Judges Set Clock Ticking for IRS to Explain, Recover Missing Emails
Philip Wegmann / July 12, 2014
The IRS has less than 30 days to detail under oath and in writing the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of former official Lois Lerner’s emails and to summarize options to recover the messages, a federal judge ruled.
Judicial Watch, a non-partisan watchdog group, has sought the documents from the Internal Revenue Service since last year as part of its ongoing lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The judge gave the IRS no more than 30 days, or until Sept. 10, to comply with the order.
Part of a greater compromise, the ruling handed down Thursday by Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court in Washington allows Judicial Watch to access the documents and limits the exposure to the scandal involving IRS targeting of conservative groups. Originally, Judicial Watch requested that IRS officials testify under oath, The Hill newspaper reported.
In a separate decision Friday afternoon, another federal judge demanded that the IRS provide additional information on Lerner’s missing emails. Ruling in a lawsuit brought by True the Vote, one of the targeted groups, District Court Judge Reggie Walton ordered the tax agency to explain the disappearance, Fox News reported.
In the Judicial Watch case, Judge Sullivan ordered the IRS and the watchdog group to work cooperatively with another federal judge to recover Lerner’s emails, which IRS officials have said were destroyed when a computer hard drive crashed.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton called the decision “a victory for public accountability.” Fitton expressed optimism about eventual recovery of emails, calling Judge John Facciola “an expert in e-discovery.”
The watchdog group previously had said the Lerner emails “could be critical to getting to the bottom of the IRS scandal where tea party and other conservative group applications were illegally delayed by the IRS.”
The Dream , A fantasy Martial Arts Comedy Release date October 2014
Lead Actor ,Written, and Directed by Jennifer Linch Producer and Director of Photography : Jennifer Linch Associate Producer: Dustin SG Producer : John Paul Ouvrier Video Editor : Jennifer Linch Cinematographer : Sean ML Production Manager : Romualdo Caraballo Production Assistants : Rochell Leslie , Morgan Macedo , Patty Maltman Blaine Production Photographers : Robert M. Bennett , Tom Truman, Dan Cymarron
William Binney testifies before a German inquiry into surveillance. Photograph: Getty Images
The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control
At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US, says whistleblower William Binney – that’s a ‘totalitarian mentality’
William Binney is one of the highest-level whistleblowers to ever emerge from the NSA. He was a leading code-breaker against the Soviet Union during the Cold War but resigned soon after September 11, disgusted by Washington’s move towards mass surveillance.
On 5 July he spoke at a conference in London organised by the Centre for Investigative Journalism and revealed the extent of the surveillance programs unleashed by the Bush and Obama administrations.
“At least 80% of fibre-optic cables globally go via the US”, Binney said. “This is no accident and allows the US to view all communication coming in. At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US. The NSA lies about what it stores.”
The NSA will soon be able to collect 966 exabytes a year, the total of internet traffic annually. Former Google head Eric Schmidt once arguedthat the entire amount of knowledge from the beginning of humankind until 2003 amount to only five exabytes.
Binney, who featured in a 2012 short film by Oscar-nominated US film-maker Laura Poitras, described a future where surveillance is ubiquitous and government intrusion unlimited.
Australia judge probed for saying incest ‘may be accepted’
Australian judge to be investigated after he reportedly said sex between siblings was gaining social acceptance just like homosexuality
By AFP
5:30PM BST 11 Jul 2014
An Australian judge will be investigated for his “appalling” comments on incest, in which he reportedly said sex between siblings was gaining social acceptance just like homosexuality, authorities said on Friday.
New South Wales state Attorney General Brad Hazzard said he was “extremely concerned” about District Court judge Garry Neilson’s alleged comments in a case where a man was accused of repeatedly raping his younger sister, which were reported in the Sydney Morning Herald.
“In my view the community would be rightly appalled at his reported comments,” Hazzard said in a statement.
“Incest is completely reprehensible, unacceptable, disgusting and criminal.”
Neilson was quoted as saying communities might no longer see sex between siblings as “unnatural” or “taboo”, likening a change in mindsets to how homosexuality was now socially accepted despite being criminalised in the past.
