 44), with ABC brining up the tail (with 34).

Finally, during the week of June 10, only one mention of the scandal was heard anywhere on network TV.
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Big Three Networks Have Stopped Reporting on IRS Scandal”


Jihawg Ammo: Anti-Islam Pork Covered Ammunition

-By Warner Todd Huston

You know the claim, right? Islamic terrorists don’t allow any sort of pork products to come near them. Well, one ammunition company is taking advantage of that religious tenet by making bullets dipped in pork-infused paint. They say that since radical Islamists don’t like pork, these bullets may deter terrorism.

The ammunition company, Jihawg Ammo, says that their goal is to turn the tables on the radicals.

“We at Jihawg Ammo hope you will stock up on Jihawg as a natural deterrent to the ever growing threat of radical Islam and Sharia Law. We, however, stress that the nullifying principle of our product is only effective if you are attacked by an Islamist in Jihad. Otherwise, our ammo functions just like any other ammunition so we obviously insist upon defensive use of our ammo only-not offensive.”

It is a nice, kitschy way to sell a product, of course, but the fact is Islam is quite a bit more flexible than that.
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Jihawg Ammo: Anti-Islam Pork Covered Ammunition”


Obama Claims He Doesn’t Want to ‘Tax All Businesses Out of Business’

-By Warner Todd Huston

During a recent fundraiser, President Obama told an audience that he and the Democrats don’t want to tax all business out of business. He also said he doesn’t believe in “top down” government.

The President made these comments at a private residence in Palo Alto, California during a Democratic Senatorial campaign fundraiser in the first week of June.

“I know that there are a few Republicans here in the audience,” he said to those gathered. “If you talk to us, it turns out, you know, we’re pretty common-sense folks.”

“We don’t think government can do everything. We don’t think that top-down solutions are the right way to go. We believe in the free market. We believe in a light touch when it comes to regulations. We don’t want to tax all businesses out of business. But we do think that there’s a role to play for government.”

Barack Obama has made this claim many times on the hustings, but his actions have often been at odds with this campaign rhetoric.
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Obama Claims He Doesn’t Want to ‘Tax All Businesses Out of Business’”


NY Times Talks Up NSA’s Expertise

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a story that reads like a gushing profile article on an exciting new business venture, The New York Times reported on the vast growth and technological advancement of the National Security Agency’s data mining capabilities.

The June 8 piece titled, “How the U.S. Uses Technology to Mine More Data More Quickly,” is filled with seemingly positive comments on the NSA’s new advancements, longer reach, and secret operations. There’s barely a hint of the sort of condemnation the paper was filled with during the Bush years when outcries against “domestic spying” were all the rage.

The Times says NSA’s capabilities are built on a “revolution in software technology,” and is “undergoing rapid expansion in order to exploit the mountains of new data being created each day.”
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NY Times Talks Up NSA’s Expertise”


LA Times Pushes ‘Gun’ Angle Instead of Mental Illness on Santa Monica Shooter Story

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the 24-year-old Santa Monica shooter had a history of mental illness but leads a June 9 story with the claim of an “unnamed source” who said that the killer had a “fascination with guns.”

In the Times report the story about killer John Zawahri leads with two paragraphs detailing the claims of this unnamed source, but the spends many more paragraphs discussing his mental health problems and run-ins with the law.

It is interesting that the paper leads with this claim when there is far more evidence of Zawahri’s run-ins with the police in the past, his reputation as a young man with an explosive temper, and his undefined mental problems.

Yet the paper quotes an unnamed person said to be familiar with the murderer and his family who feels he had “a fascination with guns.” This unnamed person also claims that many people were worried about Zawahri’s gun fixation and also wondered where he got the money for the firearms.

But the Times finds that Zawahri had a history of emotional problems. He was upset over his parents divorce and police had been called to his family home in 2006 over an incident of domestic violence.
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LA Times Pushes ‘Gun’ Angle Instead of Mental Illness on Santa Monica Shooter Story”


Paul Krugman: ‘We Are Kind of an Authoritarian Surveillance State’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Liberal economist and leading modern Keynesian, Paul Krugman of The New York Times, has been one of Barack Obama’s biggest cheerleaders, but suddenly he is a bit down on the Obama administration saying that he is afraid that the country is becoming an “authoritarian surveillance state.”

