'World's most powerful drug lord' escapes max security prison

The world's most powerful drug lord has escaped from a maximum security Mexican prison. Authorities have launched a manhunt to find drug kingpin Joaquin Guzman, Mexico's National Security Commission said Sunday.

The kingpin known as "El Chapo," who headed the Sinaloa Cartel, escaped through a hole in the shower into a tunnel complete with stairs, electricity and ventilation nearly a mile long, guards at the Altiplano Federal Prison discovered Saturday.

Guzman was "considered the world's most powerful drug lord until his arrest in Mexico in February 2014," according to the Department of Justice. He was on the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest men, with a personal net worth of over a billion dollars.

The U.S. Justice Department describes the cartel Guzman headed as "one of the world's most prolific, violent and powerful drug cartels."

This is Guzman's second escape. He escaped in a laundry cart in 2001 from a high-security prison and was not apprehended again until 2014.

Eighteen prison guards have been arrested under speculation that such an elaborate escape was not possible without corruption.

"The Sinaloa Cartel moves drugs by land, air, and sea, including cargo aircraft, private aircraft, submarines and other submersible and semi-submersible vessels, container ships, supply vessels, go-fast boats, fishing vessels, buses, rail cars, tractor trailers, trucks, automobiles, and private and commercial interstate and foreign carriers," according to the Justice Department.

In January, the Justice Department unsealed indictments of 60 members of the cartel, including Guzman's son, Ivan Guzman-Salazar known as "El Chapito," CNN reports.

The cartel imports cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, other drugs and the chemicals necessary to process methamphetamine into Mexico from Columbia and other countries, a news release from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California said. It then launders money and smuggles drugs from San Diego to distribute throughout the U.S.

Guzman is the subject of best-selling books in Mexico and the "adoring songs known as narcocorridos," CNN reports. His drug exploits have become legendary. He is wanted in the U.S. for several federal crimes related to his drug trafficking and organized crime activities.

Via: Washington Examiner

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With new documents, stench of IRS scandal reaches into its third year

In 2013, Lois Lerner, former head of the IRS non-profit section, pleaded the Fifth Amendment before the House Oversight Committee. She had been called to testify about her division's unjustifiable harassment of conservative applicants for nonprofit status.

Just over a year later, it was reported that a number of Lerner's work emails had gone missing due to a supposed problem with her hard drive. Then last month, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration testified that IRS employees — despite being under explicit orders not to destroy records — had "magnetically erased" as many as 24,000 of Lerner's missing emails from hundreds of data tapes where they were being stored.

Whether the emails' disappearance was innocent or not, the public is only now beginning to get more information about just what it concealed, thanks to an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the IRS by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. Documents unearthed this week show that in Fall 2010, Lerner was working to get the Justice Department to prosecute nonprofits that engaged in political activity. This despite the fact that 501(c)4 groups, which cannot take tax-deductible donations, are permitted to engage in some political advocacy by law and by Civil Rights-era court precedents.

One newly uncovered memo describes an October 2010 meeting between Lerner, an FBI official and senior officials at the Justice Department criminal division that investigates public corruption cases. According to this memo, Lerner attempted to get them to go after groups that Lerner described as "political committees 'posing' as if they are not subject to FEC law."

The newly unearthed emails also confirm that around the same time, the IRS shared as many as 1.25 million pages of confidential tax documents with the Justice Department — an apparent violation of strict federal tax privacy laws. Those million-plus pages, according to an email contained among the new documents, were 113,000 tax filings for 501(c)4 organizations from 2007 until October 2010.

The original IRS scandal hinted at an intensive but narrow effort within one division to punish or at least make life difficult for the Obama administration's political opponents — the sort of thing that could perhaps be chalked up to a few bad actors. But the new documents suggest there were at least attempts to bring other agencies in on the wrongdoing.

Incidentally, the new documents also show how later, in July 2013, Obama Justice Department officials requested access to documents before they were handed over to Congress as part of the investigation into this IRS wrongdoing.

Via: Washington Examiner

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[VIDEO] Justice Department investigating whether airlines are colluding to keep fares high

WASHINGTON –  The U.S. government is investigating possible collusion among major airlines to limit available seats, which keeps airfares high, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.

The civil antitrust investigation by the Justice Department appears to focus on whether airlines illegally signaled to each other how quickly they would add new flights, routes and extra seats.