‘I,’ ‘Me,’ ‘My’—Obama Uses First Person Singular 199 Times in Speech Vowing Unilateral Action July 11, 2014 – 8:56 PM
Not counting instances when he quoted a letter from a citizen or cited dialogue from a movie, President Barack Obama used the first person singular–including the pronouns “I” and “me” and the adjective “my”–199 times in a speech he delivered Thursday vowing to use unilateral executive action to achieve his policy goals that Congress would not enact through the normal, constitutional legislative process.
“It is lonely, me just doing stuff,” Obama said at the speech in Austin, Texas, according to the official transcript and video posted on the White House website.
“I’m just telling the truth now,” Obama told the crowd. “I don’t have to run for office again, so I can just let her rip. And I want to assure you, I’m really not that partisan of a guy.”
2014 Kasschau Memorial Shell Entertainment Schedule
Free Summer Entertainment Under the Stars
2014 Summer Schedule
Click Here for details
You may contact the Kasschau Shell Memorial Committee by email at [email protected]
July 15, 2014 The Kootz – Classic 60’s to 90’s Rock, Pop & Blues Kasschau Memorial Shell Fifty six years of Free Summer Entertainment – 8:30pm at Vet’s Field (behind the Library). Bring a chair or blanket and enjoy the show! Rain Info: 201/444-1776
July 17, 2014 Bucky Pizzarelli & Friends – Jazz Kasschau Memorial Shell Fifty six years of Free Summer Entertainment – 8:30pm at Vet’s Field (behind the Library). Bring a chair or blanket and enjoy the show! Rain Info: 201/444-1776
In the March Monmouth/APP poll, 55% of NJ voters said Booker deserves to be reelected. Today, only 44% say the former Newark Mayor deserves his own six year term in Washington.
Cory Booker can be beaten
Senator Cory Booker’s support for reelection took a sharp drop since March, according to a Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press pollreleased this morning.
In the March Monmouth/APP poll, 55% of NJ voters said Booker deserves to be reelected. Today, only 44% say the former Newark Mayor deserves his own six year term in Washington. Booker was elected last October to fill the remainder of the late Senator Frank Lautenberg’s term. He faces off with Republican Jeff Bell in November.
Booker would beat Bell easily if the election where today, 43%-23%, but 15% say they would vote for a third party candidate and 17% are unsure. But the vast majority of voters, 82%, don’t know enough about Bell for express a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him. The GOP nominee for U.S. Senate against Bill Bradley in 1978, Bell scored a surprise victory in the GOP primary for Senate last month. Of those who do know enough about Bell to express an opinion, the overwhelming impression, 2-1, is favorable.
Perhaps the worst indicator of support for Booker is his favorability rating. While net positive by a significant 43%-14% margin, 43% said they have no opinion of Booker. That is a stunningly high number for a man who was elected to the U.S. Senate last fall, served as mayor of New Jersey’s largest city for over seven years, has over 1 million twitter followers and who has spent over $12 million on his reelection effort since the first of the year.
The Stop & Shop in Ridgewood to close during renovations
JULY 10, 2014 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2014, 3:18 PM BY BY LIZ WELLINGHORST STAFF WRITER
The Stop & Shop in Ridgewood is temporarily closing its doors for a five to six-week renovation, which began on Thursday.
According to Kenny Demchak, assistant store manager, the entire store will be remodeled over the summer, although the floor layout will remain the same.
“We will be adding new floors, redoing shelves and fixtures, adding new signs and expanding our natural and organic food section,” said Demchak.
The second floor pharmacy and liquor store will remain open for customers throughout the renovation, with new store hours for those departments changing during the remodeling.
Parking on the Stop & Shop grounds will be prohibited and strictly enforced throughout the renovation, except for patrons shopping at the pharmacy and liquor store.
An exact date on when Stop & Shop will reopen its doors remains uncertain.
“If all goes according to plan, we hope to reopen by Labor Day and before school begins,” said Demchak. “We will keep customers notified of our reopening by posting updates on our website and with signs in our Ridgewood store windows.”
New pharmacy and liquor store hours are as follows: Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 3 p.m.
