Tea Party Leader: When IRS Asked For Copies of Speeches & Names of Em …

Peter Riehm, chairman of the Common Sense Campaign, a conservative group was on with Neil Cavuto today.

Riehm told Neal they withdrew their application after months and months of harassment.

Thuggery knows no bounds.

Several Tea Party groups shut down after continued harassment by the Obama Internal Revenue Service before the 2012 election.

Delco Conservative reported:

America has reached a troubling point in its long history when a presidential administration and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are suspicious of ordinary, patriotic Americans who revere their country’s founding principles and worry about high levels of government spending and debt.

Beginning in 2009, Tea Party and grassroots patriot groups in Pennsylvania and other states raised concerns about the size and power of the federal government and complained about being overtaxed, and their public protests against intrusive “big government” and the Obama administration put them on the IRS’s radar.

Well, it turns out Tea Party fears of unchecked government authority were well-founded in light of the IRS’s revelation that agency employees abused their power by targeting the grassroots groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.

As a result, conservative groups seeking to become nonprofit organizations — including at least three in the Keystone State — felt intimidated by the IRS and experienced lengthy delays during the application process. These delays — from one to three years — prevented donors from contributing to the groups.

Jennifer Stefano, a Philadelphia-area Tea Party activist and currently Pennsylvania State Director for Americans for Prosperity, tried to start her own grassroots group, The Loyal Opposition, between 2010-2011, according to Pennlive.com. But when she applied for tax-exempt status, the tax agency’s questionnaire “put her off.”

Among other requests, the IRS wanted Stefano’s personal Facebook page. A lawyer warned her, ‘They’re going to come after you and if you make one mistake they could ruin your life’, she said.

“I like to think of myself as very tough, but I’m ashamed to say I was intimidated and frightened, and I shut it down,” Stefano told the publication.

Over five hundred groups have claimed harassment from the Obama IRS.
63% of those groups either withdrew applications or are still waiting for the Obama IRS to grant them non-profit status.

 

Sequester Hysteria in Washington, DC — It’s All To Show You

The sequester explained, a cut is not a cut as normal cut as you think about.

It’s baseline budgeting, a government trick. Time for a review …

Every so often you find examples of real journalism. Here are some powerful, well-done stories from local TV stations.

1. Exposing the plethora of benefits available to those who want government-subsidized idleness.
2. Exposing how eminent domain laws are used to screw poor people out of their property.
3. Exposing local government officials engaged in a witch hunt against an innocent man.

Newspapers also sometimes speak truth to power.

1. A Michigan newspaper exposing how motorists were getting ripped off by illegal speed limits.
2. A Pennsylvania newspaper exposing how a local bureaucrat  union tried to stop a boy scout from improving a local park.
3. A New York newspaper exposing the education establishment for giving teachers $100,000-plus salaries for doing nothing.

House Republicans on gun compromise: ‘It’s not a foregone conclusion’

WASHINGTON — Does the Republican-controlled House of Representatives have any appetite whatsoever for the new gun control legislation moving through the Senate?

“It’s not a foregone conclusion that that bill is going to become law,” Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam said in response to a question from The Daily Caller during a conference call with several reporters Thursday.

Roskam, an Illinois Republican, was referring to the compromise proposal offered Wednesday by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia that observers say is the best hope for a gun control package.

Amp Up The Christian Hate …

Another “isolated incident.” “Just want to ensure everyone is somewhat educated on some of the groups out there that do not share our Army Values.”

 Army Email Labels Christian Ministries as ‘Domestic Hate Groups’

Last week, Fox News reported that an Army training instructor told a Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania that Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism were examples of religious extremism. The Army categorized that episode as an isolated incident.

More nonsense from Obama … Loves Muslims. And the religion of pieces.

BP to sell wind business

 

BP is putting its wind business on the block, its latest retreat from renewable energy as the company moves to focus on its core oil and gas operations.

The British oil giant has touted the growth of its wind operations in recent years, but is adjusting “as part of a continuing effort to become a more focused oil and gas company and reposition the company for sustainable growth into the future,” said spokesman Matt Hartwig in an emailed statement.

The company has interest in 16 operating wind farms in nine states, including its Sherbino wind farm in West Texas. Just last year, BP brought three new wind farms into operation, completing construction on projects in Kansas, Pennsylvania and Hawaii, and growing its net wind generation capacity by 50 percent.

In total, BP’s wind power investments are capable of generating a combined 2,600 megawatts of power, or enough to feed 780,000 homes, by BP’s calculations. The company also is involved in 2,000 megawatts of wind power projects in development.

In its 2012 annual report, BP said its wind business has created more than 200 jobs.

