The Big Three networks coverage so far of the Justice Department’s  questionable investigation of Fox News’ James Rosen has followed a similar pattern to that of their coverage of the Kermit Gosnell case. Jan Crawford’s report on Thursday’s CBS This Morning was the first full report on growing controversy on ABC, CBS, and NBC’s morning and evening newscasts. NBC briefly covered the investigation on Tuesday’s Today, and ABC has yet to mention it.

Crawford pointed out how the DOJ’s “unprecedented” surveillance of Rosen has “really just set off a firestorm of criticism from the left and right. For the first time ever, a presidential administration is treating news  reporting like a crime, and a reporter like a criminal suspect.

Anchor Charlie Rose teased the correspondent’s report by wondering if “the Obama administration gone too far in its fight to stop leaks.” Rose also pointed out that “the Obama administration is being accused of crossing a line. For the first time, a reporter is being treated like a criminal suspect for doing his job.”

Crawford then led the segment with her “firestorm of criticism” line. She outlined that “the level of government surveillance over a reporter was unprecedented. Agents monitored Rosen’s movements in and out of the State Department.  They searched his personal e-mails and combed through his cell phone  records.”

After playing a clip from a recent White House press conference, where  colleague and former Fox News correspondent Major Garrett questioned the “standard never before seen in a leak investigation”, the CBS journalist underlined that “the investigation into Rosen has sparked a rare thing in Washington: bipartisan outrage over what some are calling ‘Obama’s war on journalism’. Just last week, the Justice Department came under fire for seizing two  months of phone records from the Associated Press – action the President defended on national security grounds.”

Read full story here

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It appears the Republican Party establishment and some conservative commentators have come up with another mistaken tactic to woo the low information and undecided voters. With the avalanche of scandals swirling around the Obama administration and the Democratic Party, the political message promoted by these politicians and pundits is that these scandals are the outcome of a government that has grown too large to control and should therefore be dramatically cut back.

The Republican Party landscape is littered with the carcasses of failed strategies and this approach will also not succeed. First, it is nearly impossible to explain in simple and easily understood terms why the government is too large and how that aided in creating the scandals and economic difficulties the nation faces. Particularly when the largely uninformed target audience is either dependent on government or has been led to believe government is the ultimate arbiter of prosperity. Second, while there is no question that government must get smaller, the exponential growth of government is not the cause of the scandals. Rather it too is an end-product of a process whose origin is basic and easily grasped.

The American founding fathers understood that government expands and becomes tyrannical not because it is inherently corrupt, but government, because of its unique role in the affairs of a nation, can easily be transformed into an overwhelming instrument of oppression and self-aggrandizement. That transformation occurs over an extended period of time primarily as a consequence of political and national leaders who are devoid of character, honor and integrity seeking to amass power and ego gratification, regardless of the long-term implications to the well being and future of the country.

This process, while slowly evolving over the past eighty years, has hit the crisis point with the most corrupt and ideological administration in American history, coupled with the massive infiltration of government agencies and the mainstream media by those motivated by ideology, greed and narcissism. Thus the scandals presently monopolizing the headlines are not the direct result of out of control government but the near total lack of ethics, honesty and integrity among those in government and increasingly throughout society in general.

Read full commentary here
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It’s going to be hard for Attorney General Eric Holder to deploy his standard-issue Incompetence Defense to get out of this one. He can’t claim he never saw the paperwork when he’s signature is all over it. Unless maybe he’s going to drop the Sergeant Schultz routine and go for the Colonel Henry Blake gambit, and claim some Radar O’Reilly type at the Justice Department slipped the papers under his pen without telling him what he was signing.

At any rate, NBC News broke the big story:

Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.

The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists.

“I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable,” Obama said. “Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs.”

How long would it have taken Eric Holder’s exhaustive review of the Fox News surveillance outrage to discover that Eric Holder was behind it, if a source hadn’t spilled the beans to NBC News? Does NBC News get bugged now?

Read More at Human Events . By John Hayward.

Photo Credit: The Aspen Institute Creative Commons

Under the Marxist rule of President Barack Hussein Obama, Uncle Sam morphs day by day into ‘Uncle Satan’.  Ironic when contemplating that Iran has long called America “the great Satan”.

