WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says corporations can hold religious objections that allow them to opt out of the new health law requirement that they cover contraceptives for women.
The justices’ 5-4 decision Monday is the first time that the high court has ruled that profit-seeking businesses can hold religious views under federal law. And it means the Obama administration must search for a different way of providing free contraception to women who are covered under objecting companies’ health insurance plans. (more…)

Yesterday we shared a potentially explosive new aspect to the IRS targeting of groups antithetical to the White House.   In essence Lerner’s attorney, William Taylor III, told a politico reporter that his client was responding to the DOJ’s request for information, not soliciting them.
Yes, there is good reason for people who have followed this story to feel as if it really wouldn’t, or couldn’t, or won’t make a difference.   Given the current state of political affairs a great deal of righteous frustration that nothing shall be done regardless of who initiated the illegal machination is not misplaced…..
Also, Yes, against the recent Cochran V McDaniel outcome in Mississippi this frustrated sentiment is justified, very justified.    And yes, the establishment GOP is just as opposed to the Tea Party as the establishment Democrats in this regard.   Yes to all of this…
However, it really does make a difference.

If the DOJ initiated the inquiry to the IRS under the auspices of FBI investigation of 501(c)(4) group investigation -as the claim by attorney Taylor apparently makes clear- many of the outcomes toward the groups in question reconcile.
Take the example of “True The Vote”, and “Gibson Guitar”.  When both groups were under scrutiny they were visited by various federal agencies like:  the EPA, ATF, OSHA as well as IRS.
However, if the Department of Justice is the internal hub for all the various agencies to assemble their marching orders, then a very specific trail of known evidence is also possible based on outcomes.
(more…)

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A U.N. expert panel has concluded that a shipment of rockets and other weapons that was seized by Israel came from Iran and represents a violation of the U.N. arms embargo on Tehran, according to a confidential report obtained by Reuters on Friday.
The finding comes just days ahead of the next round of negotiations in Vienna between Iran and six world powers aimed at securing a deal that would gradually lift international sanctions on Tehran — including the arms embargo — in exchange for curbs on the controversial Iranian nuclear program.
Despite Israel’s public statements that the seized arms were destined for Gaza — an allegation that Gaza’s governing Islamist militant group Hamas dismissed as a fabrication — the experts said the weapons were being sent to Sudan.
The experts do not speculate in the report about why the arms were being sent to Sudan, a country which Western diplomatic and intelligence sources have told Reuters has in the past been a conduit for Iranian arms shipments to other locations in Africa, as well as the Gaza Strip. (more…)

Thirty-five of us, give or take a few. Standing in front of the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco, on an overcast evening in June. Holding signs, protesting the woman who was scheduled to speak inside the theater that night: Hillary Clinton.

Not a large crowd of protesters, but it didn’t matter. The area in front of the Orpheum is not spacious, and we had a perfect position: every single person waiting in line had to pass by within ten feet of every one of us. They couldn’t help but see that we were there.
The ticket holders made a long line, a large group. Most of them looked like progressives. If that’s a “classist” statement, so be it. Not many under the age of twenty. Gays, “intellectuals”, people dressed casual-chic for a night with their current political lodestar. “I’m Ready for Hillary”signs, stickers, and buttons. Stray comments of “Grow up!”, “Where did you go to school?”, etc., but on the whole they were quiet. Likely they didn’t expect us to be there, so they didn’t come prepared with snippy remarks.
This one was different than most of the protests I’d attended in the past; different largely because of the intimacy of confrontation. Other times we’d been on roadsides waiting for Obama’s motorcade, or counter-protesting with Obama supporters, facing-off across Market Street as he fundraised with the Bay Area elite. This was like gathering around a crowd waiting in line to see a movie. (more…)

Several articles all outlining the same tactics and strategy of the professional political class in Washington DC to save Thad Cochran in Mississippi from a conservative challenger.

At the center of the manipulations is this man, Haley Barbour and his nephew Henry.  Along with Political Action Committees used by both, and partially funded by a collusion of New York Dem Mayor Bloomberg, and professional politico Senator Mitch McConnell.

