Free gun initiative starts in Houston

It would be nice to get this data to look at.  To see what happens to the crime rate in these neighborhoods that are getting the guns.  It is interesting to me to see how Democrats say they support people being able to own guns and yet how they come out strongly against this program.  From Fox News:

. . . Strain's northwest Houston community of Oak Forest is the first neighborhood in the country being trained and equipped by the Armed Citizen Project, a Houston nonprofit that is giving away free shotguns to single women and residents of neighborhoods with high crime rates.
While many cities have tried gun buy-backs and other tactics in the ongoing national debate on gun control, the nonprofit and its supporters say gun giveaways to responsible owners are actually a better way to deter crime. The organization, which plans to offer training classes in Dallas, San Antonio, and Tucson, Ariz., in the next few weeks, is working to expand its giveaways to 15 cities by the end of the year, including Chicago and New York.
But others in Houston, while expressing support for Second Amendment rights, question whether more guns will result in more gun-related deaths rather than less crime. . . .

Another gun free zone, another shooting: Santa Monica College

Why won't these news stories mention that another attack has occurred where guns are banned?  I would be happy if even a 10th of the news stories mentioned this simple fact.  From Fox News:

Authorities say a man with a semi-automatic rifle who killed at least four people and wounded several others Friday as he carried out a deadly rampage in Santa Monica before police shot him dead had planned the attack.
Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said Saturday afternoon the gunman had 1,300 rounds of ammunition along with a duffel bag full of ammunition magazines and extra weaponry. . . .

At some point everyone has to understand the pattern here (see also here and of course more detail here and here).

Shannon Richardson, who wrote the Ricin letters that threatened Bloomberg and another gun control advocate over gun control, is a big Obama supporter

What are the odds that an actress who is a strong Obama supporter would say: “anyone who comes for my guns will be shot in the face”?  I would think that the odds of that would be close to zero.  Given how much media coverage was given to Bloomberg over this threatening letter, where is the media coverage pointing out that the person who made this threat was an Obama supporter and unlikely to be pro-gun?  Note that this nutty Obama supporter also sent a letter to Obama.  From the New York Post on June 1st:

Guess, caring for her kids as authorities combed through her house, ripped her husband yesterday.

“He’s racist and hates Obama. Everyone knows that,” she said. . . .

Obama's monitoring of reporters has chilled news sources, it has become much more difficult to monitor government abuses

Obama keeps saying that he doesn't want to chill the media, but he is responsible for the chill that has already produced.  From Politico:

. . . In conversations with POLITICO, national security reporters and watchdogs said they already have seen increased caution from government sources following revelations that the DOJ had subpoenaed Associated Press reporters’ phone records and tracked the comings and goings of Fox News reporter James Rosen at the State Department. . . . 

“I had one former intel officer say, ‘I hope you’re buying ‘burner’ phones for your sources,’ but I think he may have been pulling my leg,” said David Ignatius, the Washington Post’s national security columnist. 

Reporters on the national security beat say it’s not the fear of being prosecuted by the DOJ that worries them - it’s the frightened silence of past trusted sources that could undermine the kind of investigative journalism that Obama was talking about. 

Some formerly forthcoming sources have grown reluctant to return phone calls, even on unclassified matters, and, when they do talk, prefer in-person conversations that leave no phone logs, no emails, and no records of entering and leaving buildings, reporters and watchdogs said. . . .

IRS leaks names of conservative donors to liberal groups so that they can be harassed

From Peggy Noonan at the WSJ:

. . . The most compelling evidence of that is what happened to the National Organization for Marriage. Its chairman, John Eastman, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, and the tale he told was different from the now-familiar stories of harassment and abuse. 

In March 2012, the organization, which argues the case for traditional marriage, found out its confidential tax information had been obtained by the Human Rights Campaign, one of its primary opponents in the marriage debate. The HRC put the leaked information on its website—including the names of NOM donors. NOM not only has the legal right to keep its donors' names private, it has to, because when contributors' names have been revealed in the past they have been harassed, boycotted and threatened. This is a free speech right, one the Supreme Court upheld in 1958 after the state of Alabama tried to compel the NAACP to surrender its membership list. 

