On Monday, MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton appeared on his network to discuss the weekend’s 100 city rally against the verdict which found George Zimmerman not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin. Asked to comment on President Barack Obama’s speech on race relations on Friday, Sharpton took a measure of credit for that as well noting that it was he who “helped organize a lot of the outrage around” the Zimmerman trail in the first place.
MSNBC anchor Craig Melvin asked Sharpton to respond to radio host Tavis Smiley who, on NBC’s Meet The Press, said that he was frustrated by the fact that the president had to be “pushed” to make it in the first place.
What was the IRS chief counsel doing in a meeting with the President of the United States? According to the Daily Caller and Dick Morris and verified by downloadable visitor logs, William Wilkins came to the White House on April 23, 2012 at 3:54 in the afternoon and departed shortly after 11 pm that evening. Assuming that Jay Carney doesn’t personally know three William Wilkins who would get seven hours of face time with Barack Obama, it appears that the man who at least knew of the targeting of Tea Party and other groups had an opportunity to brief the President — and take action afterward:
The Obama appointee implicated in congressional testimony in the IRS targeting scandal met with President Obama in the White House two days before offering his colleagues a new set of advice on how to scrutinize tea party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
IRS chief counsel William Wilkins, who was named in House Oversight testimony by retiring IRS agent Carter Hull as one of his supervisors in the improper targeting of conservative groups, met with Obama in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on April 23, 2012. Wilkins’ boss, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, met with Obama on April 24, 2012, according to White House visitor logs.
On April 25, 2012, Wilkins sent Hull and fellow Washington-based IRS official Lois Lerner “additional comments on the draft guidance” for approving or denying tea party tax-exempt applications, according to the IRS’ inspector general’s report.
Obama had quite a full schedule on that afternoon and evening. Several names, including that of Wilkins, appear on the visitor log at roughly the same time with “POTUS” as the visitee. They include officials in HUD, a financial officer from the Air Force, the VA, and the USDA. Most of those left earlier than Wilkins did, according to their exit info (some of which is missing), suggesting a series of meetings rather than one single conference.
First Lady Michelle Obama lightheartedly noted Tuesday that the White House is like a prison, but this prison has one significant difference with most others: No visitors are allowed.
As tourists flood into Washington for the July 4th holiday, they still won’t have access to “The People’s House” to get a view of how the president lives. After spending nearly $100 million on a trip to Africa – much of cost, by the administration’s own admission, allotted for security – the White House has still not found a way to provide funding for a few Secret Service agents to staff the White House tours.
Mrs. Obama made the “prison” comment during an appearance with former First Lady Laura Bush in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
“There are prison elements to it,” Michelle said of the White House. “But it’s a really nice prison.”
Mrs. Bush wryly noted that the prison has a chef.
Indeed, the Obamas continue to have their meals cooked for them. But four months after the mansion was closed to visitors, you still can’t see where they eat.
The Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates that accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has now been paid more than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead 32 injured. The Army said under the Military Code of Justice, Hasan’s salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty.
If Hasan had been a civilian defense department employee, NBC 5 Investigates has learned, the Army could have suspended his pay after just seven days.
Personnel rules for most civilian government workers allow for "indefinite suspensions" in cases "when the agency has reasonable cause to believe that the employee has committed a crime for which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed."
Meanwhile, more than three years later soldiers wounded in the mass shooting are fighting to receive the same pay and medical benefits given to those wounded in combat.
Retired Army Spc. Logan Burnett, a reservist who, in 2009, was soon to be deployed to Iraq, was shot three times when a gunman opened fire inside the Army Deployment Center.
“I honestly thought I was going to die in that building,” said Burnett. “Just blood everywhere and then the thought of -- that's my blood everywhere.”
Burnett nearly died. He's had more than a dozen surgeries since the shooting, and says post-traumatic stress still keeps him up at night.
Burnett is now fighting a new battle; only this one is against the U.S. Army.
The Army has not classified the wounds of the Ft. Hood victims as “combat related” and declines to label the shooting a “terrorist attack”,
The “combat related” designation is an important one, for without it Burnett and other shooting victims are not given combat-related pay, they are not eligible for Purple Heart retirement or medical benefits given to other soldiers wounded either at war or during the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon.