With a mounting list of scandals from government-sponsored intimidation of the President’s political enemies, to surveillance of reporters, to a growing list of communications companies allowing government intelligence agencies access to all of our personal phone calls, Internet searches, and text messages, this must be a confusing time for the President’s most ardent supporters. Krugman’s reaction here is an example of that turning of the head.

For Krugman, with latest news about the massive collection of data on everyday Americans he sees the United States of America drifting toward authoritarianism.

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Paul Krugman: ‘We Are Kind of an Authoritarian Surveillance State’”


House Defeats Bill to House Terror Detainees in U.S. Prisons

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again Democrats tried to get a bill passed in the House of Representatives to fund an expansion of U.S. prisons in order to house terror suspects in the U.S. heartland instead of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As in years previous, however, the measure was defeated.

On June 4 the House shot down an amendment introduced by Representative Jim Moran (D, Vir.) to the military construction spending bill (H.R. 2216) that would have allowed the move.

Moran’s amendment would have struck out language that prevented the construction funds from going to any U.S. prison in order to house detainees now housed at Guantanamo. Moran insisted that the “best place” for accused terrorists is right here in the United States.

“The best place for them to be housed and then tried is in the United States,” Rep. Moran said. “The continuance of the Guantánamo Bay facility represents an immediate security threat to the United States because it is a rallying cry and a recruitment tool for our enemy.”

Moran’s amendment went down to defeat in a 170-254 vote. Every Republican except one voted against the amendment and the Democrats voted 169-25 in favor.
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House Defeats Bill to House Terror Detainees in U.S. Prisons”


Obama’s Intelligence Agency Looking to Hire ‘Digital Exploitation Specialist’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The National Security Agency (NSA) has been in the spotlight since news broke that the agency has been collecting massive amounts of data from everyday Americans and with some of the worst timing ever, the NSA is now advertising for new employees for positions as “Digital Exploitation Specialists.”

According to the NSA job description, the duties of the job are to “perform discovery and target technology analysis of digital network and mobile communications.”

The job opening was advertised on Twitter on June 6.

Just as the agency is under suspicion of being the biggest domestic spies in American history, the agency posts job openings for even more such people. This only days before an NSA whistleblower came forward to detail what many is proof of the over zealousness of the spy agency.

And as millions of Americans are losing their jobs, their insurance benefits, or finding their career stagnate in paralysis, the NSA seems to have a pretty sweet starting salary range for these Digital Exploitation Specialists. They’ll be making between $42,209 and $81,204 annually.
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Obama’s Intelligence Agency Looking to Hire ‘Digital Exploitation Specialist’”


NYT Changes Editorial to Soften Its Own Criticism of Obama

-By Warner Todd Huston

On the afternoon of June 6, Breitbart correspondent Ben Shapiro marveled at how harshly President Obama was treated in an editorial by The New York Times, but as the day wore on, the paper went back and altered its editorial to soften its own criticism of the President.

As Shapiro noted,

“Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it,” writes the Times editorial board. “There is every reason to believe the federal government has been collecting every bit of information about every American’s phone calls except the words actually exchanged in those calls …. Essentially, the administration is saying that without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know who Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where.”

The Times editorial board noted, “The administration has now lost all credibility.”

But later, after publication, the Times quietly changed that criticism.
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NYT Changes Editorial to Soften Its Own Criticism of Obama”


Report: Obama Won’t Fire Holder

-By Warner Todd Huston

Calls have been coming from all across the political spectrum for President Obama to fire U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. But some reports now are presuming that Obama simply won’t do it and that AG Holder will weather yet another firestorm of controversy.

On June 5, The Hill noted that “dark skies” are getting brighter for Holder and that Holder will “survive the latest storm threatening his tenure.”

For evidence, the Washington-based paper pointed out the fact that Eric Holder was right there this week when President Obama put forth three new nominations for federal judgeships, a sort of thumb to the eye of Holders detractors. The White House also reiterated its support of the embattled Holder showing that there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to dump the AG.