A letter received Tuesday by major U.S. carriers demands copies of all communications the airlines had with each other, Wall Street analysts and major shareholders about their plans for passenger-carrying capacity, or "the undesirability of your company or any other airline increasing capacity."

The Justice Department asked each airline for its passenger-carrying capacity both by region, and overall, since January 2010.

Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce confirmed that the department is looking into potential "unlawful coordination" among some airlines. She declined to comment further or say which airlines are being investigated.

On a day when the overall stock market was up, stocks of the major U.S. airlines ended the day down 1 to 3 percent on news of the investigation.

American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines all said they received a letter and are complying. Several smaller carriers, including JetBlue Airways and Frontier Airlines, said they had not been contacted by the government.

The airlines publicly discussed capacity early last month in Miami at the International Air Transport Association's annual meeting. After hearing about that meeting, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., requested a Justice Department investigation.

The department had tried to block the most recent merger, the 2013 joining of American Airlines and US Airways, but ultimately agreed to let it proceed after the airlines made minor concessions.

Via: Fox News

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Supreme Court will re-hear Texas affirmative action

The Supreme Court said Monday it will dive back into the fight over the use of race in admissions at the University of Texas, a decision that presages tighter limits on affirmative action in higher education.

The justices said they will hear for a second time the case of a white woman who was denied admission to the university's flagship Austin campus.

The conservative-leaning federal appeals court in New Orleans has twice upheld the university's admissions process, including in a ruling last year that followed a Supreme Court order to reconsider the woman's case.

The case began in 2008 when Abigail Fisher, who is white, was denied admission to the University of Texas's flagship Austin campus because she did not graduate in the top 10 percent of her high school class -- the criterion for 75 percent of the school's admissions. The university also passed her over for a position among the remaining 25 percent, which is reserved for special scholarships and people who meet a formula for personal achievement that includes race as a factor.

The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2013. But rather than issue a landmark decision on affirmative action, it voted 7-1 to tell a lower appeals court to take another look at Fisher's lawsuit. That meant the university's admissions policies remained unchanged.

Last year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals again upheld the university's admissions policy. Fisher is a graduate of Louisiana State University.

Justice Elena Kagan is not taking part in the case. She sat out the first round as well, presumably because of her work on the case when she served in the Justice Department before joining the court.

The case, Fisher v. University of Texas, 14-981, will be argued in the fall.

Via: Fox News

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Dem. Senator Hopes The DOJ Sues Global Warming ‘Deniers’

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is not a fan of anyone who disagrees with him about man-made global warming. And at an event hosted by environmentalists, he made it clear just how much he doesn’t like skeptics.

“But, this vast denial apparatus that propagates the false doubt, that props up the phony science, that gets these yahoos who can’t survive … peer-reviewed scrutiny onto Fox News, onto the cable shows, saying that their scientists, they create an artificial conflict about this and that’s why I think there’s doubt,” the Rhode Island Democrat told attendees at a League of Conservation Voters event in last month, according to a recently published Youtube video.

“A lot of people haven’t seen through the scam that’s being perpetrated,” Whitehouse said. “So that’s one of the reasons I hope that we get another lawsuit out of the Department of Justice, like the one they brought against the tobacco industry that showed that the whole fraudulent scam was a racketeering enterprise, held them accountable for it.”

This is not the only time Whitehouse suggested the federal government prosecute global warming skeptics under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for being a “racketeering enterprise.”

Whitehouse essentially wants the Justice Department to prosecute skeptics the same way it prosecuted the tobacco industry in the late 1990s.

“In 1999, the Justice Department filed a civil RICO lawsuit against the major tobacco companies… alleging that the companies ‘engaged in and executed — and continue to engage in and execute — a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public, including consumers of cigarettes, in violation of RICO,’” Whitehouse wrote in the Washington Post in May — The video that was recently posted to Youtube, was from an event that took place before his op-ed was written.

“The parallels between what the tobacco industry did and what the fossil fuel industry is doing now are striking,” Whitehouse added.

Whitehouse, however, was forced to admit at the end of his op-ed that he didn’t actually know “whether the fossil fuel industry and its allies engaged in the same kind of racketeering activity as the tobacco industry.” But, of course, he suggested there’s a lot of evidence pointing in that direction.

Ironically, Whitehouse’s support for using RICO against global warming skeptics came one month before he appeared at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank, to unveil a bill he wrote that would slap a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. While at AEI, Whitehouse talked about how a carbon tax was the “conservative” answer to global warming.