Far more wily than Uncle Sam or Uncle Sugar, ‘Uncle Satan’ lures scores of U.S. citizens motivated by entitlement mentality with food stamps,  free cell phones and unquestioned access to social security,  into a trap from which they will never escape.

Comfortable with the guarantee the government will look after them from cradle to grave, few see the walls going up around them.   Alan Beckler shares interesting but chilling thoughts about the walls going up around American citizens today.

“While doing some Cold War research today, I ran across a most interesting article on the Berlin Wall history. Attached is an excerpt. What is so chilling is that one could change the German names to present administration names and with our current IRS and DOJ ‘scandals’, it is really chilling.

Dire warnings from this excerpt from ‘The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall’ will be lost on low information voters dependent on government handouts but will send chills down the spines of the millions who see that the IRS and Justice Department scandals mark the beginning of the ultimate capture of the U.S. citizenry.

Continue Reading Full Story

Do You Know How To Deal With Long-term Care Under Obamacare?

We face some dire changes in the world of health care. I want to share with you what to do to insulate yourself against the effects of Obamacare. I’m going to explain the Achilles Heel of Obamacare and why preparing for long-term care should be your top health care priority right now. Originally, we were told Obamacare would solve our long-term care problems. Then – in the shadows of the night – Congress passed and Barack Obama signed a complete repeal of the provisions in Obamacare intended to help families with long-term care.

The message from Washington is clear: You are on your own.

They don’t want to help and they have gone back on their pledge to help with long-term care.

In addition, Obamacare slashed funding to Medicare, a program passed with bipartisan support to help the elderly secure medical insurance. That’s bad news for all Medicare participants.

Congress has proposed many changes to the program, the worst of which is lower reimbursements to doctors for their services. This means more everyday care will be administered by nurses and practitioners – not doctors.

Look, Medicare reimbursements are already shamefully low. They barely cover doctor’s costs.

If payments are cut further, doctors could actually lose money when they treat some Medicare patients.

The next logical step is that doctors will refuse to treat Medicare patients at all.

I don’t mean to scare you. I know you’re probably already afraid of losing coverage or struggling to find participating physicians.

But this isn’t even the worst crisis of Obamacare.

Within the next year, practically all of the elements of Obamacare will have taken effect.

Read more here:

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with three people at the White House Tuesday who are in the country illegally but received “deferred action” that allowed them to stay in the country under a memorandum issued by administration unilaterally last June in a memorandum issued by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

While conceding that she had no legal authority to change the “immigration status” of illegal aliens or provide them with a “pathway to citizenship,” Naoplitano said in a June 15, 2012 memo to the top officials at Customs and Border Patrol, Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that she was directing them to use “prosecutorial discretion” in not enforcing the immigration laws against certain classes of immigration lawbreakers.

In all, Obama and Biden met with eight people advocating for comprehensive immigration reform on Tuesday, according to White House readout of the meeting. The White House readout of the meeting listed three of those as having received “deferred action.” Most others were legally in the United States with relatives who were illegal aliens.

“At the meeting, the president reiterated his commitment to passing a bipartisan, commonsense immigration reform bill this year,” the White House readout of the meeting said. “He made clear that while the current bill is not perfect, it does represent an important step towards the broad principles that need to be part of any immigration reform package.”

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a reform bill to the full Senate. Supporters of the legislation call it a “pathway to citizenship.” Opponents call it “amnesty.”
Read More at CNS News . By Fred Lucas.

The Washington Post narrative surrounding the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups is that it began as a scandal involving low-level employees at a Cincinnati office, the “Determinations Unit,” a natural outgrowth of an increase in political activity by these groups. This belies other reporting by the Post’s Fact-Checker, which indicates that there was little growth in the number of groups applying for tax-exempt status at the time the targeting occurred.

As more details come to light, responsibility for the IRS actions keeps moving up the ladder and has landed, at least in part, at the White House. Top-level White House staffers knew about the scandal before a manufactured apology was made to the public on May 10.

“The White House on Monday once again added to the list of people who knew about the IRS investigation into its targeting of conservative groups—saying White House chief of staff Denis McDonough had been informed about a month ago,” reported Reid J. Epstein for Politico on May 20. White House Chief Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said she learned about the IRS scandal the week of April 22, but didn’t tell the President.