Ridgewood three-sport athlete seeking a leading role in his final year
JULY 11, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JULY 11, 2014, 12:31 AM BY MATTHEW BIRCHENOUGH ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR
As a three-sport athlete at Ridgewood High School, Jonathan Davila is familiar with navigating a busy schedule.
So it’s no surprise that the rising senior — a key member of the Maroons’ football, basketball and track teams — has continued his hectic routine into the summer, shuttling from working out at the gym to serving as an instructor at the RHS basketball clinic to taking part in football practices.
The regimen will only get busier as the school year begins for Davila, who is expecting to take on bigger roles for each of the three teams.
“I’m really looking forward to being a leader,” Davila said in an interview Monday evening.
He happens to be a part of three teams that will experience significant roster turnover in 2014-15 due to graduation, which places a greater emphasis on him becoming an influential senior.
But RHS head basketball coach Mike Troy said Davila is ready for the role.
Registration is open for the YWCA Bergen County’s section 2 session of summer swim lessons. Classes run from July 21 through August 16, 2013, and offer American Red Cross swim instruction for ages 6 months to adult. YWCA members can register at www.ywcabergencounty.org, by phone, or in person. Summer classes include Junior Swim Clinic for ages 8 to 16, which teaches advanced swimmers the butterfly stroke, swimming starts, turns, and many other competitive skills. The Synchro Stars Swim Clinic provides the opportunity for swimmers to learn synchronized swimming skills such as sculling, underwater skills, and figures. After completing the Synchro 1 perquisite, Synchro 2 students continue to strengthen their skills, learn routines, and even qualify to enter a competition with the YWCA Synchro Stars. Private swim lessons are also available with one-on-one instruction for ages 4 to adult. The YWCA offers dozens of other fitness, wellness, and enrichment programs for kids, teens, adults, and seniors. Drop-in child care is available at the 112 Oak Street, Ridgewood facility. Visit www.ywcabergencounty.org for details or call 201-444-5600 for a free brochure.
An Argentine and a German, but No Sign at the Vatican of a World Cup Rivalry
Pope and Predecessor Have No Plans for World Cup Final
By JIM YARDLEYJULY 11, 2014
ROME — They have prayed together and embraced each other as brothers, but Pope Francis and his predecessor, Benedict XVI, now pope emeritus, find themselves confronting an odd sort of schism: their twocountries are competing in the finals of the World Cup on Sunday.
For many, this has raised the question of whether they will watch the game together. But the more basic question is whether Francis, 77, of Argentina, and Benedict, 87, of Germany, will be watching at all, given that the match begins at 9 p.m. in Italy and may not end until nearly midnight.
Francis and Benedict have both lived on the grounds of the Vatican since Francis was elected to the papacy in March 2013, after Benedict’s historic resignation. Initially, some analysts speculated that the arrangement might breed intrigue: Would the Vatican be divided between two popes? Instead, the two men have apparently forged a warm friendship, as Benedict has quietly receded from public life while Francis has emerged as a major global figure.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, who has fielded soccer questions this week with a chuckling amusement, doubted the two men would watch the game together, or at all. He noted that Benedict, a scholarly theologian and author of a multipart meditation on the life of Jesus, has never been much of a soccer fan, “though he clearly understands that it’s important to many people.” (In March 2012, Benedict did greet the German star Miroslav Klose at the Vatican.)
JUL 21, 2014, VOL. 19, NO. 42 • BY SCOTT W. JOHNSON
Watching the influx of unaccompanied minors crossing our southwestern border daily, a reasonable man could conclude that we are living out the fevered dreams of a dystopian novel. The United States has lost a basic aspect of sovereignty. Control over its borders is a relic of the past.
Having traversed Mexico with the help of drug cartels freely operating human trafficking networks, Central American minors are voluntarily entering the United States through the Rio Grande Valley. They’re shepherded to the border, where they cross on their own and seek apprehension by Department of Homeland Security agents, believing that minors won’t be deported.