The Hill’s analysis seems to echo what Politico wrote some weeks ago when they proclaimed Eric Holder to be untouchable.
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Report: Obama Won’t Fire Holder”


Poll: Americans Upset Over Dept. of Justice Snooping on Reporters

-By Warner Todd Huston

Recent polling of likely voters by the Rasmussen polling firm finds that trust in government is at a low ebb with nearly half of voters feeling that the Justice Department’s seizure of reporters’ phone records and the IRS targeting of conservatives are serious scandals. Yet the media is still not widely trusted.

“The United States was founded on a belief that governments are created to protect certain unalienable rights,” Rasmussen reports. “Today, however, more voters than ever view the federal government as a threat to those rights.”

According to Rasmussen, 42 percent of respondents felt that the DOJ was trying to bully the press with its snooping on personal and business phone calls while only 38 percent felt the DOJ was simply trying to stop security leaks.

Meanwhile, 68 percent still feel that freedom of the press is “very important.”
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Poll: Americans Upset Over Dept. of Justice Snooping on Reporters”


Boy Suspended Just for SAYING the Word Gun

-By Warner Todd Huston

Now we get to the height of idiocy with a school “no tolerance” policy with a boy who was suspended just for saying the word gun.

A 11-year-old boy from Northern Middle School in Owings, Maryland has told his mom and dad that he wants to be a Navy SEAL one day, but getting pout of grade school may be a problem for him if Northern authorities have anything to say about it. You see, the sixth-grader was suspended last December just because he used the word “gun” at school.

Todd Starnes reports that the boy’s father, Bruce Henkelman, found out that his son had been talking with other kids on the school bus when the incident happened.

“He said, ‘I wish I had a gun to protect everyone from the bad guys. He wanted to be the hero,” the father said of his son.

The boy’s father is himself a retired Navy veteran.

It gets worse.
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Boy Suspended Just for SAYING the Word Gun”


TSA Finally Dumps Full-Body Airport Scanners

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) has officially closed the books on the controversial “naked-image” full-body scanners being used at security checkpoints at America’s airports.

The TSA announcement comes after a Congressional mandate to make major changes to the devices and after a multitude of complaints from the privacy advocates and civil rights activists who opposed them.

The TSA rolled the scanners out to great fanfare in 2007 claiming that the intrusive images would prevent any sort of contraband imaginable. Along with the “naked-image” scanners, the TSA also initiated a “pat down” policy for anyone who refused to be scanned, a policy that included touching of genitals, breasts, and buttocks of travelers.
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TSA Finally Dumps Full-Body Airport Scanners”


Obama Solutions: ‘Rogue IRS Agent’ Promoted

-By Warner Todd Huston

Instead of being reprimanded, one of the so-called “rogue” operatives at the Cincinnati IRS office is getting a big promotion.

Expressing his “anger” in May when the IRS targeting scandal broke, President Obama promised to “hold the responsible parties accountable” at the IRS. On the heels of that claim, Obama’s IRS chief called the guilty IRS operatives “rogue” employees.

From such rhetoric one might expect heads to roll at the IRS.

Yet, now, one of those “rogue” IRS officials, Exempt Organization Specialist Stephen Seok , is getting a new job. Instead of a mere department specialist, now Seok is being promoted to “supervisor IRS agent.”
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Obama Solutions: ‘Rogue IRS Agent’ Promoted”


Marshall University Professor Suggests Using Military to Kill NRA Members/Conservatives

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Charlestown Gazette recently published the editorial by a Marshall University professor who advocated using an “M1A Abrams tank, supported by an F22 Raptor squadron with Hellfire missiles” to kill NRA members, Republicans, Conservatives, and those who support the Second Amendment.

In an anti-gun piece that could best be described as a foaming-at-the-mouth tirade, Professor Christopher Swindell employs incredibly overheated rhetoric, punctuated by constant name calling, spiced with grammatical errors and out right lies to expound upon his hate for those with whom he disagrees.

Early in his piece, for instance, Swindell describes the rhetoric of supporters of the Second Amendment as “knuckle-dragging Cretan talk.” Yes, he wrote “Cretan talk.” A twofer that is both misspelled and needlessly capitalized.

Would it surprise you to learn that Christopher Swindell is a professor of journalism in Marshall University’s journalism and mass communications department? (swindell@marshall.edu)
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Marshall University Professor Suggests Using Military to Kill NRA Members/Conservatives”


Congressmen Urge AG Holder to Grant Asylum to Homeschooling German Family

-By Warner Todd Huston

A coalition of 27 Congressmen have joined together to sign a letter urging the Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder to rescind an order to deport a German family whose only crime was to homeschool their children.