The NOM did a computer forensic investigation and determined that its leaked IRS information had come from within the IRS itself. . . . 

In April 2012, the NOM asked the IRS for an investigation. The inspector general's office gave them a complaint number. Soon they were in touch. Even though the leaked document bore internal IRS markings, the inspector general decided that maybe the document came from within the NOM. The NOM demonstrated that was not true. 

For the next 14 months they heard nothing about an investigation. By August, 2012, NOM was filing Freedom of Information Act requests trying to find out if there was one. The IRS stonewalled. Their "latest nonresponse response," said Mr. Eastman, claimed that the law prohibiting the disclosure of confidential tax returns also prevents disclosure of information about who disclosed them. Eastman called this "Orwellian." He said that what NOM experienced "suggests that problems at the IRS are potentially far more serious" than the targeting of conservative organizations for scrutiny. . . .

Are we moving to being in a police state?: Mark Levin makes a lot of sense

The list of information that the government is collecting on people is getting quite scary.  Does anyone trust the Obama administration not to overreach on the information that it is collecting to attack its opponents.

Attorney General Holder refuses to answer question on whether the WH was collecting information on members of Congress and Supreme Court Justices

The amazing video if a great question by Senator Kirk is available here.  How is Holder not able to answer this question by Senator Kirk (R-IL).  Here is my transcript of the video.

Kirk: "Mr. Attorney General, I want to take you to the Verizon scandal and -- which I understand takes us to possibly monitoring up to 120 million calls. You know, when government bureaucrats are sloppy, they're usually really sloppy. Want to just ask, could you assure to us that no phone inside the Capitol were monitored of members of Congress that would give a future executive branch, if they started pulling this kind of thing off, would give them unique leverage over the legislature?" 

Holder: "With all due respect, Senator, I don't think this is an appropriate setting for me to discuss that issue. I'd be more than glad to come back in a -- in an appropriate setting to discuss the issues that you have raised.  But in this open forum I don't . . ." 

Kirk: "I would interrupt you and say the correct answer would be say no, we stayed within our lane, and I'm assuring you we did not spy on members of Congress.". . . 

Mikulski: "We are going to stop here because this fully briefed is something that drives us up the wall."

Jonathan Alter book gets only 3 of his 13 claims about Roger Ailes "at least partially correct," the rest "patently, provably false"

What three allegations did Alter get partially correct?  See below.  Politico as the other ten as well.  Did Alter even bother to get two sources on any of these facts?

Allegation: “Ailes had a television monitor on his desk that showed video of the empty hall outside his office so that he would have warning if terrorists were coming to kill him.”
Ailes: “After the last NYC blackout our chief engineer asked if I wanted a monitor in my office to see the exits of the building. We had people piled up in the stairwells and the front lobby was jammed. Since I’m part of the team that volunteered to stay behind in an emergency, that would be my responsibility to help evacuate the building safely. So yes, I can see exits and that would be helpful assisting during evacuations. Alter claims the monitor shoots the hall outside my office to see if terrorists are coming to kill me. No such monitor exists and no such fear exists.” . . .
Allegation: “Two former News Corp. senior executives said that Murdoch routinely called Ailes ‘cuckoo,’ ‘bonkers,’ ‘nuts,’ and ‘crazy,’ but he also found Ailes’s behavior amusing.”
Ailes: “Murdoch occasionally says I’m paranoid, and I point out to him that if I wasn’t A LITTLE paranoid he’d have 20 percent less money.”
Allegation: “More than once he told his colleagues, ‘They hate me because I’m fat.’ ” . . Allegation: “Ailes had two bodyguards escorting him into the building.”
Ailes: “I don’t have two bodyguards, I have one part-time bodyguard.” . . .