According to Brian Bennett’s intensely reported July 5Los Angeles Times story, U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures show that officers took fewer than 4,000 unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras into custody annually for most of the last decade. Then, in fiscal year 2012, officers seized 10,146 unaccompanied minors. Last fiscal year, they took 20,805; between last October and this June 15, they nabbed 39,133. The overused word “crisis” fits the numbers—indeed, “invasion” doesn’t seem too strong. By July 8, however, the White House had downgraded the invasion from a “crisis” to a “situation.”
In what could be the latest move toward a 2016 presidential bid, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) offered a wide-ranging critique of President Obama’s domestic and foreign policies.
Speaking to reporters at the National Governors Association on Saturday, Christie labeled Obamacare, the administration’s signature legislation, a “failure on a whole number of levels” and said it should be repealed.
“But has to be repeal and replace with what. It can’t just be about repeal,” Christie told the audience. “What I’ve said before is, what Republicans need to be doing is putting forth alternatives for what should be a better healthcare system.”
He also urged his GOP colleagues to keep bringing up their opposition to same-sex marriage, even though a series of court decisions have overturned many statewide gay marriage bans.
“I don’t think there’s some referee who stands up and says, ‘OK, now it’s time for you to change your opinion,’” according to Christie.
Christie also said the latest outbreak of violence between Israelis and Palestinians was partly the White House’s fault because the administration “does stand up for our friends.”
Following the revelation that the Environmental Protection Agency plans to garnish wages without a court order to collect non-tax debts (i.e. misused grant funds, unrepaid loans or “fines, penalties or fees assessed by federal agencies”), the EPA has sought to defend its proposed rules.
The agency cites The Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (DCIA) as its authority for these rules and called it proposed rule “noncontroversial.” It is curious that the agency tucked these rules into the Federal Register as everyone was headed out for the July 4thvacation.
In a Politico story, part of defense offered by EPA was that it had to put these rules forward as “the same Treasury guidelines apply to all federal agencies that refer delinquent non-tax debts to Treasury for Collection.” This is not reassuring. If correct, this means we can soon expect similar rules to garnish wages without a court order from other agencies that have the power to fine citizens. Are such rules in the pipeline for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Occupational Health and Safety Administration, and the Bureau of Land Management?
No matter what the EPA says, it is just wrong for an agency to allege violations, impose fines and then garnish wages without a court order. The whole process is stacked against citizens and ripe for abuse. There are, however, a variety of simple fixes:
First, Congress could use its power of the purse and simply prohibit the use of any funds for garnishing wages without a court order as regards fines or penalties imposed by an agency. Given EPA’s warning that other agencies are likely to follow, it could be widely applied.
Second, Congress could overturn the EPA regulation or the underlying 1998 Treasury regulation.
o It could do so by adding due process requirements to the DCIA, crafting procedures that would not be so stilted in favor of the agency.
o More directly, it could simply require that, in the case of fines or penalties, an agency obtain a court order for wage garnishment.
o It could even amend the DCIA to limit garnishment to non-regulatory debts.
There are other possible fixes, but the point is this: This is a problem that Congress should be easily able to analyze and fix in a bipartisan manner.
An EPA spokesperson tried to assuage fears stating that, before wages could be garnished for fines, alleged violators are given prior notice and the opportunity to “review, contest or enter into a payment agreement.”
When one reads regulations’ fine print that opportunity is not so encouraging. Under EPA’s proposed system, the agency gets to unilaterally decide whether there is an oral hearing or whether it will decide the case based on the paper record. If there is an oral hearing, EPA has unbridled discretion to choose where. So, if you are from Alaska for example, the EPA could decide the oral hearing for your alleged violations will be in Washington DC. Tough luck.
Also, according to EPA’s proposed system, when you arrive your hearing official will be someone picked by the very agency that has sought to impose the fine. EPA gets to designate any individual the agency considers “qualified” for that job. Could EPA’s view of “qualified” include the official who imposed the fines in the first place? Who knows? Finally the standards basically put the burden of proving one’s self innocent on the citizen. While most see this as ridiculously stacked, this is the EPA’s notion of“adopting hearing procedures that … provide due process.”
There is no reason to tolerate this behavior. It is regulators gone wild and should be nipped in the bud.