In 2008 German citizen Uwe Romeike, his wife, and five young children fled Germany and took up residence in Tennessee because in their homeland, homeschooling children is a crime. The penalties are so stiff that the Romeikes faced having the government take away their children.

So, the Romeikes moved to Tennessee to escape this oppression and in 2010 were awarded political asylum by a federal judge in the Volunteer State.

But this wasn’t good enough for Barack Obama’s Department of Justice. Eric Holder and his DOJ fought the awarding of political asylum for the Romeikes and took the case back to court.
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Congressmen Urge AG Holder to Grant Asylum to Homeschooling German Family”


Dem. Senator Durbin Not Sure if Bloggers Deserve Constitutional Protection

-By Warner Todd Huston

In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, senior Illinois Senator, Democrat Dick Durbin, expressed his doubt as to whether bloggers deserved Constitutional protection for their work online.

On the May 26 broadcast of the Sunday show, Durbin told host Chris Wallace that he wasn’t sure if bloggers or “someone who is Tweeting” should be given protections under a media shield law.

Durbin noted that he was not prepared to ask for a special counsel to investigate Eric Holder and his snooping on the business and personal phone calls of nearly 100 reporters of the Associated Press, but he went further to question just who a media shield law would cover.

But here is the bottom line–the media shield law, which I am prepared to support, and I know Sen. Graham supports, still leaves an unanswered question, which I have raised many times: What is a journalist today in 2013? We know it’s someone that works for Fox or AP, but does it include a blogger? Does it include someone who is tweeting? Are these people journalists and entitled to constitutional protection? We need to ask 21st century questions about a provision in our Constitution that was written over 200 years ago.

Durbin did not go on to attempt to clarify what those limits should be.

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Dem. Senator Durbin Not Sure if Bloggers Deserve Constitutional Protection”


The Declaration of Independence Opposes Obamaism

-By Warner Todd Huston

In the Declaration of Independence our forefathers wrote of King George the III that, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

This was posed as one of the many reasons that we separated ourselves from Great Britain and became the United States of America.

Does this complaint not sound like what King Obama is doing now?

Remember, this sort of government oppression of freemen once sparked a revolution for our founders. What might it do for us?
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.

For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.


THIS Is What American Troops Are Made Of…

-By Warner Todd Huston

To honor our troops for this year, I am going to share this story about their mettle. What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly made to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13, 2010. While leading his platoon on a combat patrol, Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan. Lt. Kelly was only 29-years-old.

Giving Thanks for Our Warriors

“Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths… No, they are not victims but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make… for you….

“Two years ago when I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 ‘The Walking Dead,’ and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi… Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines… Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds… But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.
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THIS Is What American Troops Are Made Of…”


The Birth of Memorial Day

-By Warner Todd Huston

A few years after the Civil War as the nation started upon its long road toward reconciliation, rebuilding, and healing the wife of one of the war’s union generals noticed the touching devotion of Confederate widows, wives and their children as each year they came together to place flowers and little flags at the graves of their fallen. Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan was so moved by the devotion she witnessed that she urged her husband, Illinois General John A. “Blackjack” Logan, to look into creating what was to become Memorial Day.

General Logan was a Senator from Illinois and eventually became a candidate for Vice President on the 1884 Republican ticket, losing to Grover Cleveland and another Illinoisan, Vice President Adlai Stevenson. But before all that Logan was instrumental in creating Decoration Day, the celebration of the nation’s war dead that eventually became Memorial Day.

The following is the general order that Logan issued in 1868.

HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868

The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

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The Birth of Memorial Day”


Mayor Bloomberg’s Anti-Gun Group Launches Ad Campaign Against Senator Mark Pryor

-By Warner Todd Huston

Living up to his promise to attack even Democrats that he deems insufficiently anti-gun, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced an ad buy to criticize Arkansas’ Democrat Senator Mark Pryor.

Pryor, who will be running for a third term in 2014, recently voted against the Toomey-Manchin anti-gun bill drawing the ire of Bloomberg and his Mayors Against Illegal Guns group.