A public relations storm was brewing, but the public is supposed to believe that the President himself was kept in the dark. “Press secretary Jay Carney said again that no one had told President Barack Obama ahead of the first news reports: not his top aide McDonough, nor his chief counsel Kathy Ruemmler, nor anyone from the Treasury Department,” wrote Epstein. “Monday’s revelation amounts to the fifth iteration of the Obama administration’s account of events, after initially saying that the White House had first learned of the controversy from the press.” Epstein called this the White House’s “shifting” account.

When Politico and the Post’s Fact-Checker, Glenn Kessler, note that the President’s story doesn’t quite add up, you know there’s trouble.

Read Full Commentary Here

On Nov. 5, 2009, Army Major Nidal Hasan went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas where he was stationed. Witnesses said he was making Islamic statements as he shot one serviceman/woman after another. By the time Hasan was taken into custody, he had killed 13 people and wounded 32 others.

His guilt is not a question as he was caught in the act. Those at the scene believed Hasan’s attack was an act of Islamic terrorism. Subsequent investigations revealed that he was against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead of treating him like the terrorist he was, the Obama administration pushed the Pentagon to declare Hasan’s shootings were an act of workplace violence and not a terrorist act. He was arrested and treated like any other person accused of murder.

Three and half years later, he still has not been tried for his murderous rampage. As an active military personnel who has not yet been found guilty of a crime, Hasan continues to collect his full salary as an Army major. Since the shooting, he has earned $278,000.

If Hasan had been charged with an act of terrorism, he would certainly have been tried and convicted long ago, ending the collection of his pay, and saving taxpayers thousands of dollars.

Read More at Godfather Politics . By Dave Jolly.

Have you ever wondered why there is such a war on Christianity in the US today?  Well, ponder this thought. Our country has become infested with Communists and  Muslims at an alarming rate, including the Communist/ Muslim plant who sits in the oval office.  Communists,on one hand, are mostly athiest non-believers, while Muslims have their own belief system which includes total domination of people of other faiths, with death to those who will not comply.

As the Obama regime is currently embroiled in at least three scandals, and possibly more not yet investigated, what good does it do to make these people swear an oath to God when they are called to testify before Congress or even when they take office? Given their belief system,or lack thereof, an oath to God means absolutely nothing to them, in which case, they feel that it is okay to lie to the American people.

These people have become nothing but self-centered arrogance on parade on a daily basis.  We all know that this great nation, America, was founded on Godly principles and that God MUST remain the center of it in order for the system to work effectively. Only through our apathy have we allowed a group of non-believers to take over the hallowed halls of our government, most of them by using lies and deceit.

I can assure you, as long as God is left out of this government equation, we will never get any straight answers on anything. Those in government who are willing to uphold their oaths to God and the US Constitution, MUST grow a backbone and stop playing around with those who seek to deceive the American people. It is way past time for multiple arrests, criminal investigations, and trials for treason for those at the highest levels in government. It is time for We The People to make this right. As always, stay safe and be aware of your surroundings.

Four American citizens have been killed in counter-terrorism drone strikes since 2009, the Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday.

Attorney General Eric Holder disclosed the previously classified information in a letter to a top senator that also included the names of those killed and the revelation that only one was directly targeted in the strikes that began in 2009. He did not specifically call them drone strikes – rather, he referred to “counterterrorism operations” – but most of the individuals he mentioned are known to have died in drone strikes.

The targeted individual, Anwar al-Awlaki, was a radical Muslim cleric whom U.S. officials said was involved in planning Al Qaeda operations and terror attacks. He was killed in September 2011 in Yemen.

The acknowledgement came ahead of a major counterterrorism policy speech by President Obama scheduled for Thursday.

Holder said in the letter that the Obama administration is “aware” of three other U.S. citizens killed in such counter-terrorism operations besides al-Awlaki: Samir Khan, Jude Kennan Mohammed and Awlaki’s son Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, Holder said.

 Read More at Fox News .

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The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things,” said Chris Calabrese, a congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”

Read More at Wired . By David Kravets.

Progressivism thrives best when truth is suppressed, but suppressed truth is still truth. You can try to sink it, shred it, cover it and destroy it, but truth eventually rises to the surface. Truth floats. Always.

Currently, the various scandals within the Obama administration have put Progressives in defensive mode to protect an ideology built on lies. Each day brings with it a new scandal or a new angle to a previous scandal. Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS, and the DOJ’s seizure of phone records have one thing in common: suppression of truth.