Remember these were the ones that Alter got at least partially right.

Evidence that the Zero Tolerance approach on guns in schools is actually done to change students' views

Some evidence that public schools are actually trying to indoctrinate students on the gun issue.  There seems to be no notion that there are also benefits as well as costs from guns.  From the San Jose Mercury:

An elementary school will hold a toy gun exchange Saturday, offering students a book and a chance to win a bicycle if they turn in their play weapons. 

Strobridge Elementary Principal Charles Hill maintains that children who play with toy guns may not take real guns seriously. 

"Playing with toys guns, saying 'I'm going to shoot you,' desensitizes them, so as they get older, it's easier for them to use a real gun," Hill said. . . .

Every child who brings a toy gun will get a raffle ticket to win one of four bicycles, Hill said. . . . .  

Hill hopes the toy gun exchange idea catches on. 

"If we want older kids to not think guns are cool, we need to start early," he said.

Boy Suspended for saying the word "Gun," incredible; In another case boys were suspended for playing with Nerf guns

The boy received a 10-day suspension.  From Fox News Radio:

An 11-year-old boy who hopes to become a Navy SEAL was suspended from a Maryland school last December after he used the word ‘gun’ in a conversation on board a school bus. 

The sixth-grader at Northern Middle School in Owings was talking with a group of friends about the Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre when the bus driver overheard the conversation. 

“He said, ‘I wish I had a gun to protect everyone from the bad guys,’’ said Bruce Henkelman, the boy’s father. “He wanted to be the hero.” 

Henkelman, who first shared his story with radio station WMAL, told Fox News that his son was interrogated by Principal Darrel Prioleau and a deputy sheriff – without their knowledge or permission. . . . .

And here is the case involving those ever dangerous Nerf guns.  A student brought the guns to school for a class project and (horrors) the students played around with the guns.

A number of Edmonds school kids were recently suspended for having Nerf guns at school. 

That's not surprising considering the school's "zero tolerance" policy on toy guns, but what is surprising is that the teacher allegedly told the kids it was okay to have the guns.
Now the kids' parents want to know why their children were punished if the teacher gave permission for the guns. 

The incident happened last Friday before class at Chase Lake Elementary School. 
A sixth grade boy brought a number of the guns, which shoot small foam projectiles, to school for a class probability project. The kids were going to shoot the guns 100 times to see what happens. 

The project was allegedly approved by the teacher. But the 12-year-old boys, being what they are, decided to "try out" the guns before the school doors opened. . . . . 

McClatchy Newspapers: No Democrat groups were targeted by the IRS

From the McClatchy DC bureau:

The storm over the Internal Revenue Service’s dealings with groups seeking tax-exempt status is now nearly a month old, and virtually no organizations perceived to be liberal or nonpartisan have come forward to say they were unfairly targeted since then. 

When the House Ways and Means Committee heard testimony Tuesday from aggrieved organizations, all were conservative. Democrats were invited to have witnesses but declined. 

“In the end, it doesn’t matter if it’s Democrat, Republican, conservative or liberal, it happens to all Americans,” explained Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York, the vice chairman of the House of Representatives Democratic Caucus. 

The IRS’s targeting of conservative-leaning groups is the subject of investigations by the Treasury Department’s inspector general, the FBI and at least four congressional panels. 

The controversy dogging the IRS is the most explosive for the agency since President Richard Nixon targeted his political enemies with a special unit created in the agency more than 40 years ago. After Nixon’s 1974 resignation in disgrace, the laws were changed to limit the ability of the executive and legislative branches to influence IRS audits and reviews. . . .

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/05/193100/liberal-groups-say-they-dont-see.html#.UbB-yPZAQYE#storylink=cpy...

Scott Adams' Dilbert cartoon provides a very realistic parody of Paul Krugman

Given how accurately this strip by Scott Adams describes Paul Krugman, I am not sure that I would describe this as a parody.