Via: American Spectator

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Supreme Court upholds key tool for fighting housing bias

The Supreme Court handed a surprising victory to the Obama administration and civil rights groups on Thursday when it upheld a key tool used for more than four decades to fight housing discrimination.

The justices ruled 5-4 that federal housing laws prohibit seemingly neutral practices that harm minorities, even without proof of intentional discrimination.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a swing vote, joined the court's four liberal members in upholding the use of so-called "disparate impact" cases.

The ruling is a win for housing advocates who argued that the housing law allows challenges to race-neutral policies that have a negative impact on minority groups. The Justice Department has used disparate impact lawsuits to win more than $500 million in legal settlements from companies accused of bias against black and Hispanic customers.

In upholding the tactic, the Supreme Court preserved a legal strategy that has been used for more than 40 years to attack discrimination in zoning laws, occupancy rules, mortgage lending practices and insurance underwriting. Every federal appeals court to consider it has upheld the practice, though the Supreme Court had never previously taken it up.

Writing for the majority, Kennedy said that language in the housing law banning discrimination "because of race" includes disparate impact cases. He said such lawsuits allow plaintiffs "to counteract unconscious prejudices and disguised animus that escape easy classification" under traditional legal theories.

Via: Fox News

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California Democrat Demands San Diego Change Name Of Robert E. Lee Elementary School In Response To Charleston Shooting…

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – School across the country are reacting to a recent racially motivated church shooting in South Carolina by distancing themselves from the Old South.

Police believe 21-year-old Dylann Roof attended a bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston June 17 before opening fire on a dozen people, killing a total of nine black men and women, and injuring one other, The Washington Post reports.

“Federal law enforcement officials said Roof, who is white, declared his hatred for black people before opening fire, and the U.S. Justice Department has said it is investigating the attack as a hate crime,” according to the Post.

Leading up to the attack, Roof posted pictures to social media of himself burning the American flag and holding a confederate flag – in one image also posing with a handgun, CNN reports.

n the wake of the deadliest racially motivated shooting in U.S. history, schools across the country are now attempting to do away with their connection to the confederacy, most recently in San Diego.

Tuesday, California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez called on officials in the San Diego Unified School District to change the name of Robert E. Lee Elementary in response to the attack, Fox 5 reports.

“The flag in particular, and anyone associated with this army, in general, have been associated with intolerance, racism and hate, none of which have a place in our schools,” Gonzalez wrote in a letter to SDUSD Superintendent City Marten.

“It is also important to note that the area in which the elementary school is located is truly representative of South San Diego – a vibrant, multi-ethnic community with a strong African-American presence that deserves a school named after someone we can all admire.

“Robert E. Lee is not that person.”

District officials did not respond to Fox 5’s request for comment, but instead issued a bland statement.

“We are sensitive to the concerns voiced by some members of the community that it may not be appropriate to have a school named after Robert E. Lee. We see this as a wonderful opportunity to have a larger community dialogue with students, staff and families about the school name and look at the history and research surrounding Lee in order to make a collectively informed decision about changing the name or retaining it,” the statement read.

Via: EAG News

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$4.2 Million DOJ Grant to Help Young Ex-Cons Be Better Fathers

An inmate at Rikers Island juvenile detention facility carries a plastic fork behind his back as he walks with other inmates. A recent report found that juvenile detainees are subjected to routine violence, both by other inmates and by correction officers. (Julie Jacobson/AP)

(CNSNews.com) – The Justice Department through its Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention is spending up to $4,200,000 in taxpayer dollars to help young fathers who have been incarcerated be better fathers.

The goals of the grant are to “reduce recidivism among young fathers; improve outcomes for young fathers, their children, and family members; and promote responsible fatherhood.”

As many as 10 non-profit groups will be awarded up to $420,000 each for a grant total of $4.2 million. The closing date for applications for the grant, titled “Second Chance Act Strengthening Relationships Between Young Fathers and Their Children: A Reentry Mentoring Project, was March 2, 2015.

“Section 211 of the Second Chance Act authorizes grants to nonprofit groups to provide mentoring and other transitional services, family programming, and employment assistance to help juvenile ex-offenders transition successfully from out-of-home placement and incarceration to the community,” the grant stated.