Americans are discovering Progressivism isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Even the coolest of Progressive presidents can’t deliver the goodies they promise if what they really intended to deliver was hidden inside a bag of lies.

By now, most everyone understands Progressive-speak for “hope and change” translates into high unemployment, an abysmal economy, a disastrous healthcare bill, excessive poverty, starving children, ridiculous food prices, losing wars, and terrorist attacks on our homeland. Four bucks gets you a gallon of gas, a college degree gets you nowhere, and with each new scandal, the White House deflects the blame on someone else and runs off to play another round of golf. That, my friends, is Progressivism in a nutshell.

In a most enlightening article, “Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression,” author David Martin nails it when he states “strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government” and “the success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party.” Without a doubt, we have the makings of a perfect storm.

If you’ve never understood the connection between Progressivism and lies, all you need to do is take an objective look at the current administration’s scandals. While all investigations are still active, a common thread weaves through each in that either the truth was suppressed to cover an action or an action was taken to suppress the truth.

In Benghazi it appears the administration suppressed the truth about an act (an al-Qaida-linked terrorist attack) to fit its pre-election “al-Qaida-free” story line. The same rings true regarding the seizure of reporters’ phone and email records by the Department of Justice. Attorney General Holder claims records were seized for national security reasons, but that doesn’t gel with what the Associated Press describes as an “unprecedented” seizure of records. In a recent statement, AP president Gary Pruitt said his organization held the in-question article describing a terrorist plot by an al-Qaida-linked group in Yemen “until the government assured us that the national security concerns had passed.” With that in mind, might a more reasonable reason be that administration officials spent an awful lot of time traveling around the country pre-election reporting al-Qaida was no longer a threat?

Each day carries with it new discoveries about the heinous IRS scandal wherein acts of suppression served to squash the voice and rights of those who, unlike Progressives, have the intelligence to differentiate between the U.S. Constitution and a roll of toilet paper and embrace the freedoms and protections therein.

If you don’t like what you see, it’s time to get loud (not violent) Americans. Silence is acceptance. And so far, your silence is deafening… and dangerous…because silence becomes the well-insulated womb to which tyranny is given safe harbor to grow.

—–

Susan Stamper Brown is an opinion page columnist, motivational speaker and military advocate who writes about politics, the military, the economy and culture. Email Susan at writestamper@gmail.com or her website at susanstamperbrown.com.

This commentary originally appeared at CagleCartoons.com and is redistributed here by permission. This column has been edited by the author. Representations of fact and opinions are solely those of the author.

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The IRS has admitted to harassing conservative groups seeking tax exempt status, singling out for extra special scrutiny organizations which featured “patriot” or “tea party” designations in their name. We now know that a number of these groups were forced to withdraw their applications, being unable or unwilling to continue what in some cases had become a three year battle with the corrupt federal agency.

But few in the media have bothered to ask who directed the IRS to engage in this criminal behavior. It has been reported that Senators Chuck Schumer and Al Franken addressed a letter to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman in early 2012, “…demanding the IRS target conservative groups or face legislation forcing them to do so.”

Yet Democrat demands that the IRS investigate conservative organizations were nothing new. Senators Dick Durbin and Max Baucus offered their own “suggestions” that the Service concentrate their efforts on such groups in 2010, (2) Durbin claiming his missive resulted from the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision which “…created a rush for organizations seeking tax exempt status…” (3) Of course that “rush” excuse was a lie as the number of organizations seeking tax exempt status actually declined both during the year of the Citizens United decision (2010) and the year after.

But it appears the IRS shoe has finally dropped, right on Barack Hussein’s head. The story has broken that National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen Kelley met with Obama on March 31st of 2010, exactly one day before the IRS began to target Tea Party and other conservative groups across the nation. As the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s report reveals, “April 1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit [of the IRS], suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed.”

Oddly enough, neither Colleen Kelley, the NTEU or Barack Hussein want to talk about that coincidentally timed, 2010 meeting. Responding to a Washington Post inquiry via email, Kelley said the “NTEU is working to get the facts but does not have any specifics at this time. Moreover, IRS employees are not permitted to discuss taxpayer cases. We cannot comment further at this time…”

And when Barack was asked about White House knowledge of IRS targeting, he did his best impersonation of Bill Clinton by ignoring the question that was asked and answering one that wasn’t. Bloomberg News asked Obama: “Can you assure the American people that nobody in the White House knew about the [IRS] actions before your Counsel’s Office found out on April 22nd?” Obama’s answer: “I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report before the IG report had been leaked through the press.”