As a result, Burnett, his wife Torey, and the families of other Fort Hood victims miss out on thousands of dollars of potential benefits and pay every year.
Via Gateway PunditRep. Dave Reichert: Who was responsible?
Steven Miller: I don’t have that name sir.
Rep. Dave Reichert: Why don’t you have that name? Did you ask anybody.
Steven Miller: Yes.
Rep. Dave Reichert: Who did you ask?
Steven Miller: I asked the senior technical adviser.
Rep. Dave Reichert: What’s the senior technical adviser’s name?
Steven Miller: Nancy Marks.
Rep. Dave Reichert: And what did Nancy tell you? Who’s responsible?
Steven Miller: By that I don’t remember to be honest with you.
Fox News liberal Bob Beckel had some policy ideas about Muslims on Tuesday's edition of "The Five."
Beckel and his co-hosts were talking about the Boston bombing suspects, who are Muslim. The general consensus seemed to be that, by probing into their lives and their possible motives for the attacks, members of the media were avoiding the main issue.
"You find the big argument, which is Muslim supremacy, isn't that all you need?" Greg Gutfeld asked. "Why do you have to delve into their psychosis?"
"We know that In the Muslim communities around the world, they do not like us," Beckel replied. "They recruit people from poor areas and turn them into terrorists." He didn't say how this thesis was connected to the Tsarnaev brothers, who came legally with their family when they were 9 and 16.
"I think we really have to consider...that we're going to have to cut off Muslim students from coming to this country for some period of time so that we can at least absorb what we've got, look at what we've got and decide whether some of the people here should be sent back home or sent to prison," he continued.
At the end of the show, Beckel issued a clarification of sorts, explaining that, perhaps, young Muslims currently in the US could stay, but that new restrictions should definitely be considered, along with restrictions on Chinese students--who, he said, are sent to America only so that they can learn computers, go back home and "hack us."
Bill Maher on HBO's Real Time Friday made a statement that will make the Right cheer as the left predictably cringes. After his guest Brian Levin - the director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino - said of the Boston bombings and how it relates to radical Islam, "We have hypocrites across faiths, Jewish, Christian who say they're out for God and end up doing not so nice things," Maher marvelously responded, "That’s liberal bulls--t right there" (video follows with transcript and commentary): Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/04/20/maher-guest-defending-islam-wake-boston-bombing-thats-lberal-bulls-t#ixzz2RJr2BeHN
A news agency tweet, that turned out to be fake about explosions at the White House injuring President Obama, sent markets on a round trip roller coaster road.
@AP, the official twitter handle of the respected Associated Press news agency, sent out a message at about 1:07 p.m. ET, saying "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is Injured." The AP quickly said it was hacked.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, "the President is fine" despite what the hacked Twitter feed said.
However, the market impact was already intense. On the floor at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, traders quickly traded on the tweet, selling S&P futures and buying Treasury 10-year futures. For several minutes, the floor was a flurry of activity, as it was in trading rooms across Wall Street, until the Associated Press tweeted that its account had been hacked.
The Dow plunged more than 140 points and bond yields fell. Within six minutes, the Dow recovered its losses and was trading with triple-digit gains.
Stocks shot higher Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average topping its all-time high, propelled by a better-than-expected ISM non-manufacturing index, upbeat economic data from Europe and as China pledged to meet its growth targets.Meanwhile, in realville:
1rdd: What am I missing here, I've read that Swartz copied copyrighted material and put it on the internet. Isn't that stealing? Then he was arrested and put in jail where he sadly killed himself. Not a hater but he broke the law and was arrested so why are people mad?That's right, we didn't know. Time to raise your voice:
Barry Kort:
It's unlikely you read that in the mainstream media.
He downloaded scholarly journal articles onto his laptop (which he was legally entitled to do) but he downloaded them in bulk (which was a violation of the Terms of Service). He did not put them on the Internet. He returned the hard drive with the downloaded articles and settled amicably with JSTOR.
The CFAA, which he allegedly violated, makes it a felony to violate the Terms of Service of any web site you visit. That means that almost everyone who uses the Web is technically a felon under the CFAA.
1rdd : Ok. Thanks for the info Barry.