The target population for the grant is medium-to-high risk offenders. Young fathers must be confined in secure confinement facilities like a juvenile detention center, juvenile correctional facility, staff-secure facility, jail, or prison of a local or state juvenile or adult correctional agency.

Fathers must be admitted to the program before their 25th birthday, although they may continue to take part in the program beyond their 25th birthday. There is no set timeline for terminating services, the grant said, so fathers can continue with the program “as long as is deemed therapeutically necessary.”

According to the grant solicitation, programs should focus on increasing positive parenting behaviors like helping with homework, offering words of encouragement, setting limits, affection and praise, and family activities.

Via: CNS News
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Legal Expert: Obama Is ‘Undermining The Rule Of Law’

John Yoo, the son of Korean immigrants, begins this exclusive 34-minute video interview with The Daily Caller exhibiting his characteristic sense of humor as he reacts to the “amusing circus” of radical progressives who show up regularly and want him fired from the University of California – Berkeley because his views are supposedly unacceptable.

As for the man with a huge paper mache head in the likeness of Yoo’s head, Yoo wonders, “How much rent does he pay to store my head?”

Working in a very left-wing area, Yoo explains why he doesn’t want liberals to be in charge of running anything.

Apart from being an irritant to the left, John Yoo is Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law School of Law at Cal Berkeley. He is also a visiting scholar with the American Enterprise Institute. Graduating from Harvard, he attended law school at Yale, clerked at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Supreme Court. He was general counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and has authored seven books and over 90 articles for scholarly journals.

Yoo is an erudite scholar, a popular speaker and an avid columnist. He was a senior legal adviser at the Justice Department in the George W. Bush Administration and became well known for his opinion about presidential powers.

According to Yoo, President Obama is, without precedent, “undermining the rule of law” by picking winners and losers in the enforcement of laws, as opposed to how they were dictated by Congress.

John Yoo invokes Superman’s “Bizarro World,” where things are the opposite of what they are supposed to be, in assessing Obama’s presidency. To Yoo, Obama’s view of the presidency — exhibiting weakness abroad and yet dominance in domestic politics — this is “the reverse of what the framers’ presidency” prescribed.

Via: The Daily Caller

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[VIDEO] House Moves to Stop Operation Choke Point

Making clear its official stance against Operation Choke Point, the House passed a measure that prohibits the Justice Department from using any funds to carry out the controversial program. Critics say it unfairly targets legal businesses like pawn shops, gun dealers and payday lenders.

On Wednesday, lawmakers approved the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, which allocates funding to a range of agencies and also includes a provision to defund Operation Choke Point.

“While I had hoped that the unprecedented Operation Choke Point would have been far behind us by now, it was once again necessary to offer an amendment to the annual Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations legislation to prohibit funding for it,” said Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., who sponsored the amendment.

My colleagues and I will continue to ensure [the Justice Department] and FDIC enforcement actions are focused on actual threats and risks and not politics and ideology as we continue to move forward with the fight to end this illegal program once and for all.

After failed past attempts by Congress to end Operation Choke Point, members this time are “hopeful” this strategy will work.

“The House has done its job and now we hope the second legislative branch and the executive branch will join us on behalf of standing up for the American people,” Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., a member of the House Financial Services Committee, which has been critical of Operation Choke Point, told The Daily Signal.

Operation Choke Point was launched by the Justice Department in 2013 as a way to combat consumer fraud by working with multiple government agencies—among them, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation—to discourage banks from doing business with “high risk” industries.

Since its inception, critics say the program is being used to drive industries that are politically unpopular out of business.

Via: The Daily Signal

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Administration preps new gun regulations

The Justice Department plans to move forward this year with more than a dozen new gun-related regulations, according to list of rules the agency has proposed to enact before the end of the Obama administration.

The regulations range from new restrictions on high-powered pistols to gun storage requirements. Chief among them is a renewed effort to keep guns out of the hands of people who are mentally unstable or have been convicted of domestic abuse.

Gun safety advocates have been calling for such reforms since the Sandy Hook school shooting nearly three years ago in Newtown, Conn. They say keeping guns away from dangerous people is of primary importance.

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But the gun lobby contends that such a sweeping ban would unfairly root out a number of prospective gun owners who are not a danger to society.

“It’s clear President Obama is beginning his final assault on our Second Amendment rights by forcing his anti-gun agenda on honest law-abiding citizens through executive force,” said Luke O’Dell, vice president of political affairs at the National Association for Gun Rights.