The IG report? Bloomberg didn’t ask about the IG report. The News service asked if anyone at the White House had prior knowledge of IRS corruption! When in doubt (or guilty as Hell), just Duck, Dodge and Hide!

Of all the corrupt schemes engineered by the Obama Regime, this is the most dangerous to their future plans. If Republicans remain steadfast in their criticism of Obama and continue the political pressure, the One might be forced to play defense during much of his last four years. That is certainly NOT what he had in mind after the election.

From the outset, Internal Revenue Service lawyers based in Washington, D.C., provided important guidance on the handling of tea-party groups’ applications for tax-exempt status, according to both IRS sources and the inspector general’s report released in mid May.

Officials in the Technical Unit of the IRS’s Rulings and Agreements office played an integral role in determining how the targeted applications were treated, provided general guidelines to Cincinnati case workers, briefed other agency employees on the status of the special cases, and reviewed all those intrusive requests demanding “more information” from tea-party groups. At times, the Technical Unit lawyers seemed to exercise tight control over these applications, creating both a backlog in application processing and frustration among Cincinnati agents waiting for direction.

An IRS employee who asked not to be identified tells National Review Online that all members of the agency’s Technical Unit are based in Washington, D.C. A current list of Technical Unit managers provided by another IRS employee shows that all such managers are based at the agency’s headquarters on Constitution Avenue in the District of Columbia, and the IRS confirmed, in a testy exchange with National Review Online, that the Technical Unit is “based in Washington.”

According to the IRS source, who is based in Cincinnati, complex cases are routinely elevated to the Technical Unit for guidance. Many of the questions that agents sent to groups most likely came “from Tax Law Specialists — lawyers — in D.C.,” the Cincinnati employee explains. “With tea-party cases, questions from the Tax Law Specialists were way too aggressive,” he says. The Washington Post described these lawyers as parsing “the murkier, more complex applications” — including those of tea-party groups.

This account comports with the one laid out in the inspector general’s report, although this aspect of the report has been neglected in much of the press coverage. On May 17, 2010, according to the IG report, Determinations Unit specialists in Cincinnati handling tea-party applications were instructed to “send additional information request letters to the Technical Unit for review prior to issuance.” Ten days later, the Technical Unit “began reviewing additional information request letters prepared by the Determinations Unit.”

Read More at National Review . By Eliana Johnson.

In the aftermath of both the Fast and Furious and Associated Press scandals, Eric Holder’s Justice Department is afforded little credibility in performing its prescribed duties.  Still, it appears the department tasked with upholding constitutional law reached the height of hypocrisy by issuing guidelines to employees that blatantly abridge their First Amendment rights.

The document, which concerns gay and lesbian “inclusion” in the workplace, goes much further than merely protecting employees from discrimination.  Language drafted by the DOJ clearly coerces staff members at all levels to openly support a lifestyle they might find morally objectionable.

While Christians and others with traditional values have long been told, explicitly or implicitly, to remain silent on the issue of alternative sexuality – effectively excluding one group in favor of another.  That constituted an injustice in and of itself; but, the internal guidelines issued by the DOJ is forcing employees to affirmatively support the lifestyle.  “Silence will be interpreted as disapproval,” the document warns.

The liberty-crushing guidelines do not require much commentary, as anyone who values free speech should be appalled by the list of accepted behavior contained therein.  Staff members are expected to place a “DOJ Pride” sticker or some other pro-gay paraphernalia in their offices “indicating that it is a ‘safe space’” while “gender-specific terms like ‘husband’ and ‘wife’” are unacceptable.  Workplaces should be concerned with providing equal opportunity to employees and openly catering to a politically favorable group does exactly the opposite.  No employer – least of all the Justice Department! – should be allowed to unilaterally impose one viewpoint onto an entire staff. That is exactly what the department has implemented, though, as it goes much further than merely protecting the civil rights of gays.