Bloomberg’s group has announced a $350 thousand buy for a two-week campaign.

The video ad features former Democratic staffer Angela Bradford-Barnes mourning the loss of Democrat Party chairman Bill Gwatney who was shot to death in 2008 as he worked at party headquarters in Little Rock.

No motive for the shooting was ever determined by police.

In the anti-Pryor ad, Angela Bradford-Barnes mentions Gwatney’s murder and then says that she was “disappointed when Mark Pryor voted against comprehensive background checks.”
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Mayor Bloomberg’s Anti-Gun Group Launches Ad Campaign Against Senator Mark Pryor”


New York Times: IRS Scandal Ignored Because of Rush Limbaugh

-By Warner Todd Huston

There has been much speculation in the media on why Obama’s current scandal of the IRS targeting conservative groups for attack didn’t come out last year when the initial flurry of reportage on the incident was seen. Well, The New York Times thinks it has the answer: it was Rush Limbaugh’s fault.

When the IRS finally admitted these last few weeks that it had, indeed, unfairly targeted conservative groups–most especially during the 2012 election cycle–many pointed out that this targeting was being complained about for some time. But why did the scandal just break big now, in May of 2013, when stories about it go back several years?

The paper of record pondered this very question in a May 21 piece by Michael D. Shear that places the blame on Limbaugh. It’s all because of “slutgate,” Shear claims.

The Times points out that in March of 2012, Representative Charles Boustany, Jr. (R, LA) held a hearing on the IRS targeting but the story got little traction. Shear quotes several parties to the effect that it was a “dog-bites-man story” in that the media wasn’t interested in talking about Tea Party groups complaining about the IRS.

So, what stories did hold the media’s attention during Boustany’s 2012 hearing? Rush Limbaugh’s media manufactured “slutgate.”

It was during the first week of March that Rush Limbaugh ridiculed abortion mill supporter Sandra Fluke for being a “slut” because she wanted the U.S. government to pay for her contraception.

The media, of course, went into a feeding frenzy on “slutgate” to the point that Rush eventually apologized for his over-the-top characterization of the abortionist. It was all the media could talk about at the time.
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New York Times: IRS Scandal Ignored Because of Rush Limbaugh”


Obama’s Attorney General Hypocrisy: Alberto Gonzalez vs Eric Holder

-By Warner Todd Huston

In 2007 when Barack Obama was running for President the first time there was a controversy raging over whether U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez was right to accede to President Bush’s order to fire a handful of U.S. attorneys. Obama then criticized the AG for politicizing the office. Flash forward to 2013 and he’s now standing up for an AG that is far worse than what he claimed Gonzalez ever was.

The controversy over Gonzalez was a manufactured, fake, left-wing nothing of a controversy, of course, because U.S. attorneys serve at the President’s discretion and many presidents have fired theirs. Clinton fired all of his and even Carter fired one for “political reasons.”

In any case, then Senator Obama went on CNN’s Larry King Live to rip Bush and to say that his AG was acting too politically.

Obama criticized AG Gonzalez for seeming to think his role is “being the president’s attorney instead of being the people’s attorney.” Obama also claimed that Gonzales should be fired because he wasn’t “somebody who was actually trying to look out for the American people’s interests.”
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Obama’s Attorney General Hypocrisy: Alberto Gonzalez vs Eric Holder”


CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Reports She’s Been Shut Out By White House

-By Warner Todd Huston

The intrepid Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News has been one of the few reporters attempting to dig deep into controversial stories–and by controversial we mean stories that Obama would rather see go away. But after her work on Fast & Furious and Benghazi, she is now reporting that she’s been shut out of the information loop by the White House.

Attkisson was one of the few members of the progressive media establishment interested in covering the Fast & Furious scandal and has lately also been a bulldog looking into the Benghazi cover-up. She has been so far reaching in her work that she was dubbed a “persistent voice of media skepticism” by The Washington Post.

Her work got her praise and rumors that her boss, David Rhodes, may fire her for being too effective. Naturally, CBS boss Rhodes has a brother that is a close Obama adviser. Ben Rhodes, the CBS executive’s brother, also happens to be one of the operatives in the Obama administration directly involved in the Benghazi cover-up.
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CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Reports She’s Been Shut Out By White House”