STORY HERE  (<— read first)

Another good outline HERE   <—- read second

Consequences discussed HERE  <— read third

Essentially this encapsulates what we have discussed, amid considerable controversy, for the past three years.  We identified several GOP political people as “Decepticons” that must be removed.
(more…)

After two weeks they’ve sold far less than 150,00 copies of Hard Choices (Possibly as low as 120,000 and that’s counting ebooks).  Numerous earlier reports reflected that Simon & Schuster printed a million advance copies, and paid Clinton a $14 million advance.
This is a MAJOR failure….  In the publishing world “A Historic failure”.
WASHINGTON – Sales of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s new memoir, “Hard Choices,” declined 43.5 percent to 48,000 copies in its second week on the shelves, according to Nielsen BookScan.
The sales figures put pressure on the publisher, Simon & Schuster, which paid Mrs. Clinton a multimillion-dollar advance to write about her time at the State Department and has invested heavily in the book’s rollout, one of the biggest of the year.
About 85,000 copies were sold in the week after the book’s June 10 release, according to BookScan, a subscription service that tracks sales at over 80 percent of book vendors in the United States. Those figures do not include e-books, which increased sales by about 15 percent, to roughly 100,000 electronic and hardcover copies. (more…)

Now the question becomes… if the board appointments were illegal, then what happens to all those NLRB rules -2 years worth- that have been instituted since the Labor Board Members were unconstitutionally appointed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has limited a president’s power to make temporary appointments to fill high-level government jobs.
The court said Thursday that President Barack Obama exceeded his authority when he invoked the Constitution’s provision on recess appointments to fill slots on the National Labor Relations Board in 2012.
The justices said in their first-ever consideration of the Constitution’s recess appointments clause that Congress gets to decide when it is in recess and that there was no recess when Obama acted. The president said he made the appointments in the face of Republican refusal to allow the NLRB to function.  (read more)

Full Opinion HERE

Washington, DC – Today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) announced the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) targeting of conservative individuals includes a sitting United States Senator.
According to emails reviewed by the Committee under its Section 6103 authority, which allows the Committee to review confidential taxpayer information, Lois Lerner sought to have Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) referred for IRS examination.
“We have seen a lot of unbelievable things in this investigation, but the fact that Lois Lerner attempted to initiate an apparently baseless IRS examination against a sitting Republican United States Senator is shocking,” said Camp. “At every turn, Lerner was using the IRS as a tool for political purposes in defiance of taxpayer rights. We may never know the full extent of the abuse since the IRS conveniently lost two years of Lerner emails, not to mention those of other key figures in this scandal. The fact that DOJ refuses to investigate the IRS’s abuses or appoint a special counsel demonstrates, yet again, this Administration’s unwillingness to uphold the rule of law.”  (read more)

How magnanimous of them both…..

….”why just the other day while shopping for arugula in the Chapaqua Whole Foods, I told my driver to let me lift a case of Evian water all by myself”.

“Yeah, I know, he looked kinda like you’re doing right now”….  “But I told him what I’m going to say to you.  I said ‘she’s gonna be the one using it to wash her hair not you, so why shouldn’t we help'”…..  See? 

(((audience applause)))

Before the Lois Lerner issues hit the news, the IRS was sending the identity of conservative Traditional Marriage Defenders to liberal/gay opposition groups so the Rainbow Mafia could target them.   The IRS has admitted doing this.

Yet, with Lois Lerner, and essentially the same claims, the institutional Democrat Party within the IRS claim there is no “there” there.

WASHINGTON – The IRS has agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) for unlawfully releasing its private information to a gay rights group that is a political rival, the Daily Signal has learned.
NOM expressed relief at the settlement agreement.

“Congress made the disclosure of confidential tax return information a serious matter for a reason,” NOM chairman John D. Eastman told The Daily Signal. “We’re delighted that the IRS has now been held accountable for the illegal disclosure of our list of major donors from our tax return.”

(more…)