What’s interesting in the news today?

Here’s more info on one of the newer scandals to hit the Obama admin. This reflects poorly on Mrs. Clinton big time. This is all under her leadership, or lack of. Our govt. is out of control. Especially self-control. From TheNYPost

“A State Department whistleblower has accused high-ranking staff of a massive coverup — including keeping a lid on findings that members of then-Secretary Hillary Clinton’s security detail and the Belgian ambassador solicited prostitutes.

A chief investigator for the agency’s inspector general wrote a memo outlining eight cases that were derailed by senior officials, including one instance of interference by Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills.”

“Among the bombshell findings: * A DS agent was called off a case against US Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman over claims that he solicited prostitutes, including minors.”

“* At least seven agents in Clinton’s security detail hired prostitutes while traveling with her in various countries, including Russia and Colombia.”

Investigator say the hiring of prostitutes by Clinton’s security detail was “endemic”.

And if the interference came from her CoS, it came from her.

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Next up, did the HHS Secretary violate the Anti-Lobbying Act? From TheAmericanSpectator

“Ever wonder what Kathleen Sebelius does when she isn’t sentencing children to death, shaking down health care providers, or violating campaign finance laws? Well, it seems she spends her spare time, and a lot of taxpayer money, dabbling in illegal lobbying. The Anti-Lobbying Act forbids federal bureaucrats from using money appropriated by Congress to influence “an official of any government, to favor, adopt, or oppose… any legislation, law, ratification, policy, or appropriation.” Sebelius evidently didn’t get the memo.

Specifically, it looks like Madam Commissar and her HHS minions have been using federal money to lobby state and local officials to “favor, adopt or oppose” countless initiatives involving everything from local zoning rules to ordinances concerning tobacco use to the imposition of new taxes on soft drinks. The cash they are thus spreading around comes from an obscure Obamacare trove called the “Prevention and Public Health Fund,” which provides Sebelius with what amounts to $12.5 billion in pin money.”

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And in the middle of the IRS scandal they are about to begin enforcing ObamaCare, and deciding who gets the religious conscience exemptions from ObamaCare. Let the targeting begin! Again. From TheWeeklyStandard , via LifeSiteNews

“On August 1, the one-year “safe harbor” for religious charities objecting to provisions of Obamacare will end. Starting then, these nonprofit employers will be forced to violate their religious beliefs or pay large fines. In charge of collecting the fines will be our recently newsworthy friends at the Internal Revenue Service.”

“As details of the IRS scandal continue to emerge, it’s evident that religious values were indeed scrutinized by bureaucrats. A growing number of religious groups and charities are coming forward to report delays in their applications for tax-exempt status, including the Catholics United Education Fund, Christian Voices for Life, and Focus on the Family affiliate Family Talk Action. Others, like Samaritan’s Purse, underwent audits or other IRS scrutiny that seemed out of left field. One targeted group, the Coalition for Life of Iowa, was asked by the IRS about the content of its prayers.

What’s more, Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS’s division on tax-exempt organizations who was placed on administrative leave last month after declining to testify before a House committee, was rewarded with that job after a history of harassing religious people in a previous position as head of enforcement at the Federal Election Commission from 1986 to 2001.

Having lost whatever reputation it had for politically neutral enforcement of the tax code, the IRS, come August 1, will nevertheless gain new authority to determine what constitutes religious activity and which religious employers are entitled to conscience rights under Obamacare. If the case for repealing this unjust intrusion on the free exercise of religion was always strong, in recent weeks it’s gotten stronger still.”

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Here’s the piece on the “Wacko Birds” I mentioned yesterday. The Birds aren’t popular with Dems or the Old Guard Establishment Republicans. Which is probably why I like them. From TheDailyCaller

“There is rebellion afoot in the United States Senate. A new breed of conservatives and libertarians are loosed, unconcerned with The New York Times, unfettered by back-bench rank and unintimidated by Washington politics.

Elected over the past three years, Republican Sens. Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz have had a meteoric impact in Washington, soaring to grassroots stardom, crashing into the Democratic majority and raining down on the old bulls  of the Republican Party.”

“Dubbed “Wacko Birds” by top Republican John McCain, these three wear the senior Arizona senator’s scorn as a badge of honor.”

“The Democrats and Republican leadership are  furious. And it isn’t simply because these young upstarts exist — it’s because they’re scoring real points. Using the difficult and arcane rules of the Senate  to their advantage, they have several victories under their belts that have  earned them the respect and support of the conservative grassroots. And despite the ire of both parties — and both parties’ well-connected allies in the press — the Wacko Birds continue undeterred.”

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Obama’s going with the Stand By Your Man act. For now at least. Just give it time, that may change. From CBSNews

“The White House on Tuesday came to the defense of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, after a senator blasted the intelligence official for failing to give “straight answers” on the government surveillance of Americans.”

Clapper has come under fire for the testimony he gave before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March, when Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked him, “Does the [National Security Agency] collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

“Clapper responded unequivocally, “No, sir. Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect — but not wittingly.”

That contradicts the recent revelations about the NSA’s collection of all of Verizon’s U.S. phone records.”

More from YahooNews

“Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is really struggling to explain why he told Congress in March (see video above) that the National Security Agency does not intentionally collect any kind of data on millions of Americans. His latest take: It’s an unfair question, he said, like “When are you going to stop beating your wife?” And it seems to depend on the meaning of “collect.”

“I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying ‘no,'” Clapper told NBC News on Sunday.”

Least untruthful? What does that even mean? And did he just pull the ol’ Clinton “depends of what the meaning of is is ” too? 😯  🙄

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Here’s another example. It’s not Math, it’s Arithmetic. But I guess that depends on what the meaning of Math is. Or what the meaning of Arithmetic is too. Or isn’t. I’m confused, and he’s acting like Larry the cucumber.

Wait, what? I’m convinced they just make stuff up as they go along.

I think we need more Wacko Birds and way less of these Cuckoo Birds. 🙂

Oh, and if it doesn’t have a tail, it’s not a monkey. It’s an ape. That’s about all I’m sure of right now.

They’ve become cartoon characters.

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Oh, and the ACLU is suing them. From TheHuffingtonPost

And Lindsey Graham says the snooping went far deeper into Americans phone records than the Obama admin admits. From YahooNews

And anyone who still thinks this is the same thing Bush did should read this. Maybe it is the same. But the big difference is in the amount. If Bush was bad with the Patriot Act, then Obama is a 1000 times worse. That is a fact. From NBCNews

“The FBI has dramatically increased its use of a controversial provision of the Patriot Act to secretly obtain a vast store of business records of U.S. citizens under President Barack Obama, according to recent Justice Department reports to Congress. The bureau filed 212 requests for such data to a national security court last year – a 1,000-percent increase from the number of such requests four years earlier, the reports show.”

“Taken together, experts say, those revelations show the government has broadly interpreted the Patriot Act provision as enabling it to collect data not just on specific individuals, but on millions of Americans with no suspected terrorist connections. And it shows that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court  accepted that broad interpretation of the law.

“That they were using this (provision) to do mass collection of data is definitely the biggest surprise,” said Robert Chesney, a top national security lawyer at the University of Texas Law School. “Most people who followed this closely were not aware they were doing this.  We’ve gone from producing records for a particular investigation to the production of all records for a massive pre-collection database. It’s incredibly sweeping.”

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