(Via Slate)  If you are a customer of Verizon Wireless, you might want to consider switching carriers in light of the Associated Press phone snooping scandal.

When the feds came knocking for AP journalists’ call records last year, Verizon apparently turned the data over with no questions asked. The New York Times, citing an AP employee, reported Tuesday that at least two of the reporters’ personal cellphone records “were provided to the government by Verizon Wireless without any attempt to obtain permission to tell them so the reporters could ask a court to quash the subpoena.” (more…)

Large numbers of people have formulated numerous hypothesis about the various “W8 factors”. The entire construct of the Benjamin Crump deposition is structurally framed around the Crump presentation of the W8 narrative.

That’s why the 5th DCA decision to allow deposition (override trial judge Nelson), or support the judge Nelson ruling (barring deposition), carries so much weight. The 5th DCA delivers rulings on Fridays.

This is more than just a bit of a big deal. It’s a Joe Biden moment.

Simultaneously, we have independently been on the Keyser Soze trail for quite a long time. A very LONG TIME. (more…)

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POTUS deploys Marines for rain in Rose Garden with Turkish PM Erdogan. twitter.com/MajorCBS/statu…

— Major Garrett(@MajorCBS) May 16, 2013

Many people have been wondering exactly what was the reason the Eric Holder DOJ used their power to peer into the Associated Press.    Some water-carrying progressives have been claiming the “danger” to national security was so great, the overreaching self-approved subpoena to track 20 phone lines of 100+ reporters was excusable.

Not.Even.Close.  As it turns out, the issue was one of the DOJ retaliating against the AP over the AP decision to ignore a White House request to withhold information for 24 hours just to benefit their ongoing narrative.

AP’s story about the foiled plot was at odds with the calming message the White House had been conveying on the eve of the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.  (link)

As the Washington Post outlines;  The DOJ tracking was retaliation for the AP not holding their story for an additional DAY: (more…)

“As if” there was any doubt the liberal media consider themselves fully ideologically aligned with President Obama, and insufferably reflects a favorable bias in all things Obama, just watch what Lisa Myers says:

Then comes the IRS which offended the right, the middle, and even some Democrats and members of the press. But when they did this [the AP spying], they turned one of the President’s most important constituencies, the press and the left against him. So politically, it’s hard to imagine –and this is a very calculating White House– it’s hard to imagine that they would have green-lighted this kind of thing. I think it’s more likely that this was something that was handled within the Justice Department and that if the White House was notified, it was after the fact and not before the action was taken. (more…)

This has all the indicators of reaching the West Wing. Prior Democrats in Congress had espoused the IRS *should* take this approach. With such blatant admissions in 2010, and even 2011 after they lost the House they continued the approach, this is going to be VERY difficult for the administration to firewall.

GOOD GRIEF – Unbelievable stuff from that questioning session today in congress.

Attorney General, Eric Holder, claims he recused himself from the decision making surrounding the wiretapping of more than 100 Associated Press reporters and 20+ phone lines.   However, he states we need to take his word for it because there is nothing documented which provides support for his self-recusal claim.

Not only that, he claims he doesn’t even know “WHEN” he recused himself, and further states he never notified anyone of the recusal itself – nor did he notify the White House. (more…)

UPDATE: No Questions, will hold press conference tomorrow (with Turkish delegation) and take questions then.   IRS Commissioner Steven Steven Miller (pictured below) resigned effective TODAY.   Three main points emphasized:

“the IRS has to operate with absolute integrity” – Barack Obama

1.  We are going to hold the responsible parties accountable.  –  The acting commissioner of the IRS, Steven Miller, has resigned effective today.

2.  We will put in place new safeguards to insure it doesn’t happen again.  – I told Jack Lew to make that happen and implement the IG recommendations.  Also, Lew will work with Holder who will launch an internal DOJ investigation.

3.  We will work with congress as it performs its oversight control.   I’ll do all I can to insure this does not happen again.   We need to look at the laws to insure that no ambiguity exists.

“That’s what we’ll do, that’s what I’ll do, and that’s what the American people can expect”. (more…)

House Speaker John A. Boehner said Wednesday that it’ll take more than firings to clear up the IRS scandal — it’ll take someone ending up serving jail time.

“My question is, who’s going to jail over this scandal?”  the Ohio Republican said at a press conference with Republicans Wednesday morning. (link)

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