The guidelines seek to silence dissent by advising employees to “assume that LGBT employees and their allies are listening” and painting a target on those with traditional values.  DOJ staff is expected to “deal with offensive jokes and comments forcefully and swiftly” according to the document, though it has become apparent the meaning of the word “offensive” has become extraordinarily fluid.

Through shrewd and effective marketing of their own sexuality, a small minority of the population has largely silenced those with a different worldview. The DOJ is taking that disturbing trend to another level by making such silence an employment prerequisite.
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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.

“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.

Read More at The LA Times . By Richard Simon and Joseph Tanfani.

Photo credit: terrellaftermath

As  a native of Oklahoma City, I have been following news coverage of the recent  tornado damage with much interest.  The loss of life and property damage in  Moore, Oklahoma, and other areas has been horrific, and as Oklahoma’s governor,  Mary Fallin, stated, the region is very much in need of our  prayers.

The  Moore tornado was indeed a newsworthy event.  At last count, it has  resulted in the loss of 24 lives and over $2 billion in property damage.   It was especially heartrending in that Monday’s storm was the second major  tornado to strike Moore in the past 15 years.  The residents of Moore, and  of the entire region, deserve respectful, accurate, and balanced reporting.   What they have received, I believe, is not always that.

When  the national television networks first interrupted broadcast shows for special  reports on Monday afternoon (May 20), they had already begun to describe the  storm as “historic” and “catastrophic.”  Granted that information was  fragmentary at that point, but news reports indulged in what could only be  termed speculation.  It was known that the tornado had struck two  elementary schools that were just letting out, and that fact soon became the  focus of much of the reporting.  It was suggested that “entire classrooms”  of children may have been lost along with their teachers.  The storm was  immediately compared to the Joplin tornado of 2011, which killed 158 residents.   Total loss of life for the Moore tornado was initially reported at 51 and  projected to be well over 100.  That projection was then reduced to “at  least 24.”

Certainly  the aerial photos were gripping.  Hundreds if not thousands of homes had been destroyed.  Cars along Interstate 35  were piled up in heaps.  Dazed residents were shown walking about, sifting through the debris and searching for  survivors.

As  these photos appeared, newscasters commented on the events in emotional and  sometimes frenzied tones of voice.  Again and again, they referred to the  “dozens of children” that had probably been lost.  Much was made of the  fact that Moore had been hit a second time, repeating and exceeding the  damage of 1999, a tornado outbreak that killed 46 with 318-mph winds.   Monday’s storm is estimated to have had winds of 190  mph.

Read more here 

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Editor’s note: This is another in a series of “WND/WENZEL POLLS” conducted exclusively for WND by the public-opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies.

The faux stone columns from his Denver acceptance speech are crumbling, the fireworks have fizzled and the unadulterated adulation of Barack Obama is a sour feeling of disillusion, as a new poll reveals half of America wants him impeached, including a stunning one in four Democrats.

“It may be early in the process for members of Congress to start planning for impeachment of Barack Obama, but the American public is building a serious appetite for it,” said Fritz Wenzel, of Wenzel Strategies, which did the telephone poll Thursday. It has a margin of error of 4.36 percent.

“Half or nearly half of those surveyed said they believed Obama should be impeached for the trifecta of scandals now consuming Washington.”

Actually, on the issue of the Benghazi scandal, where four Americans were killed when in what may have been a politically motivated series of moves, a surging danger to Americans at the foreign service facility there was ignored until al-Qaida-linked terrorists attacked, 50.1 percent of Americans said Obama should be impeached. That included 27.6 percent of the responding Democrats.

Read More at WND . By Bob Unruh.

The standard rule for handling bad news in politics is to get it all out at once. Take your hits for a news cycle, two or three. And then try to move on.

The conventional wisdom has been that the worst thing to do is allow the bad news to dribble out, poison drop by poison drop, for days, weeks, even months.

Yet that is precisely what Barack Obama has done — and continues to do in his current epidemic of embarrassments — over a decade of controversies and scandals. The amazing thing is, so far, it’s worked like a charm. So, why should he change?

Ignore it. Dismiss it. Dissemble it to death. Didn’t know about it. Point at others. Have others point at others. Have others suggest the criticism is really racial. Stay aloof. Stretch the whole thing out as long as possible. Then call every ensuing question old news, that you’ve discussed it many times. Hope the problem goes away.

And, by golly, usually it has for Obama.

Read More at investors.com . By Andrew Malcolm.