WASHINGTON — A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the 5th Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups.

Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, won’t answer questions about what she knew about the improper screening — or why she didn’t disclose it to Congress, according to a letter from her defense lawyer, William W. Taylor III. Lerner was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

PHOTOS: President Obama’s past

“She has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course,” said a letter by Taylor to committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Vista). The letter, sent Monday, was obtained Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times.

Taylor, a criminal defense attorney from the Washington firm Zuckerman Spaeder, said that the Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation, and that the House committee has asked Lerner to explain why she provided “false or misleading information” to the committee four times last year.

Since Lerner won’t answer questions, Taylor asked that she be excused from appearing, saying that would “have no purpose other than to embarrass or burden her.” There was no immediate word whether the committee will grant her request.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-top-irs-official-fifth-amendment-20130521,0,6645565.story

By now, unless you’re a know-nothing LIV (Low Information Voter), you’ve heard and seen plenty about the IRS singling out conservatives and Christians for special scrutiny. (See “Groups & individuals targeted by Obama’s IRS witchhunt,” May 15, 2013.)

Less known is another travesty in resident Lucifer’s IRS-gate: The IRS had fast-tracked a charity run by Obama’s half-brother, Abon’go “Roy” Malik Obama, for tax-exempt approval.

The charity is called the Barack H. Obama Foundation, named after the Obama brothers’ Kenyan dad, Barack H. Obama, Sr. Its mission statement is “to provide people everywhere with resources to uplift their welfare and living standards in memory of Barack H. Obama: in the region of his birth, Kenya, and beyond.”

First reported by The Daily Caller, the Barack H. Obama Foundation was speedily approved for IRS exemption by Lois Lerner, the IRS senior official at the center of the targeting of conservative organizations that have waited over two years to receive tax exempt status. More astonishing still is the fact that the BHO Foundation was given retroactive tax-exempt status despite never having bothered to apply for it. The IRS also overlooked the foundation’s history of soliciting donations before receiving tax-exempt status.

http://dcclothesline.com/2013/05/21/tax-exempt-charity-of-obamas-half-brother-is-a-complete-fraud/

Reblogged from Real Science:

Reblogged from Real Science:

Sharyl Attkisson, the Emmy-award winning CBS News investigative reporter, says that her personal and work computers have been compromised and are under investigation.

“I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months but I’m not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today as I’ve been patient and methodical about this matter,” Attkisson told POLITICO on Tuesday. “I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public.”

In an earlier interview with WPHT Philadelphia, Attkisson said that though she did not know the full details of the intrustion, “there could be some relationship between these things and what’s happened to James [Rosen],” the Fox News reporter who became the subject of a Justice Dept. investigation after reporting on CIA intelligence about North Korea in 2009.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/05/sharyl-attkissons-computers-compromised-164456.html

WTF?

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.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/Accused-Fort-Hood-Shooter-Paid-278000-While-Awaiting-Trial-208230691.html

The Bystander-In-Chief

No, this is not Watergate or Iran-Contra. Nor is it like the sex scandal that got Bill Clinton impeached.

The AP, IRS and Benghazi matters represent a scandal not of presidential wrongdoing, but of presidential indolence, indifference and incompetence in discharging the duties of chief executive.

The Barack Obama revealed to us in recent days is something rare in our history: a spectator president, clueless about what is going on in his own household, who reacts to revelations like some stunned bystander.

Consider. Because of a grave national security leak, President Obama’s Department of Justice seized two months of records from 20 telephones used by The Associated Press. An unprecedented seizure.

Yet the president was left completely in the dark. And though he rushed to defend the seizure, he claims he was uninvolved.

While the AP issue does not appear to have legs—we know what was done and why—it has badly damaged this president. For his own Justice Department treated the press, which has an exalted opinion of itself and its role, with the same contempt as the IRS treated the Tea Party.

The episode has damaged a crucial presidential asset. For this Washington press corps had provided this president with a protective coverage of his follies and failings unseen since the White House press of half a century ago covered up the prowlings of JFK.

The Benghazi issue is of far greater gravity. Still, Obama’s sins here as well seem to be those of omission, not commission.

The president was apparently completely in the dark about the urgent requests from Benghazi for more security. Obama was also apparently completely out of the loop during the seven-hour crisis of Sept. 11-12, when Ambassador Stevens was assassinated, calls for help from Benghazi were denied and two heroic ex-Navy SEALs died fighting to defend U.S. personnel from the roof of that CIA installation.

No one seems to know where Obama was that night.

MORE . . . .

Related articles

• White House Troubles (lewrockwell.com)
• The Bystander President (theamericanconservative.com)
• The Spectator President (takimag.com)
• The Spectator President (buchanan.org)
• Half of America wants Obama impeached (wnd.com)
• It’s Bigger Than Obama — We’re Witnessing What Happens When Liberalism Rules (rushlimbaugh.com)

Reblogged from Stacy on the Right:

Reblogged from Stacy on the Right: