|
|
| |
Topic: Algeria says 600 hostagages
freed; terrorists say 35 died |
Algeria says 600 hostagages
freed; terrorists say 35 died
USA Today, by Charles McPhedron & Louise Osborne
|
|
Original Article
|
|
Posted By:Pluperfect, 1/17/2013 12:53:23 PM
|
| The fate of hostages being held at a gas complex deep in the Sahara desert drew conflicting reports Thursday, with an Algerian news service reporting that 600 hostages were freed while militants claimed 35 were killed in an Algerian military raid. Algerian news service ANP reported that the Algerian military conducted air strikes and a ground operation to free the hostages, who were picked up by military helicopters. It remained unclear if any of the hostages were injured, ANP said. However, Islamist terrorists told a Mauritanian news outlet that Algerian military helicopters strafed the gas complex, killing 35 foreign hostages
|
 
Reply 1 - Posted by:
mickturn, 1/17/2013 1:49:10 PM (No. 9122414)
And if all the terrorists didn´t die who messed up?
|
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "Pluperfect"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
|
Most Recent Articles posted by "Pluperfect"
|
|
Reactionaries in New York
|
|
Time, by Joe Klein
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Pluperfect- 5/19/2013 8:27:40 AM
Post Reply
|
|
The Democratic candidates for mayor in New York are campaigning to win the support of the teachers union. They threaten to return the city to the horrors of the David Dinkins era. Back at the turn of the 1990s, New York City was a mess. Crime was rampant. The schools were dreadful. Children in foster care were brutalized because–as the head of the Child Welfare Agency said–”oversight is racist.” The mayor was an incompetent. And, above all, the city was run for the benefit of its employees rather than its citizens. What followed was 20 years of governance
|
|
Immigration reform no sure bet
|
|
Politico, by Seung Min Kim & Jake Sherman
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Pluperfect- 5/19/2013 6:29:04 AM
Post Reply
|
|
After years of false starts, Washington finally appears to be on the path to rewriting the nation’s immigration laws. The Senate Gang of Eight bill is holding its own in committee and is expected to hit the Senate floor in June. And in the House this week, members of a bipartisan group agreed “in principle” on a big bill to be revealed in June. But in this case, looks are deceiving. There are still major hurdles before immigration reform can reach President Barack Obama’s desk. The biggest one is the GOP-controlled House. Right now, the Senate bill has no chance
|
At Cincinnati IRS office, surprise
over claims of partisan villainy
|
|
Washington Post, by Lisa Rein & Dan Zak
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Pluperfect- 5/19/2013 5:17:34 AM
Post Reply
|
|
CINCINNATI — The fog of scandal hangs over a boxy, modernist, 10-story building that looks like a monument to paperwork. Shrubs and chain smokers flank its front entrance here on Main Street, in the heart of downtown. Every day, 2,000 employees go to work at various federal agencies in this John F. Kennedy-era structure, whose chief tenant is the Internal Revenue Service — which is having just about the worst week an agency can have. Up on the fourth floor — with its gray linoleum, low ceilings and fluorescent lights, file carts heaped with manila envelopes, its keypad-coded doors labeled 4-022
|
The Smoking Gun Can Tell
the AP What a Federal Leak
Investigation Is Like
|
|
Atlantic, by Philip Bump
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Pluperfect- 5/18/2013 5:22:57 AM
Post Reply
|
|
When, in 2006, the website The Smoking Gun released a secret CIA memo documenting prisoner organizing strategies at Guantanamo Bay, the FBI took notice. Now the site has posted details of the ensuing 44-month-long investigation, offering a timely glimpse into the black box of a Department of Justice leak prosecution. And The Smoking Gun got lucky. Over the course of the FBI´s hunt, code-named "Stubborn Ways," 43 different people were interviewed, in locations stretching from New Mexico to Boston to Saudi Arabia. After the investigation narrowed to one person who was then exonerated — a woman from Virginia
|
There Was No Surge in IRS
Tax-Exempt Applications in 2010
|
|
Atlantic, by Garance Franke-Ruta
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Pluperfect- 5/18/2013 5:03:01 AM
Post Reply
|
|
A number of people have sought to explain the IRS targeting of Tea Party, patriot, and 9/12 group applications -- as well as those from other conservative groups -- for "specialist team" treatment (mainly delays and excessive and inappropriate questions) in 2010 by pointing to the Citizens United decision that year allowing for unlimited, undisclosed fundraising by such groups. That´s the explanation IRS official Lois Lerner gave a week ago when she first revealed that the agency had improperly handled a slew of applications -- the political shorthand was a mistaken attempt to deal with a surge in applications.
