The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | NRCC ad blames Barack Obama for food stamp use rising by 13,000 a day

A recent ad by the National Republican Congressional Committee -- the House Republicans’ campaign arm -- offers a flurry of statistics to argue that President Barack Obama doesn’t deserve a second term. "What's become of America since President Obama took full control of Washington?" the narrator says. "A wrecked economy, with debt and waste beyond imagination. Since then, gas prices have gone up more than 82 percent. Every single day, more than 1,500 of our jobs have been lost. Every day, another 2,700 of us realize it's been six months since we last had a ...

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AP - Presidential hopeful Ron Paul is predicting the political revolution he is pushing won't be limited to the Republicans he hopes nominate him and is urging his supporters of all stripes to rally behind his struggling White House bid.

AP - Israeli officials say they won't warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, top-level conversations with U.S. officials, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and on Capitol Hill.

Politico - The numbers on how much House Republicans spent in their year-old probe are hard to find.

Daily Caller - House Speaker John Boehner blamed “radical environmental groups” for high gas prices and said that it’s “just about damn time that we actually have a national energy policy and do something the American people want us to do.”

The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly False | NRCC ad says 1,500 jobs lost daily since President Barack Obama took office

A recent ad by the National Republican Congressional Committee -- the House Republicans’ campaign arm -- offers a flurry of statistics to argue that President Barack Obama doesn’t deserve a second term. "What's become of America since President Obama took full control of Washington?" the narrator says. "A wrecked economy, with debt and waste beyond imagination. Since then, gas prices have gone up more than 82 percent. Every single day, more than 1,500 of our jobs have been lost. Every day, another 2,700 of us realize it's been six months since we last had a job. Every ...

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AP - Billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson has given another "substantial" contribution to an independent group supporting Republican Newt Gingrich, helping the group launch new TV ads in seven states where the former House speaker hopes to resurrect his struggling presidential campaign.

AP - The White House on Monday welcomed a Canadian company's plan to build an oil pipeline from Oklahoma to Texas after President Barack Obama blocked the larger Keystone XL pipeline from Canada.

In  January and February of this year, the Internal Revenue Service began  sending out letters to various local Tea Parties across the country.  Mailed from the same Cincinnati, Ohio IRS office, these letters have  reached Tea Parties in Virginia, Hawaii, Ohio, and Texas (we are hearing  of more daily). There are several common threads to these letters: all  are requesting more information from these independent Tea Parties in  regard to their nonprofit 501(c)(4) applications (for this type of  nonprofit, donations are not deductible). While some of the requests are  reasonable, much of them are strikingly onerous and, dare I say,  Orwellian in nature.

What are local Tea Partiers to think with requests  like “Please identify your volunteers” or “are there board members or  officers who have run or will run for office (including relatives)”? What  possible reason would the IRS have for Tea Parties to “name your  donors” when said donations are non-deductible? These are just a few of  the questions asked by the IRS in these letters, and one cannot help but  suspect an intrinsic threat encompassing all these demands.

The  other question is the timing of these IRS letters requesting reams of  copies and hundreds of hours of work and potentially thousands of  dollars in accounting/legal fees (all due in two weeks). Some of these  Tea Party groups have not received anything concerning their nonprofit  status since 2010 prior to these letters.

These documents are further undermined by a letter sent to the IRS Commissioner Shulman. Signed by six Senators, it  requests that the commissioner investigate 501(c)(4) groups to determine  whether they are engaging in substantial campaign activity, including opposition to  any candidate. Who signed this letter? Senators Schumer, Franken,  Udall, Shaheen, Whitehouse, Merkley and Bennet — all Democrats.

Could  it be that these Senators want the IRS to investigate the nonprofit  status of Media Matters and its coordinated political activity with the  White House? Or perhaps they are concerned with nonprofit ACORN groups’ record of  voter fraud, and other previous campaign abuses including alleged close  ties with President Obama’s Project Vote?  No, when these Senators sent  this letter to the IRS commissioner, the message would be very clear.  The 501(c)(4) groups they want investigated are not those with Democratic  liberal ties.

But  why would a department like the IRS cave to Democrat demands? Could it  be because this Democratic administration proposed a budget earlier this  month that would result in “$1.1 billion in new funds for the Internal Revenue Service… that  would translate to 5,112 new hires, or a 5 percent expansion of  enforcement operations”? Colleen Kelley, president of the National  Treasury Employees Union, couldn’t contain her glee at the prospect of  over 5,000 new union hires, exclaiming in response to the announcement  that “the administration’s 2012 funding level for the IRS would permit  the agency to improve services through increasing response rates to  inquiries, deploying enforcement resources to what the White House  called high-return integrity activities and by modernizing information  technology systems.”

The  IRS is already focusing on “deploying enforcement resources,” as Kelley  put it, toward targeting small, local Tea Parties; we’re sorry to  report that these “high-return integrity activities” are generating a  higher fear factor, not necessarily higher returns.

In  the near future, the Affordable Healthcare Act mandate and all things  related to healthcare are to be policed and enforced by the IRS.  This  means thousands more IRS agents will be added, but the actual number is  yet unknown. Considering that healthcare accounts for 1/6th of the U.S.  economy, it will probably be a significant number of additional agents.   According to the tax administration inspector general, Russell George,  “The new Affordable Care Act provisions represents the largest set of  tax law changes in 20 years.” That’s an overwhelming thought considering there are over 70,000 pages of federal tax code.

The  Tea Party movement is well known for wanting to shrink the size of  government and decrease government spending because of the ballooning  deficit.  This means that unionized government employees that may be out  of a job if the Tea Party is successful also have the power to choose  whether or not Tea Party groups get nonprofit status.  And those same  employees are also requesting names and information of board members,  volunteers, donors, invited speakers(and party affiliation) and just  about anyone that has had any association with the Tea Party.