The Justice Department plans to issue new rules expanding criteria for people who do not qualify for gun ownership, according to the recently released Unified Agenda, which is a list of rules that federal agencies are developing.

Some of the rules come in response to President Obama’s call to reduce gun violence in the wake of Sandy Hook. He issued 23 executive actions shortly after the shooting aimed at keeping guns away from dangerous people, and some of those items remain incomplete. 

“If America worked harder to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, there would be fewer atrocities like the one that occurred in Newtown,” Obama said at the time.

“We can respect the Second Amendment while keeping an irresponsible, law-breaking few from inflicting harm on a massive scale,” he added.

Gun control groups have rallied around Obama’s call to action, zeroing in on polices that would keep guns away from the mentally ill and domestic abusers.

Via: The Hill

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Loretta Lynch's Justice Department Just Launched a Full-Blown Offensive Against FIFA

May 27, 2015 Loretta Lynch's Justice Department unsealed a 47-count indictment Wednesday morning laden with racketeering, corruption and conspiracy charges against 14 people associated with FIFA, the world soccer association, and international soccer organizations.

It's the latest in a series of high-profile moves from the Justice Department since Lynch became attorney general last month, including its investigations into police misconduct in Baltimore. The indictment was born out of the Eastern District of New York, where Lynch served as U.S. attorney until her confirmation.

According to a Justice Department release, the defendants include high-ranking FIFA officials—including two of the organization's vice presidents—officials from soccer associations "that operate under the FIFA umbrella," and South American and U.S. marketing executives. The indictment comes as FIFA is slated to hold an election Friday for president; it had beenexpected that the current leader, Sepp Blatter, will get a fifth term in office.

(RELATED: John McCain Wants FIFA to Take the World Cup Away From Russia)

In a statement, Lynch said the Justice Department plans to work with other nations to "end corrupt practices" within FIFA and "root out misconduct."

"The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted both abroad and here in the United States," Lynch said in a statement. "It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks. And it has profoundly harmed a multitude of victims, from the youth leagues and developing countries that should benefit from the revenue generated by the commercial rights these organizations hold, to the fans at home and throughout the world whose support for the game makes those rights valuable."

The Justice Department's actions against FIFA officials and associates have spanned continents in just the last few hours. In the early morning in Zurich, Swiss law enforcementarrested seven of the defendants "at the request of the United States." And department officials reported that the Miami headquarters of CONCACAF, the organization governing soccer in the Americas, was served with a search warrant Wednesday morning. The president of CONCACAF, Jeffrey Webb, was one of the defendants named in the indictment who was arrested in Zurich Wednesday. His predecessor, Jack Warner, was also named in the indictment. Two corporations and four individual defendants named in the indictment have already pled guilty.

Via: National Journal

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[VIDEO] Claim: Obama Stacking DHS Immigration Enforcement Office With Pro-Open Borders, Amnesty Attorneys

As Congress gets ready to battle on immigration reform next year, it's important to take a look at who will help enforce and shape any kind of immigration overhaul. Former Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General and radical open borders attorney Tom Perez was safely put into the position of Labor Secretary by President Obama and the Senate earlier this year, knowing the Department of Justice is safely locked down as pro-amnesty. Perez has a long history of advocating not for American workers, but for illegal alien workers and made sure the Department of Justice was stacked with pro-amnesty attorneys before making his way to the Labor Department.

Recently the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, followed suit by hiring nearly a dozen pro-amnesty attorneys. DOJ whistleblower and attorney J. Christian Adams has the details:

Megyn Kelly interviews former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams

Via: Fox News

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Reporter Bob Franken Blasts Obama on MSNBC: ‘Most Hostile’ to Press ‘in U.S. History’

During a segment examining the complaints lodged by a group of photojournalists relating to how the White House manipulates public accounting of events by blocking independent photography, an MSNBC panel tore into President Barack Obama’s handling of relations with the press. One guest shocked the anchor when he asserted that Obama is the “most hostile” White House in American history when it comes to press freedoms. 

The segment began with Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank observing that a number of photojournalists have protested this White House’s decision to block photographers from independent media outlets from getting the best shots in favor of White House-approved photographers. He noted that this practice can be construed as an effort to attempt to manipulate public opinion.

“Let’s use the ‘P’ word here: it’s propaganda,” said syndicated columnist and former White House reporter Bob Franken. “Every administration tries to manipulate the press, but this is the most hostile to the media that has been in United States history.”

