IRS claims it has LOST two years' worth of emails from embattled former official Lois Lerner as tea party targeting scandal heats up again

By DAVID MARTOSKO, U.S. POLITICAL EDITOR

The Internal Revenue Service has lost two years worth of emails to and from embattled former tax official Lois Lerner, the agency told congressional investigators on Friday.

The IRS promised on May 8 to turn over all her emails but now blames a computer crash for huge tranches of missing documents.

Lerner is under investigation for allegedly orchestrating a years-long program that targeted tea party groups and other conservative organizations for unusually intrusive scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status beginning in the year before the 2010 congressional midterm elections.

The House Ways and Means Committee, one of two bodies probing the case, said Friday that the IRS says that for the period of January 2009 through April 2011, the only Lerner emails it can find are those that were sent to or from other IRS employees.

Emails whose sender or recipient was outside the government, or inside other agencies, have mysteriously disappeared.

Those include the White House, the Justice and Treasury Departments, the Federal Elections Commission and Democratic congressional offices.

Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican, said Friday that 'the fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable.'

'He also said the claim 'calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to congressional inquiries.'

Camp pointed a finger at IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who pledged in a March 26 hearing to produce every document the agency had which might be related to the scandal.

'It appears now that was an empty promise,' Camp said, complaining that without emails between Lerner and government officials outside the IRS, 'we are conveniently left to believe that Lois Lerner acted alone.'

Republicans in Congress have charged that Obama administration officials were part of a conspiracy to hamstring tea party groups in 2010 and beyond, since denying or delaying their tax-exemption applications prevented them from raising money during the years when their influence was at its highest.

Obama and Putin filmed having 'informal conversation' moments after President publicly ignored Russian leader at D-Day memorial

By LYDIA WARREN

President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly ignored each other today as they stood just feet apart during a for state leaders' commemorating the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

World figures met in France in the midst of a current geopolitical crisis, with Putin standing alongside leaders, including Obama, who are against his aggressive moves into Ukraine.

All eyes were on Putin and Obama as they refused to acknowledge each other at the group photograph before keeping their distance as they headed to lunch at the Chateau de Benouville.

But as speculation mounted over whether or not they would talk, the White House confirmed that the pair did indeed speak 'for 10 to 15 minutes' once they went inside for the luncheon.

'President Obama and President Putin did speak with each other on the margins of the leaders lunch,' his assistant Ben Rhodes said. 'It was an informal conversation - not a formal bilateral meeting.'

A video of the interaction, captured by the French government, shows the men initially smiling with each other before the conversation apparently turns more serious.

On Friday afternoon, a White House official released a readout of the 15-minute conversation, saying Obama warned Putin that 'de-escalation' of sanctions against Russia 'depends upon Russia recognizing President-elect Poroshenko as the legitimate leader of Ukraine, ceasing support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, and stopping the provision of arms and materiel across the border'.

Obama, the readout continued, 'noted President-elect Poroshenko's commitment to pursue reforms to ensure that the rights and interests of all Ukrainians are respected, and urged Russia to work immediately with the government in Kiev to reduce tensions.'

'President Obama made clear that a failure to take these steps would only deepen Russia's isolation.'

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the leaders had exchanged views about the situation in Ukraine and the crisis in the east, where Ukrainian forces have been fighting with pro-Russian insurgents.

'Putin and Obama spoke for the need to end violence and fighting as quickly as possible,' he said.

'Obama and Putin were at times close enough to touch but did not speak with or acknowledge each other'

Pool report from the Chateau de Benouville 

The leaders had been placed just seats from each other - with only Queen Elizabeth II, French President Francois Hollande and Queen Margrethe of Denmark separating them.

The pair had not previously met about the crisis, although they have spoken multiple times by phone.

During the photo, Obama and Putin went to great pains not to speak to each other.

'Obama and Putin were at times close enough to touch but did not speak with or acknowledge each other in the pool's presence,' the White House pool reporter noted.

As Putin hovered nearby, the president 'made a point of jovially greeting other leaders, kissing Merkel on both cheeks, but he and Putin seemed to go out of their way not to encounter each other'.

The men were also pictured walking within feet of each other as they headed to the chateau - with Obama accompanying the Queen just a few steps behind.

Obama 'could have tapped him on the shoulder if he wanted to but instead focused his attention elsewhere as if not noticing who was there', the pool reporter noted.

Obama told reporters on Thursday that if he and Putin did speak, he would tell him that he has a new path to engage with Ukraine through President-elect Petro Poroshenko, who takes office Saturday.

'If he does not, if he continues a strategy of undermining the sovereignty of Ukraine, then we have no choice but to respond' with more sanctions, Obama said.