IRS gave employees leather bags and other gifts totaling $730 per person

The video from Fox News that discusses these items given to participants at the IRS conferences is available here.

Which side cares most passionately about the gun control issue?

The Pew Research Center has an interesting poll from May (it was similar to the another Pew poll from April).  Another poll by Gallup shows that there is not a lot of interest in gun control generally.  This is consistent with another poll that showed that most Americans would prefer that the Senate move on to issues other than gun control. The first Gallup table is from here.

January data is available here.

UPDATE: Some other data for 2013.

During the 2000s gun control never seemed to reach a top ten issue (available here).

Some historical comparisons are available here.

Democrats misleading argument for health care benefits for illegal aliens

From ABC News:

Bipartisan meetings in the House of Representatives on a comprehensive immigration reform bill have failed, and the congressmen will meet for the last time today without reaching an agreement on a House bill, ABC News has learned. 

The stumbling block is GOP insistence that newly legalized workers now working in the shadows have no access to government-sponsored health care during their 15-year pathway to citizenship, according to two sources with access to the secret house “Gang of 8″ meetings. 

Democrats say that since these newly legalized immigrants would be paying taxes they should be eligible for benefits. . . .

Yes, these former illegal aliens will be paying taxes, but the problem is that they will still be massive net beneficiaries of government subsidies even without the government health care.  Lower income people get benefits that greatly exceed their taxes.  Lower income individuals actually don't pay income taxes, they get money back from the government.  The amount that they get back covers their Social Security taxes.  But even if they paid Social Security taxes, the benefits that they get later in life greatly exceed their taxes.  Social Security is set up to transfer money from higher to lower income individuals.  You don't want a lot of people coming across the border just to get government subsidies.

Democrats know all this.  The question is why Democrats have pushed this, and my guess is that they wanted the immigration bill to fail.  Possibly they wanted it to fail in the House so that they could use it to push for Democrats taking over the House next year.

Democrats in Connecticut think that it is up to the state Legislature to write history

Whether the legislature is right or wrong, it seems to me that is none of government's business to decide what the history books should say.  From Fox News:

The Connecticut Senate passed a bill Tuesday evening that would delete the Wright brothers from history, explicitly stripping recognition for the first powered flight from Orville and Wilbur and assigning it to someone else. 

“The Governor shall proclaim a date certain in each year as Powered Flight Day to honor the first powered flight by [the Wright brothers] Gustave Whitehead and to commemorate the Connecticut aviation and aerospace industry,” readsHouse Bill No. 6671, which now sits on the Governor’s desk awaiting passage into law. . . .

IRS refusing to release documents requested by Senate Finance Committee

From the Washington Examiner:

The Internal Revenue Service has failed to turn over documents requested by the powerful Senate tax-writing panel, which is investigating the tax agency's practice of targeting conservative organizations.Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the panel's top Republican, gave the IRS a May 31 deadline to answer dozens of questions related to the special scrutiny the agency was giving to right-leaning groups seeking tax-exempt status.But the troubled IRS let the deadline go by."We want a response," Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, a top Democrat on the panel told The Washington Examiner. "I thought the request was a reasonable request." . . .

NICS checks had begun to slow down in May

The link for the data is available here.  NICS background checks had never hit 2 million until November last year and it has stayed above that until March.

Interestingly, gun checks were already quite high prior to the Newtown shooting on December 16th, presumably due to Obama election.  Indeed, the two days prior to the tragedy were the 8th and 9th highest on record.  The difference in sales between the 18th at 134,691 and the 15th at 128,823 was only 5,868, just a 4.6 percent increase.  The sales on the 17th didn't even reach the top 10, so they were below sales on the 15th.  The bigger increases started on the 19th.

New York State Sheriffs' Association joins lawsuit against new New York gun control law

New York's sheriffs join the sheriffs in Colorado in opposing their new state laws.  From MPNnow.com:

After the passage in January of tougher gun restrictions in New York, sheriffs across the state have joined a federal lawsuit challenging the legislation “to reinforce the sheriffs’ position that portions of the (legislation) need to be changed and have a potentially negative impact on law-abiding citizens,” said Ontario County Sheriff Philip Povero. 