It  is apparent that there is a potential conflict of interest and it could  be used to stifle the right to free speech of the Tea Party members, or  any other citizen willing to question the system and powers that be.

Many  Tea Party boards are afraid to speak out publicly about these intrusive  requests because of fear of being personally targeted and singled out  by the IRS. This is especially scary to citizens of modest incomes that  don’t have the financial means to hire accountants or tax attorneys.   And that is probably the point.  Cower and fade away, or face possible  persecution at the hands of government bureaucrats.

Some  people may read this article about this possibly-coordinated effort  against Tea Parties and be glad. But, the tables can easily be turned if  and when another party takes control.  The potential of using the IRS  as a weapon against those that disagree with the people in power is  exactly why the Tea Party fears the growth of government.

If  your Tea Party has received similar letters, please let me know (Colleen Owens, citizenczar@gmail.com) and I  will put you in contact with other Tea Parties that have also received  them.  I will not publish your Tea Party or names publicly.

Remember the words of Ben Franklin, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Wyoming lawmakers pushed forward legislation to explore how the state would respond if the country fell into economic and political turmoil.

The so-called doomsday bill, passed in the Wyoming House on Friday, would create a special task force to study ways the state would handle such crises as a food shortage to a government shutdown. Some provisions that will be explored include Wyoming forming its own army and issuing its own currency.

The task force formed by the bill would include state lawmakers, the head of Wyoming's Department of Homeland Security and the state attorney general.

The bill must pass two more House votes before it reaches the Senate, according to the Casper Star-Tribune.

So far, no word if the task force will explore solutions for a Zombie Apocalypse, as the Center For Disease Control has done.

Politico - Three House Democrats — Ed Markey, Peter Welch and Rosa DeLauro — urge Obama to open up the spigots.

AP - House Democrats' path to power starts in Elk Grove, Calif., heads down to sunny Modesto and then rolls through the Central Valley to Riverside as the state's friendly redrawn congressional districts and a number of GOP retirements offer Democrats their best opportunity for victories in November.

To a certain ten-year-old boy living in Dixon, Illinois, in 1921, the town’s modest public library was a revelation, a “house of magic,” as he would later put it. At least once a week, young Ronald “Dutch” Reagan would take the long walk from his family’s home to the Dixon library, returning the two or more books he had devoured that week and eagerly speculating about what new discoveries or adventures he might find next.

The Reagans had only recently moved back to Dixon after short stays in several other Illinois cities and towns. For the future president, reading was not only a lifelong passion but also, during his unsettled early childhood, a means of escape and exploration. According to Reagan’s biographers and letters, few American authors made a greater impression on young Dutch than Edgar Rice Burroughs. Best known as the creator of Tarzan, one of the most successful characters in popular fiction and entertainment, Burroughs wrote dozens of other works spanning such genres as adventure, mystery, horror, westerns, humor, and a type of science fiction known as “planetary romance” or “sword and planet” stories.

Keep reading this post . . .

Politico - They're lowering the price tag, shortening the duration and getting rid of a transit funding provision.

RALEIGH, N.C. — The former mistress of John Edwards has won ownership of a sex tape she filmed with the former presidential candidate as he was running for the White House.

Rielle Hunter sued former Edwards aide Andrew Young and his wife in 2010 over the tape and other personal items the couple claimed she left in a box of trash. Hunter lived with the Youngs in 2007, while she was pregnant with Edwards' baby, and Young initially claimed to be the father of the baby.

In a court settlement Thursday, the Youngs agreed to give up their claim on the property, which has been held in the vault of a North Carolina courthouse. The Youngs also agreed not to talk publicly about the tape or the other items, which include photos of Hunter with the child and a list of names titled "The Slut Club."

Andrew Young previously described the intimate tape in his tell-all book about how Edwards hid his mistress and child amid the 2008 White House campaign.

The settlement does not address a pending contempt of court case against the Youngs and two of their attorneys for providing copies of items that had been under seal to federal officials investigating Edwards for campaign finance violations.

Edwards was indicted on six felony and misdemeanor counts last year related to nearly $1 million provided by two wealthy donors used to help hide his mistress from the public. Edwards served a single term in the U.S. Senate before becoming the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2004.

Reuters - Three Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday urged the White House to signal it is ready to tap the nation's oil stockpiles to combat surging fuel prices, arguing an "aggressive" strategy could tamp down speculation.

AP - Israel gave preliminary approval on Wednesday to a plan to build 600 new homes in a settlement deep inside the West Bank, a move that drew rebukes from the United Nations and Palestinians and threatened to raise tensions with the U.S. as the prime minister prepares to head to the White House.

AP - This is the text of American war reporter Marie Colvin's final interview, given to BBC television from the Syrian city of Homs the night before she was killed Wednesday. She was staying in a house in the neighborhood of Baba Amr. Reprinted with the permission of the BBC.

AP - The White House says President Barack Obama will address the annual conference of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, next month.

Reuters - President Barack Obama spoke on Monday with his Afghan counterpart to discuss regional support for Afghan-led reconciliation, the White House said.

AP - A "super" political action committee backing Mitt Romney's White House run raised more than $6 million last month.

Politico - Whoever wins the White House will encounter a fresh challenge of personalities and policies.

Politico - The bill now heads to the state's Senate, which has passed it before.

Reuters - U.S. job creation will pick up this year as a moderate economic recovery continues, the White House said on Friday, but it faces a key risk from the debt crisis in Europe.