On TV this morning, Bob Woodward made the case for not dismissing Benghazi and compared the scandal to Watergate:
"You were talking earlier about kind of dismissing the Benghazi issue as one that's just political and the president recently said it's a sideshow," said Woodward. "But if you read through all these e-mails, you see that everyone in the government is saying, 'Oh, let's not tell the public that terrorists were involved, people connected to al Qaeda. Let's not tell the public that there were warnings.' I hate to show, this is one of the documents with the editing that one of the people in the state department said, 'Oh, let's not let these things out.' And I have to go back 40 years to Watergate when Nixon put out his edited transcripts to the conversations, and he personally went through them and said, 'Oh, let's not tell this, let's not show this.' I would not dismiss Benghazi. It's a very serious issue. As people keep saying, four people were killed. You look at the hydraulic pressure that was in the system to not tell the truth, and, you know, we use this term and the government uses this term, talking points. Talking points, as we know, are like legal briefs. They're an argument on one side. What we need to get rid of talking point and they need to put out statements or papers that are truth documents. Okay, this is all we know."
Posted by Richard A. Serrano on 05/17/2013 at 6:24 PM
WASHINGTON — The head of the FBI said Thursday that there were lapses in tracking accused Boston bomberTamerlan Tsarnaev's visit to Russia last year, saying that U.S. security officials failed to act on "text" alerts to a U.S. Customs agent about his trip.
The inaction came after U.S. officials interviewed Tsarnaev and his parents about Russian concerns that he was traveling there "intent on returning and perhaps participating in jihad," FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said.
Mueller told a Senate appropriations subcommittee that in March 2011, Russian authorities asked the U.S. for a background assessment on Tsarnaev and his mother.
He said the FBI assigned a "very good" agent to conduct a background check on Tsarnaev, review his college records and interview him and his parents. Also, Mueller said, "based on the leads we got from the Russians, we found no ties to terrorism."
In August, the FBI told the Russians that it had found nothing. The Russians, however, never told the U.S. why they suspected Tsarnaev.
Human feces taint more than half of public swimming pools, a finding U.S. health officials are using to urge better personal hygiene as the summer months approach.
E. coli, which indicates the presence of fecal matter, was detected in 58 percent of samples taken from pool filters by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according todata released today by the Atlanta-based agency. Pools frequented mostly by children were more likely to test positive for E. coli, which can cause stomach and respiratory illness.
President Obama "obviously likes giving speeches more than he does running the executive branch," Chris Matthews said tonight.
Yes, you read that right: The MSNBC host who in 2008 felt a "thrill going up my leg" after hearing Obama speak has grown disenchanted. Tonight's episode of Hardball saw Matthews delivering a rare, unforgiving grilling of the president as severe as anything that might appear on Fox News.
"What part of the presidency does Obama like? He doesn't like dealing with other politicians -- that means his own cabinet, that means members of the congress, either party. He doesn't particularly like the press.... He likes to write the speeches, likes to rewrite what Favreau and the others wrote for the first draft," Matthews said.
Posted by Lindsay Buckingham, Lorrie Taylor and Peggy Sinkovich on 05/17/2013 at 6:17 PM
CLEVELAND — Nearly 30 years after the murder of Gloria Pointer, police say they may have caught the man who did it.
And a partial DNA sample just may have been the link that helped solve the case.
Police sources tell the I-Team that the Cuyahoga County cold case unit worked with a Cleveland police homicide detective and cracked the case by submitting the partial DNA sample collected years ago.
New technology allowed the sample to be processed.
A suspect was taken into custody after his DNA was a match in Gloria’s case. Law enforcement sources also said that the suspect is a registered sex offender.
Gloria’s mother, Yvonne Pointer, also confirmed that police have contacted her regarding a suspect, who is now being held for questioning in the teenager’s death.
Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS' Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.
Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.
Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.
As the House voted to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act Thursday evening, House Speaker John Boehner expressed "serious concerns" that the IRS is empowered as the law's chief enforcer.
"Fully repealing ObamaCare will help us build a stronger, healthier economy, and will clear the way for patient-centered reforms that lower health care costs and protect jobs," Boehner, R-Ohio, said.
"Obamacare empowers the agency that just violated the public's trust by secretly targeting conservative groups," Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., added. "Even by Washington's standards, that's unacceptable."
Sen. John Cornyn even introduced a bill, the "Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013," which would prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury, or any delegate, including the IRS, from enforcing the Affordable Care Act.
NBC's Lisa Myers reported this morning that the IRS deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election:
The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."
Posted by Michael B. Keegan on 05/17/2013 at 6:13 PM
Americans of all political stripes should be outraged at the recent revelation that the Tea Party was unfairly targeted by the IRS before last year's election. The IRS should never base its decisions on political preferences or ideological code words, regardless of whatbureaucratic challenges it may face. But the lesson that the right is drawing from the IRS's misdeeds -- the lesson that threatens to dominate the public conversation about the news -- is wrong.
We're seeing a knee-jerk reaction, particularly from the Tea Party and their allies in Congress, that is threatening to turn the IRS's mistakes into an indictment of "big government" writ large. Some are already trying to tie the scandal to the Right's favorite target, Obamacare, and to the Benghazi conspiracy theory.
The danger of this frame is that it will discourage the IRS from fully investigating allnonprofit groups spending money to influence elections. And it will distract from the core problem behind the IRS's mess: the post-Citizens United explosion of undisclosed electoral spending.
Before the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United, only a limited number of nonprofit 501c(4) groups could spend money to influence elections -- those who did not take contributions from corporations or unions. But Citizens United lifted restrictions on corporate spending in elections, setting the stage for individuals and companies to funnel unlimited money through all corporations, including c(4)s and super PACs in an effort to help elect the candidates of their choice. Spending by c(4)s has exploded since Citizens United, since the decision allowed any c(4) nonprofit corporation that didn't spend the majority of its money on electoral work to run ads and campaign for and against candidates. And c(4)s, as long as they follow this rule, don't have to disclose their donors under the laws currently in place.
Posted by Donna Littlejohn on 05/17/2013 at 6:11 PM
Two wheels, handlebars and a seat.
The humble bicycle has been around since the 1800s, beloved as a treasured staple of childhood transportation for generations.
Now, a cycling revival of sorts is sweeping across America's cities, especially among adults seeking a healthier alternative to the automobile. And maybe a bit more fun in their lives.
Over the next 30 years, the city of Los Angeles plans to install 1,600 miles of bikeways.
The goal?
To connect the sprawling, car-loving metropolis and make it more bike-friendly.
It won't come without growing pains, as officials were reminded this month when new bike lanes on two San Pedro streets replaced car lanes. Complaints from residents continue to roll in over that project.
And a new green lane bikeway on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles has prompted grousing from filmmakers who like to use the area for vintage movie scenes.
"It's still very recent, but we're not going anywhere," said Tim Fremaux of the city's Department of Transportation.
As Bike Week kicked off Monday, cycling proponents are eager to get the word out about the expanding push to make bicycles a more prevalent mode of transportation in Southern California.