The New York State Sheriffs' Association and five individual sheriffs have added their position to the record in the lawsuit filed by the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association regarding the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act of 2013.  . . . .

Despite Obama's claims, top Obama official did leak information on Bin Laden raid

With all the scandals, the Obama administration already has its honest being questioned.  A new WSJ/NBC poll show that 55 percent believe that the IRS scandal raises questions questions about the administration’s “overall honesty and integrity.”   From Politico:

Panetta also disclosed classified information designated as “top secret” and “secret” during his presentation at the CIA awards ceremony, says the draft IG report published Wednesday by the Project on Government Oversight. . . .The disclosure of the IG report could complicate the Obama administration’s claims that senior officials have not leaked classified information. Last spring, Republicans publicly attacked President Barack Obama and his top aides, alleging that the administration leaked national security secrets to burnish Obama’s standing for his re-election bid.
The release of the findings in the draft report also raises questions about why the findings have been under wraps for so long, and which of the document’s conclusions were known to White House officials prior to last November’s election. . . .

Democrats don't want to stop immigrants voting, but they want to make it difficult for them to own guns

So will anyone be pushing for background checks on voters?  I don't actually think that is going to happen.  From Politico:

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), one of the Senate’s most ardent gun control advocates since the Newtown school shootings in his home state, is looking at offering a pair of amendments aimed at restricting immigrants’ access to guns.
One amendment would broaden an existing ban on certain immigrants buying guns to those who came into the U.S. on visa waivers. The other would require the attorney general to notify Homeland Security officials if undocumented immigrants or immigrants on temporary visas try to buy firearms, which is illegal. . . .
“Certainly, a number of my colleagues have encouraged me to move ahead and I’m very seriously considering offering them,” Blumenthal said in a recent interview. “To be very realistic, they were an uphill climb in committee and they’ll be equally uphill on the floor, but I feel so strongly about stopping gun violence that I am hoping to take every opportunity to move the debate forward.” . . .
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), another Judiciary member, also sponsored a gun-related amendment that ultimately didn’t get a vote during the markup. The measure would allow the attorney general to deny transferring firearms or issuing such licenses to “known or suspected dangerous terrorists.” Whitehouse said he hasn’t decided whether to offer it on the floor. . . . 

Obama Scandals number #5 and #6 just since the presidential election

As Glenn Reynolds described four of them this way: journalist-snooping scandal, IRS scandal, Benghazi, and the Sebelius Shakedown.  Of course, all this ignores Fast and Furious and some other earlier scandals.  I am just counting the scandals that have come to light since the presidential election.

Now there are two other new scandals:

1) The EPA

. . . The allegations concern the Environmental Protection Agency, which is being accused of trying to charge conservative groups fees while largely exempting liberal groups. The fees applied to Freedom of Information Act requests -- allegedly, the EPA waived them for liberal groups far more often than it did for conservative ones. . . .
Research by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank, claims that the political bias is routine when it comes to deciding which groups are charged fees. Christopher Horner, senior fellow at CEI, said liberal groups have their fees for documents waived about 90 percent of the time, in contrast with conservative groups that it claims are denied fee waivers about 90 percent of the time.
"The idea is to throw hurdles in our way," charged Horner, who says he decided to look into the fee structure after the EPA repeatedly turned down his group for waivers. . . .

This reminds one of the waivers that the Obama administration gave out for Obamacare.  If the Obama administration is giving conservatives a hard time with these fees, how hard of a time do you think that the administration has given conservatives with respect to their regulatory decisions?

2)  Secret email accounts for top Obama officials

There has been the recent secret emails by Lisa Jackson at the EPA to avoid reporting requirements (see here, here, and here).  But now the AP reports that this desire to skirt the law apparently covers many other many Obama appointments.