“The reason I say most hostile is because of the Justice Department moves that they’ve made against the press,” Franken continued. “Obviously, they have a contempt for the journalistic process.”

RELATED: Photojournalists Protest White House’s Aggressive, ‘Stalinist’ Image-Making of Obama

The Blaze anchor Amy Holmes added that there is some irony in this condition because White House Press Sec. Jay Carney was a former TIME Magazine reporter. “We’re talking about censorship,” she added. “If a photo says a thousand words, this White House only wants happy talk.”

Milbank says that he could accept that Obama may be more hostile to the press than George W. Bush, but that it would be a close contest between the two to determine which White House was the most hostile to press freedoms in American history.

“There has been such a love-fest between this White House press corps and the Obama administration that I think they’ve been putting up with a lot more manipulation,” Holmes submitted. She said that the dynamic between the media and the White House has changed as the administration begins to falter.

“Jay’s sort of like the reformed smoker, you know? He now has disdain for those people in the profession he left behind,” Milbank said. “I think this president also, sometimes justifiably, looks down at people in this line of work.”

“It’s created an underlying hostility that really bubbles up when the administration is having problems like it is today,” he concluded.

Watch the segment below via MSNBC:

Via: Mediaite.com

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Obama admin. not prosecuting wind farms for bird deaths

The Obama administration is giving wind power producers a pass by not going after them for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of federally protected birds and bats.

But the feds have gone after fossil fuel and other companies that have killed these animals.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service currently has 18 open investigations into bird and bat deaths due to wind power operations, according to a service spokeswoman, with 14 of these cases involving the death of at least one golden eagle — which are federally protected under three different laws. Seven of these cases have been referred to the U.S. Justice Department for “potential prosecution.”

A spokesman with the Justice Department, however, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that there “have been no prosecutions to date under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and/or the Bald and Gold Eagle Protection Act related to the deaths of migratory birds, including eagles, at wind facilities.”

The Obama administration’s support for wind energy development and inaction against wind producers that allegedly break these laws has sparked the ire of House Republicans. Earlier this month, Republicans on the Committee on Natural Resources sent letters to the administration slamming them for not providing documentation related to bird deaths from wind farms.

“[Justice Department’s] lack of a timely response is unacceptable and frustrates Congress’s ability to conduct oversight of this important matter,” reads one letter sent to the Justice Department.

One of the most contentious energy issues of the 2012 campaign was the Wind Production Tax Credit, or wind PTC, which paid wind power producers for the electricity they generated from harnessing the wind.

Obama supported the tax credit to bolster support in states like Iowa where the wind energy industry has a huge presence. Nineteen non-energy firms — including Yahoo!, Starbucks and Sprint — also sent a letter to Congress urging them to extend the tax credit.

Via: Daily Caller

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MILLER: Ted Cruz targeted by Politifact over gun crime facts cited to Jay Leno

Left-leaning Politifact twisted itself in knots to declare Sen. Ted Cruz’s data on gun prosecutions declining under President Obama as “mostly false.” 

In fact, the Republican senator correctly stated on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” on Nov. 8 that “Under President Bush, prosecution of gun crimes was 30 percent higher than it is under President Obama.”

Politifact first accused Mr. Cruz of “cherry picking” by comparing the year with the highest number of prosecutions under President George W. Bush, which was 11,015 in 2004, to the 7,774 under Mr. Obama in 2012. 

To make his point, the senator can take the highest number in the Bush administration. But there is no debating that if Mr. Cruz selected any year from 2002 to 2008, it would have shown more prosecutions than 2012. 

“The point of this data is that more can be done to target violent criminals, and this administration has not made that a priority,” Mr. Cruz’s spokesman, Catherine Frazier, told me Friday. “The senator believes that our focus must be on prosecuting those who commit gun crimes, not taking away the Second Amendment rights of those who follow the laws.”

Second, Politifact found fault in the source of the correct data. Mr. Cruz cited the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse from Syracuse University, which tracks crimes in which the lead charge is firearms-related. 

However, Politifact didn’t like these numbers, so instead used the Justice Department figures in which gun charges were included in all the charges. By looking at all charges, it benefits Mr. Obama because the 2004 number (12,962) was the lowest in Mr. Bush’s presidency. But still, that number is higher than the 11,728 prosecutions in 2012. 

Via: Washington Times

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