In 2011, the British oil giant shut down its solar business after more than three decades. At a recent industry conference in Houston, CEO Bob Dudley said, “We’ve thrown in the towel on solar. … We worked on it for 35 years and never made money.”

BP has ethanol production facilities in Brazil and the United Kingdom and biofuel research operations in the United States.

“This is not an exit from alternative energy,” Hartwig said.

source …

 

Our Squishy Ones — Breaking bread: Obama to Dine With Republican Senators at Jefferson Hotel amid Sequester Gridlock

Here are the “squishy ones”

Among the GOP lawmakers expected to attend: Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

So how exactly do you find compromise with an uncompromising ideologue dictator wanna be, like Obama?

Snow Blast Set For Chicago, DC

Extra Heavy helping of global warming goodness to arrive RSN …

SNOW BLAST SET FOR CHICAGO, DC…

Impacts from a storm targeting millions of people in the eastern states will range from travel disruptions and power outages caused by heavy snow to coastal flooding from storm surge.

A major storm will bring heavy snow from parts of North Carolina to portions of West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey spanning Wednesday into Thursday.

The storm will be moving through the central Appalachians toward the mid-Atlantic coast during the middle of the week, after blasting portions of the Plains and Midwest Monday into Tuesday.

Snow

Based on the latest information, the area that is most likely to receive a foot or more of snow lies across the higher elevations of eastern West Virginia into western parts of Virginia.

5 Year-Old Girl Suspended After Threatening Fellow Student With “Hello Kitty” Bubble Gun Toy

ABC News reported:

A 5-year-old girl was suspended from school earlier this week after she made what the school called a “terrorist threat.”

Her weapon of choice? A small, Hello Kitty automatic bubble blower.

The kindergartner, who attends Mount Carmel Area Elementary School in Pennsylvania, caught administrators’ attention after suggesting she and a classmate should shoot each other with bubbles.

“I think people know how harmless a bubble is. It doesn’t hurt,” said Robin Ficker, an attorney for the girl’s family. According to Ficker, the girl, whose identity has not been released, didn’t even have the bubble gun toy with her at school.

Fracking Amazing: US Carbon Emissions in 2012 Will be Lower than in 2007 Due to Fracking

Instapundit points to this bit of happy news culled from John Hanger, a Democrat who is running for governonr of Pennsylvania, where has been secretary of the state department of the environment and a commissioner of the public utility commission:

US energy related carbon emissions in 2012 will fall below 5,300 million tons or down about 12%, compared to the peak emissions of 6,023 million tons in 2007.  Through this September, carbon emissions have been down every month in 2012, when compared to each of the first 9 months of 2011 and 2010. No other country matches that record.

www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec12_3.pdf/sec12_3.pdf/.

US GDP has grown every quarter since July 1, 2009, and today our economy is bigger than it was in 2007, the peak carbon emission year.  Yet, even with an economy in 2012 that is bigger than in 2007, our carbon emissions will be 12% lower than they were in 2007….

Only the USA has had a shale gas boom and only the USA has cut substantially its carbon emissions since 2006….the shale gas boom substantially decreased US carbon emissions.  Moreover, US electricity prices in 2012 have barely increased and natural gas prices have plummeted.

Hanger further notes that the U.S. is at around 1995 levels for energy-related carbon emissions. And note that lower emissions aren’t simply an artifact of the rotten economy (which however bad it is is larger than 2007).

Lower emissions through fracking.

YOUNG PENN. MOTHER TELLS TEENS TO ‘GET A JOB’ WHEN THEY ASK FOR A CIGARETTE — AND THEY KILL HER

How bad has American culture gotten? Consider this…

Three Pennsylvania teens were arrested for shooting a young mother dead after she told them to “get a job” when they were begging for cigarettes.

Three Pennsylvania teens were arrested for shooting a young mother dead after she told them to “get a job” when they were begging for cigs.

The Blaze reported:

A young mother was senselessly murdered by three teens in western Pennsylvania after she told them to “get a job” and stop roaming the streets when they asked her fiancée for a cigarette, police say.

Beaver Falls police have charged 14-year-olds Todavia Cleckley and Marcus Velasquez and 13-year-old Kyle Goosby Jr. with criminal homicide and other charges in Saturday’s shooting of 22-year-old Kayla Peterson.

She was shot at about 3:30 p.m. that day and died in a Pittsburgh hospital two hours later.

Goosby is in custody and his attorney says he was just “in the wrong place at the wrong time” when Velasquez – identified as the gunman by police – opened fire. Beaver Falls Police Chief Charles Jones says officers are still searching for the other two suspects.