President Obama Tuesday said he’s “not going to be waiting for legislation” from Congress to move forward on his agenda in 2014, further stoking a clash between both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue over the reach of executive power.

“I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” Obama said before a Cabinet meeting at the White House Tuesday, issuing a challenge to GOP lawmakers who have blocked most of his second-term agenda. (more…)

(Via Washington Free Bacon) Jewish community leaders in South Florida say they are growing frustrated with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) over her conflicting statements regarding a bipartisan Iran sanctions measure in the House.

Following a Washington Free Beacon report detailing her efforts to block a House resolution backing new sanctions on Iran, Wasserman Schultz has told her hometown press that she is open to new sanctions, while telling D.C. reporters that she opposes them.

The conflicting statements are a sign that Wasserman Schultz is torn between her support for the White House, which opposes the sanctions, and her constituents, who are less convinced of Iran’s good intentions and more supportive of tough congressional action. (more…)

Iran and the White House are aligned in their demand the U.S. congress must not issue any further sanctions against the Iranian nuclear ambitions.   However, the more alarming aspect is that the White House is refusing to let congress review the exact terminology of the previously announced arrangement.

Not passing proverbial sniff test….

WASHINGTON DC –  Iran vowed to maintain its nuclear infrastructure and threatened to boost its uranium enrichment capabilities just hours after announcing that it had agreed to a deal to halt some aspects of its contested nuclear program.

Iran and Western nations announced on Sunday that they had agreed to an interim deal to halt portions of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for some $7 billion in sanctions relief.

Secretary of State John Kerry celebrated the interim agreement, which will officially begin on Jan. 20.

However, Iranian officials threatened to ramp up nuclear activities should they feel the West is violating the accord.

“We will in no way, never, dismantle our [nuclear] centrifuges,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told the country’s state-run television station on Sunday, according to New York Times reporter Thomas Erdbrink. (more…)

Last week House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan said they’ve discovered the assigned head of the IRS probe was Barbara Kay Bosserman. Bosserman is a DOJ trial lawyer in the Justice Department who donated more than $6,000 to Mr. Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, as well as several hundred dollars to the national Democratic Party.

Now this week: WASHINGTON DC – The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t plan to file criminal charges over the Internal Revenue Service’s heightened scrutiny of conservative groups, according to law-enforcement officials, a move that likely will only intensify debate over the politically charged scandal.

The officials said investigators didn’t find the kind of political bias or “enemy hunting” that would amount to a violation of criminal law. Instead, what emerged during the probe was evidence of a mismanaged bureaucracy enforcing rules about tax-exemption applications it didn’t understand, according to the law-enforcement officials. (more…)

Armed Services Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon, (R-CA) has downloaded pdf’s of testimony from last June. They are available HERE and we are in the process of going through line by-painstaking line. Why? Because since late September 2012 we have found a litany of dots which add up to a very specific pattern – and tell a very specific story. We feel, and this current new release confirms, the thread to pull this cover shroud apart is tied to AFRICOM – General Carter Ham.

Here is James Rosen’s initial take on his review, and at the bottom we’ll expand on what we feel is going to come to light.

WASHINGTON DC (VIA JAMES ROSEN) Minutes after the American consulate in Benghazi came under assault on Sept. 11, 2012, the nation’s top civilian and uniformed defense officials — headed for a previously scheduled Oval Office session with President Obama — were informed that the event was a “terrorist attack,” declassified documents show. The new evidence raises the question of why the top military men, one of whom was a member of the president’s Cabinet, allowed him and other senior Obama administration officials to press a false narrative of the Benghazi attacks for two weeks afterward.

Gen. Carter Ham, who at the time was head of AFRICOM, the Defense Department combatant command with jurisdiction over Libya, told the House in classified testimony last year that it was him who broke the news about the unfolding situation in Benghazi to then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The tense briefing — in which it was already known that U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens had been targeted and had gone missing — occurred just before the two senior officials departed the Pentagon for their session with the commander in chief.

(more…)

SUPREME COURT – Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday tore into President Barack Obama’s use of recess appointments to staff government agencies when the Senate is unofficially on recess.

During oral arguments, Scalia shot back at an argument by U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli that the Constitution’s recess appointments clause is ambiguous enough to validate Obama’s temporary appointments.

“It’s been assumed to be ambiguous by self-interested presidents,” Scalia said, to “oohs” and laughs in the court room.

Scalia argued emphatically that the text of the Constitution does not permit presidents to appoint individuals to government agencies during pro forma sessions — when the Senate technically gavels in and out to fulfill a constitutional requirement, but does not conduct any business. He suggested the power ought to be restricted to official recesses. (more…)

Bill Clinton desperately pleaded with Sen. Kennedy over the phone in 2008 to not endorse Obama, even reminding the senior senator that Clinton as president in  1999 kept the Coast Guard looking for John F. Kennedy Jr.’s missing plane days longer than usual, according to the 2008 campaign tell-all book “Game Change.” (LINK)

Congressman Chris Van Hollen just can’t belive the report (link)

WASHINGTON DC – Those Democrats who crossed Bill and Hillary Clinton in 2008 must answer for their sins. And the Clinton camp has been keeping a tally.

That’s at least according to a new book by The Hill’s Amie Parnes and Politico’s Jonathan Martin. They’ve co-authored a book together on Hillary Clinton called “HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton.” And a story cross-published on the websites of both The Hill and Politico has an interesting angle and title: “Hillary’s Hit List.”

After Hillary had officially dropped out of the race in 2008, her campaign still had some work to do — work that involved keeping a detailed record of who had supported, and turned on, the Clintons. (more…)

We received this account via email – from a reliable source.  However, we have no way to actually authenticate the first hand account and out of an abundance of caution we will not publish the author.   Presented as received:

My wife and I are on Oahu for our annual Hawaii trip with good friends and two granddaughters enjoying the hospitality of the Hawaiian people on this lovely Island. Being retired military allows us the privilege of using the military facilities and especially the highly desirable golf  courses.

Yesterday , Jan 4, we had a tee time of 12:04 to play golf at Kaneohe Marine Corps on Oahu. We arrived early because we were advised the President was possibly going to play but also that he was leaving to fly back to D.C. that same day.

We checked in and were second off and waiting for carts when we were advised that he really may be coming but there was no count of when or how many in the party. We then got body scanned, our golf bags searched and briefed on the proper behavior expected. He and his party finally arrived at 1:00 and he then hit balls on the range and then drove right in front of us on his way to the first tee hollering Happy New Year to the small group( 50 or so) golfers waiting to play. (more…)

Wait, huh… wha…?   Just a few days ago liberals were outraged that former Defense Sec Robert Gates published a book about his tenure while a POTUS was still in office.   Now former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a book coming out next Sunday.

Besides, this lame overused “war on women” shtick is going to run smack into the reality that ObamaCare has done more to attack women (and men) than any previous legislative construct.

(Via Politico)  Hillary Clinton warns in a new book that the “clock is turning back” on women across America and offers a passionate argument for prioritizing the advancement of women and girls.

Clinton, the former secretary of state and possible presidential contender, is one of a slew of high-profile contributors to a new report set to be released Sunday compiled by author and activist Maria Shriver and the liberal Center for American Progress.

Hillary Clinton warns in a new book that the “clock is turning back” on women across America and offers a passionate argument for prioritizing the advancement of women and girls. (more…)