Putin and Poroshenko were pictured meeting at the event in France on Friday - their first meeting since Poroshenko was elected last month.

They were pictured speaking briefly with Germany's Angela Merkel following the leaders' photograph.

Reporters couldn't hear any of the animated minute-long conversation. No plans have been announced for a formal meeting between the men.

Obama said on Thursday that he hoped the Russian leader would be 'moving in a new direction' on Ukraine since he didn't immediately denounce Poroshenko's election - 'but I think we have to see what he does and not what he says'.

French officials reportedly went to elaborate lengths to keep Obama and Putin apart in Paris, at Washington's request, before the D-Day events.

On Thursday, French President Francois Hollande held separate dinners with the U.S. and Russian leaders in an attempt to unlock Europe's worst security crisis since the Cold War.

'This is an important occasion to express gratitude and fraternity, but it is also major international event which should serve the interests of peace,' Hollande told a news conference after a summit of G7 leaders in Brussels - a meeting to which Putin was pointedly not invited.

Texas will lead fight for freedom, Cruz tells GOP convention

By Kevin Diaz

FORT WORTH – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz told an ecstatic crowd at the Texas Republican Convention that their freedom is being threatened by a lawless president who has shown weakness abroad and overstepped his boundaries at home.

The first-term Texas senator, an oft-mentioned potential White House contender, offered up a full-throated indictment of President Obama and the Democrats in Congress, prompting sustained cheers and calls of "Run, Ted!"

"Today liberty is under assault like never before," Cruz thundered as he paced the large, open stage. "And again today Texans will stand up and lead the fight for freedom."

The line could serve as a reference to Cruz and fellow Texas native Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator who will follow him on the stage later in the day as a possible rival for conservatives' affection in the run-up to the battle for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.

In a speech studded with historical references, from the Alamo to D-Day, Cruz gamely included Paul in a pantheon of Texas heroes ranging from Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gov. Rick Perry. "Texans have always led the way in the fight for freedom," he said.

"He's got potential," said Sherman delegate Ira Moore, speaking with intentional understatement.

Many in the crowd also took Cruz's convention speech as a precursor to his own political ambitions.

Cruz generally stuck to familiar themes and lines he has used in speeches in the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire. He highlighted how Texas remains a place for jobs and growth, and a stronghold of opposition to the Obama agenda on health care, the economy and foreign policy.

He called for the repeal of "every blessed word of Obamacare," an audit of the Federal Reserve and the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service, all core tea party causes.

"There's a whole lot of mischief going on in Washington right now," he said. "We need to defend the Bill of Rights" and in an apparent reference to the Second Amendment debate over gun control, he added, "all of the Bill of Rights."

He also invoked President Ronald Reagan's iconic call to tear down the Cold War era Berlin Wall.

"Every generation must stand and defend liberty," he said, inviting delegates to send the word "growth" to a campaign text number to help build a "grass-roots army" of potential supporters.

He criticized Obama for failing to speak out about victims of oppression abroad, defended Israel, and took aim at Common Core educational standards that are unpopular on both ends of the political spectrum.

"We already have a common core," he said, "It's called the Constitution of the United States."

Cruz was introduced by his wife Heidi, who defended him against his critics in Washington and invoked his softer side as a family man. "He's not a wacko bird," she said, "He is simply 'Daddy' to our two little girls."

Somewhere in hell, bin Laden is smiling

by Pat Buchanan

Bowe Bergdahl was “an American prisoner of war captured on the battlefield” who “served the United States with distinction and honor,” asserted Susan Rice, the president’s national security adviser.

Rice was speaking to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos the morning after Barack Obama’s Rose Garden celebration of Bergdahl’s release.

When she spoke last Sunday, could Rice have been ignorant of the widespread reports that Bergdahl had deserted?

Before last Sunday, her credibility was already in tatters.

Five days after Ambassador Chris Stevens and three Americans were killed in Benghazi, Rice went on five Sunday shows to describe the terrorist attack as a spontaneous riot ignited by an anti-Muslim video.

Not only has her credibility now suffered a second near-lethal blow, her competence as a presidential adviser is open to question.

How could she let the president strut into the Rose Garden to celebrate the release of a soldier whose reported desertion triggered a province-wide search that may have cost the lives of half a dozen American soldiers?

As The Hill reported, a Pentagon investigation in 2010 concluded Bergdahl had walked out on his unit and left a note in his tent saying he was disillusioned with the Army and no longer supported the war.

Was Rice ignorant of this? Did she think it not relevant, when she approved the president’s hosting of Bergdahl’s parents in the Rose Garden?