|
| |
|
|
Obamacare and Chicago’s Unions
|
|
American Spectator, by Eileen Norcross
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Pluperfect- 5/17/2013 6:13:58 AM
Post Reply
|
|
Much has been said about the trouble with public-sector pensions. Many state and local plans are underfunded and, unless policy and accounting changes are undertaken, some major plans will run out of assets to pay benefits over the coming years. That means these plans will have to operate on a pay-as-you-go-basis, forcing budgetary tradeoffs and tax hikes. Public-sector pensions often come with legal guarantees. For instance, Illinois and New York offer a constitutional guarantee of promised benefits. Many other states offer statutory protections. That’s why economists make the case that pension benefits
|
|
The AP and the NRA
|
|
Politico, by Rich Lowry
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Pluperfect- 5/17/2013 4:56:10 AM
Post Reply
|
|
Rarely has the White House briefing room so resembled the main ballroom at a meeting of Conservative Political Action Conference. When he woke up on Tuesday morning, White House press secretary Jay Carney probably thought that he would have to deal with querulous reporters pressing him on all fronts. Little did he know he’d really have to confront citizens bristling with anger over perceived encroachments on their rights by an overweening government. At times, Carney must have wondered whether he had wandered into a congressional town hall circa 2009 with himself in the role
|
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
|
Officials on Benghazi:
"We made mistakes,
but without malice"
|
|
CBS News, by Sharyl Attkisson
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Drive- 5/17/2013 3:02:24 PM
Post Reply
|
|
Obama administration officials who were in key positions on Sept. 11, 2012, acknowledge that a range of mistakes were made the night of the attacks on the U.S. missions in Benghazi, and in messaging to Congress and the public in the aftermath. The officials spoke to CBS News in a series of interviews and communications under the condition of anonymity so that they could be more frank in their assessments. They do not all agree on the list of mistakes and it's important to note that they universally claim that any errors or missteps did not cost lives and reflect "incompetence rather than malice or cover up.
|
Evidence emerges that Obama
administration official knew of
IRS targeting during 2012 campaign
|
|
CBS News, by Margaret Brennan
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: earlybird- 5/18/2013 9:01:39 PM
Post Reply
|
|
WASHINGTON - There were new questions Saturday night concerning if anyone in the White House was aware of the IRS´ targeting of conservative groups. Inspector General Russell George said he informed a deputy at the Treasury Department in June of 2012 about the probe into the IRS. The Treasury Department confirmed the timeline but said they did not know the details of the investigation until last week.(Snip)Marcus Owens ran the tax-exempt division at the IRS for 10 years. He said it isn´t difficult to figure out who´s doing what at the agency.
|
Watergate 2.0 -- why the
IRS scandal is far worse
|
|
Fox News, by Matt Kibbe
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: StormCnter- 5/18/2013 5:59:17 AM
Post Reply
|
|
In the wake of one of the worst abuses of government power in recent history, many are rushing to frame the Internal Revenue Service scandal as simply an attack on conservative activists. That view risks creating a partisan political football and misses a fundamentally scarier abuse that exceeds the scandals of Watergate or any other prior government abuse. The IRS has admitted that since May 2010 it targeted grassroots-conservative organizations that had applied for tax-exempt status, unfairly subjecting them to rigorous scrutiny due to their political leanings. Such groups were told they were required to comply with IRS requests,
|
| |
|
Lew asks Congress for debt increase,
says it’s ´not open to debate´
|
|
The Hill, by Peter Schoeder
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: DW626- 5/18/2013 6:12:33 PM
Post Reply
|
|
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Friday urged congressional leaders to raise the debt limit and insisted that the White House is not going to negotiate over the increase because lawmakers have "no choice." "We will not negotiate over the debt limit," Lew wrote. "The creditworthiness of the United States is non-negotiable. The question of whether the country must pay obligations it has already incurred is not open to debate." Lew said that while President Obama is willing to discuss plans to reduce the nation´s deficit with Congress, those talks must be kept separate from any effort to raise the nation´s debt cap.
|
McCaskill Calls For Firing Of All
Involved In IRS Targeting Scandal
|
|
KMOX [St, Louis], by Staff
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: BuckeyeRon- 5/18/2013 2:46:31 PM
Post Reply
|
|
Washington – Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-MO, issued a video statement Friday in response to reports that the Internal Revenue Service unfairly targeted conservative nonprofit groups. (Snip) “There’s a reason Lady Justice wears a blindfold in America. That is because in America, we don’t apply the law based on who you are, who you know, or what you believe. We apply the law equally.” “We should not only fire the head of the IRS, which has occurred, but we’ve got to go down the line and find every single person who had anything to do with this and make sure
|
Higher-Ups Knew of IRS Case
|
|
Wall Street Journal, by John D. McKinnon*
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Dreadnought- 5/17/2013 10:23:18 PM
Post Reply
|
|
The Internal Revenue Service´s watchdog told top Treasury officials around June 2012 he was investigating allegations the tax agency had targeted conservative groups, for the first time indicating that Obama administration officials were aware of the explosive matter in the midst of the president´s re-election campaign. The disclosure to the Treasury general counsel and the deputy secretary was a cursory one, according to J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. He said he didn´t reveal conclusions of the probe, which was in its early stages, and his disclosure came as part
|
Rep. Issa subpoenas Benghazi
auditor Thomas Pickering
|
|
The Hill [Washington DC], by Julian Pecquet
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: JoniTx- 5/17/2013 3:53:45 PM
Post Reply
|
|
The lawmaker leading the charge to investigate the Benghazi terror attack on Friday subpoenaed the co-author of a report that slammed the State Department but didn´t interview Hillary Clinton. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) formally demanded that retired ambassador Thomas Pickering submit to being deposed by the committee next Thursday. The subpoena comes in the wake of a series of acrimonious public exchanges this week between the two men. Issa didn´t issue a subpoena to former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen, who co-authored the Benghazi report with Pickering.
|
| | |
|
|
