RESPONSE ACTION NETWORK 09/05/2014

LERNER'S LOST EMAILS ARE FOUND

Former IRS official Lois Lerner's emails - long sought by congressional investigators looking into the agency's abusive handling of tea party and liberty groups - were supposed to be gone forever. But they appear to have been found:

"Judicial Watch, which says it was among the groups that the IRS improperly scrutinized, said Justice Department attorneys told the group late last week that the government backed up all emails in case of catastrophe.


"The government lawyers added that the problem was not that the emails couldn't be found, but that the back-up system was too onerous to search, Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch's president, said Monday."

The government, of course, denies all of this:

" . . . an administration official . . . said Judicial Watch's statement, which runs counter to months of statements from a variety of administration and IRS higher-ups, was off-base.

"The administration official said Justice Department lawyers had dropped no bombshells last week, and Judicial Watch was mischaracterizing what the government had said.

"The official said DOJ lawyers were only referring to tapes backing up IRS emails that were routinely recycled twice a year before 2013, when the investigation into the Tea Party controversy began."

In other words, independent investigators are lying and there's no possible way Lerner's emails still exist. Not even the tech community is buying that argument. And the last thing the IRS wants to happen is for the techies to start digging.


FREAKING OUT OVER BURGER KING

We've written before about the hysteria running amok in leftist circles regarding private companies moving their corporate headquarters overseas to get a break from high U.S. taxes. They call such moves "unpatriotic," because we all know that American companies exist solely to fund the federal government and any effort to lessen the fed's take is tantamount to treason.

The latest company to get the "unpatriotic" treatment is Burger King, which is merging with the Canadian donut and coffee chain, Tim Hortons:

"Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is calling for a boycott of Burger King.

"'Burger King's decision to abandon the United States means consumers should turn to Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers or White Castle sliders. Burger King has always said 'Have it Your Way'; well my way is to support two Ohio companies that haven't abandoned their country or customers,' Brown said in a statement. 'To help business grow in America, taxpayers have funded public infrastructure, workforce training, and incentives to encourage R&D and capital investment. Runaway corporations benefited from those policies but want U.S. companies to pay their share of the tab.'"

And right on cue, congressional Democrats and their media allies are trying to paint all of this as a Republican get rich quick scheme. We wonder how long before the left begins to call it a hate crime against the government . . .


THE CHICAGO WAY

Tired of the nonsense from Democrats and Republicans? Eager to give a third party candidate a chance to run for office? That's perfectly fine . . . except in Illinois, where the two major parties will come looking for you if you so much as sign a petition to put a third party candidate on the gubernatorial ballot:

"A couple of months after Julieus Hooks signed a political party's nominating petitions, a man with a gun walked up to Hooks as he left his home in Oak Park.

"The man said he was a private investigator. He told Hooks the petition that he had signed was fraudulent and asked him to sign something. Hooks hastily agreed to sign the paper.

"'I did not have time to fully review this document because the man with the gun instructed me to sign it, and I was afraid of him and what he may do to me if I refused,' Hooks says."

It turns out a private security firm affiliated with a Republican elected official has been making the rounds, and flashing its guns, in order to get people to take their names off Libertarian party petitions.

Democrats do things the old fashioned way:

"A Green Party candidate likely would take votes mostly from the incumbent, so Democratic Cook County Recorder of Deeds Karen Yarbrough challenged the validity of the Greens' signature petitions. A hearing officer for the state election board has found that the Greens failed to collect the 25,000 nominating signatures required."


MILITARY WEAPONS ON CAMPUS

We've written before about the widespread use of second-hand military equipment by local police departments. But it's not just local cops who are getting high powered, high tech gear. So are security officials on college campuses, as we learn in this story from Virginia:

" . . . the College of William and Mary and Old Dominion University have received fully automatic M-16s through the same surplus program at the center of scrutiny in Ferguson, Mo. "

William and Mary officials found the M-16s were "more trouble than they were worth," and backed away from the program. But Old Dominion University decided otherwise:

"The Norfolk college's surplus shopping list included M-16s, shotguns, combat knee pads and elbow pads, ballistic goggles, shields, and metal batons.

"ODU officials could not find the paperwork justifying all this, but a spokeswoman said the campus police once had a SWAT-style team. It disbanded, and some of the guns were given away. The campus police chief, Rhonda Harris, said the remaining rifles were converted to semiautomatic, meaning they can't shoot like machine guns. Officers still have access to them."


CALIFORNIA DRIVERS DRAFTED TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING

And they are doing so through higher gas taxes:

"Californians already pay the nation's second highest gas tax at 68 cents a gallon -- and now it will go up again in January to pay for a first-in-the-nation climate change law.

"'I didn't know that,' said Los Angeles motorist Tyler Rich. 'It's ridiculous.'

"'I think it's terrible,' added Lupe Sanchez, pumping $4.09-a-gallon gas at a Chevron near Santa Monica. 'The economy, the way it is right now with jobs and everything, it's just crazy.'

"When gas prices go up, motorists typically blame oil companies, Arab sheiks and Wall Street speculators. This time they can blame Sacramento and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for passing a bill requiring California to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020."

No one is really sure how much gas prices will rise:

"The California Air Resources Board, the Golden State's premier anti-pollution agency, predicts the new tax will raise gasoline prices from 20 cents to $1.30 per gallon. A prominent state senator who helped author the bill estimated the cost at 40 cents a gallon."

Either way, the new tax makes environmentalists very happy, state government richer and everyone else poorer. Just don't try buying your gas in Nevada, or you might be called unpatriotic.