Is Rice not responsible for the humiliation President Obama has endured all week and the fiasco that diverted national and international attention from his trip to Warsaw, Brussels and Normandy?

Forty-eight hours after Obama celebrated Bergdahl’s release, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs was promising an investigation of the soldier on the charge of desertion and related allegations he may have defected and collaborated.

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If Gen. Martin Dempsey was aware an investigation into charges so serious that they carry the death penalty was ahead for Bergdahl, did he not flag the White House before the president went before the nation to celebrate Bergdahl’s return?

Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, defends the decision by saying the U.S. military does not leave its soldiers behind:

“When you’re in the Navy, and you go overboard, it doesn’t matter if you were pushed, fell or jumped. … We’re going to turn the ship around and pick you up.”

That is America’s tradition, and a proud and honorable one. And no one opposed the effort to bring Bergdahl home.

But if a man jumps overboard, to desert, and half a dozen sailors perish in stormy seas trying to rescue him, the Navy does not welcome the AWOL seaman back aboard with bands playing, all hands on deck and the captain hosting a celebration.

The man is put in the brig to face charges on return to port.

That is the military ethos Gen. Dempsey rightly praises.

But if Barack Obama, Susan Rice and the White House thought that swapping five senior Taliban commanders for Bergdahl would be cheered, it only testifies to how far removed they are from the band-of-brothers culture of the American military.

Consider the damage this debacle has been done.

Our Afghan allies believe that, to retrieve one of our own, we dealt behind their backs with the enemy, at their expense.

Are they not right?

In return for one U.S. soldier, we traded five hardened Taliban commanders and killers. Their release has proven both a moral and military victory for our enemies, and a moral defeat for our friends.

When we are gone from Afghanistan, the Kabul government we leave behind will have to deal with the consequences of what we did.

Second, the trade of the Taliban Five for Bergdahl has ignited a firestorm in the United States, polarized the American people further, proven a political fiasco for the president and caused a diplomatic nightmare during his trip to Europe to shore up our NATO allies.

Today, circulating around Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East, is a Taliban video of the prisoner exchange, where the Islamist fighters are handing over a pale and nervous American to our troops, and warning him never to return again or face death.

Then the video shows the American helicopter flying away.

To those of us of a certain age, that helicopter calls to mind another helicopter, 40 years ago, lifting off the roof of the American embassy in Saigon, leaving behind the first war America lost and the Vietnamese people whose freedom we had gone to war to preserve and protect.

More than a decade ago, George W. Bush, full of hubris and egged on by his neocon counselors, decided to go beyond eradicating al-Qaida in Afghanistan to remaking that country, and then Iraq, in our image.

So, to make the Middle East safe for democracy, we plunged in.

And as we see the future unfolding in Afghanistan and Iraq, and reflect on the costs of our intervention – 7,000 dead, 40,000 wounded warriors, $2 trillion lost – was it all worth it?

Somewhere in hell, Osama bin Laden is smiling.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/somewhere-in-hell-bin-laden-is-smiling/#L7gleFHSsB8VFmTf.99

Perry Gives Fiery Speech & Impression He’ll Run For President

FORT WORTH (CBS 11 NEWS) – Governor Rick Perry isn’t running for any political office, but he still knows how to bring Republicans to their feet.

Before thousands of Republicans at the Texas GOP Convention in Fort Worth, the Governor dished out political red meat. “The National Democrats think Texas is the new battleground. We’ll, let’s be really clear. Texas will be their political burial ground.”

The party played a video tribute to the man who’s become the states longest serving Governor, a man who may again seek higher office.

Mr. Perry told the crowd, “We need to set the stage for 2016 and we will win the White House.” He reminded delegates of the robust Texas economy under his watch, and criticized the Obama administration’s extreme backlog of treating veterans at VA Hospitals across the country.

“Our military veterans lived up to their end of the bargain,” he said. “It is time for the federal government to do the same.”

Some supporters, like Suzanne Bettac, believe Perry’s already running for President. “Oh, I think so. He hit all the right notes – certainly for Texas.”

On Thursday, Democrats pounced on Perry’s record.

The Texas Democratic Party issued a statement saying, in part -

“For all of Perry’s rhetoric and grand-standing we saw today, he left Texans with a neglected state water plan, transportation infrastructure, and an unconstitutional school finance system.”

The gun rights group Open Carry Tarrant County planned to demonstrate Thursday evening outside the convention center. During the day, members walked inside carrying black powder guns, which are allowed. But they couldn’t bring their long guns, so they’re hoping to change the party’s platform.

One Open Carry leader, Kory Watkins, said, “We’re far behind here in Texas. We can’t even open carry and there’s 40 other states that can so we’re trying to get back to what our founders intended.”