Some of President Barack Obama's political appointees, including the Cabinet secretary for the Health and Human Services Department, are using secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages, according to a review by The Associated Press.
The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees' email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more than $1 million for its email addresses. . . .
The practice is separate from officials who use personal, non-government email accounts for work, which generally is discouraged - but often happens anyway - due to laws requiring that most federal records be preserved.
The secret email accounts complicate an agency's legal responsibilities to find and turn over emails in response to congressional or internal investigations, civil lawsuits or public records requests because employees assigned to compile such responses would necessarily need to know about the accounts to search them. Secret accounts also drive perceptions that government officials are trying to hide actions or decisions.
"What happens when that person doesn't work there anymore? He leaves and someone makes a request (to review emails) in two years," said Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, an open government group. "Who's going to know to search the other accounts? You would hope that agencies doing this would keep a list of aliases in a desk drawer, but you know that isn't happening."
Agencies where the AP so far has identified secret addresses, including the Labor Department and HHS . . .

Drive perceptions that "government officials are trying to hide actions or decisions"?  Seriously, just the perceptions.  Lisa Jackson denied even having this alternative account.  Her real mistake was using an EPA email account.  If she hadn't used this, it might never have been discovered.  How would one even know how many additional email accounts that these officials might have?  The AP can't even get information on the number of these accounts.

UPDATE: Here is a note that Politico has.

Agency spokespeople generally assert that such alias accounts are searched when the public, law enforcement or Congress asks for information, but some experts doubt they are consistently searched or will be after officials leave. . . .

Jay Leno: Obama should close IRS instead of Gitmo, Imprison IRS agents there

Voter Fraud in Florida and Ohio

Apparently the person involved in the Florida fraud case was also campaigning in the race that saw a Democrat beat Congressman Allen West in what turned out to be a very close race.  From Fox News:

The top staffer for Florida Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia resigned this weekend after being implicated in a voting-fraud scheme. 

Chief of Staff Jeffrey Garcia resigned Friday after taking responsibility for the plot and being asked by the congressman for his resignation. . . . 

Several hours before the resignation, law-enforcement investigators raided the homes of Giancarlo Sopo, the congressman's communications director, and John Estes, his 2012 campaign manager. . . .

And there was a conviction for vote fraud four times in Ohio.  Apparently there are vote fraud cases in the courts against several other people in the same county.

Caddell, Schoen, and LeBoutillier provide an interesting discussion of the politics of the Obama Scandals

Some of the points: The scandals seem to be hurting Democrats across the board.  The Obama administration seems to be willing to do whatever is necessary to go after their political enemies.  Caddell: "Big government as a threat and big government at its worse."  People are worried that these government abuses could impact their own lives.

-- Caddell and Schoen worked in White Houses and Caddell believes that you don't go to the White House 157 and not have politics going one.

Caddell: "Who was he meeting with.  You have to be a fool(!) to believe that a head of an agency that is separate is meeting in the White House and not doing politics."


Others who went to the White House frequently.
43 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
48 Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner


-- It doesn't sound as if a special prosecutor will be appointed.

-- Holder can hold on in the short term.

UPDATE: Obama appears to be coming down strongly in Holder's corner.  Politico has this headline on Wednesday, June 5th: "Dark skies brighten for Holder"

More than 2xs as many signatures as needed turned in for Democrat Colorado State Senate President Recall over new gun regulations

Does the Democrat Colorado State Senate President John Morse really think that he is going to be able to disqualify enough signatures to keep the recall from occurring?  Mayor Bloomberg is going to be throwing in a lot of money to fight to keep Morse in office.  From Fox News:

A group of gun-rights activists seeking to oust a top Democratic state lawmaker in Colorado over the passage of strict gun control legislation on Monday turned in double the signatures needed to force a recall election.
KDVR reports the group turned in over 16,000 signatures, more than double the 7,178 valid signatures needed, to the Colorado Secretary of State's office in the effort to recall Colorado Senate President John Morse.
“This sends a strong message,” Rob Harris, who delivered three boxes full of petitions to the office, told KDVR. “We’ve obtained enough signatures to recall a state legislator for the first time in the history of Colorado.”
The Secretary of State’s office now has 15 days to determine whether enough of the signatures  are valid, and then Morse's office has another 15 days to contest the validity of the signatures.
Morse tells KDVR he is going to fight the recall effort. “We’ll go through these signatures with a fine-toothed comb,” Morse told the station. . . .

The battle is generally over whether there should be a tax on gun ownership, whether poor individuals should be priced out of being able to own guns.

Former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's fictional alter ego "Richard Windsor" received multiple awards

From the Washington Times:

Richard Windsor never existed at the EPA, but the agency awarded the fictional staffer’s email account certificates proving he had mastered all of the agency’s technology training — including declaring him a “scholar of ethical behavior,” according to documents disclosed late last week. . . .
The new records show the Windsor account was awarded certificates showing he has “satisfactorily competed the online email records management training”; took the 2010 “No FEAR Act Training Module”; and a completed a “Cybersecurity awareness training” course in 2011, where he scored 83 percent.
Windsor was also awarded the “scholar of ethical behavior” each year from 2010 through 2012. The only training Ms. Jackson appears to have done under her own name was for cybersecurity awareness in 2010. . . .

Apparently Cass Sunstein, who is now at Harvard Law School and was the ORIA director who dealt with EPA regulations, knew that Jackson was using this fake email address.  The Lisa H. below is obviously Jackson, so Cass is clearly playing along with her in pretending that Richard was a real person. 

Vitter also released emails showing that Jackson used the account to correspond with White House officials. “I have your special email from my friend Lisa H. — hope that’s okay!)” Cass Sunstein, then-White House Information and Regulatory Affairs administrator, wrote Jackson in 2009. . . .

"Special Report" Online: Is IRS Still Targeting Conservatives?

Liberal groups have kept on getting IRS approval quickly.  Yet, not so apparently for at least some conservative groups.  Watch this video here.

Obama keeps trying to pick winners with taxpayer money

If these co-ops were such a great deal, they would get loans on their own.  Taxpayers wouldn't have to pick up the bill.  Don't worry it will only cost a couple of billion dollars.  From the Washington Post:

“They are basically starting new insurance companies from ground zero, and that’s very difficult,” said retired heart surgeon and health care analyst Roger Stark of the Washington Policy Center, a Seattle think tank that promotes free-market policies. “I’m all for giving consumers a lot of choices, but most of these start-up loans come from taxpayers, and a lot is going to go to waste.” 

Criticism of the program, combined with pressure to reduce federal spending, has already resulted in successive congressional budget deals that slashed funding from $6 billion to $1.9 billion; co-ops in 24 states instead of all 50 got loans. . . . .

Will Medicaid expansion occur in Arizona, Ohio, and Michigan?

From the Washington Post:

Despite expressing distaste for the new law, some GOP governors have endorsed an expansion of Medicaid, and three — Jan Brewer of Arizona, John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Snyder of Michigan — are trying to persuade their Republican-controlled legislatures to go along. The governors are unwilling to turn down Washington’s offer to spend millions, if not billions, in their states to add people to the state-federal program for the poor. But they face staunch opposition from many GOP legislators who oppose the health-care law and worry that their states will be stuck with the cost of adding Medicaid recipients. . . .

It would be nice if Republicans could keep these states from getting on the hook for these costs because it is really likely that "their states will be stuck with the cost of adding" these beneficiaries.  Does anyone really one to bank on the federal government following through on its promised funding?

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke educates Piers Morgan and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett

The link is also available here.  The mayor explains that he has been assured that reductions in the number of police will have no impact of people's safety.  He also notes that people should just call 911 when they are in trouble.  Sheriff Clark notes the obvious: that the police can't protect people all the time and the question is what people should do when they have to defend themselves against criminals.