10 Things to Know for Today
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:
1. COMMISSIONER OUSTED IN GROWING IRS SCANDAL
Obama asked acting commissioner's Steven T. Miller to resign and Congress and the Justice Department continue probes into the targeting of tea party groups.
2. WHITE HOUSE RELEASES TROVE OF BENGHAZI EMAILS
The correspondence underscored a turf battle between the State Department and the CIA and quibbling over the administration's talking points.
3. DEADLY TORNADOES SWOOP THROUGH TEXAS
Dozens of homes were damaged, six were killed and 14 were missing after the swarm of storms hit North Texas.
4. 1 MILLION FLEE AHEAD OF ASIA CYCLONE
The storm began battering the coast of Bangladesh today, but passed over major population centers and did far less damage than feared.
5. HOW PRISON CHANGED OJ
No longer a glamorous celebrity in an expensive suit, a grayer Simpson testified at his Las Vegas appeals hearing in a drab prison uniform and leg shackles.
6. ANOTHER FACTORY COLLAPSE IN ASIA
The ceiling of a Cambodian factory that makes Asics sneakers fell in, killing two people and injuring seven.
7. NATO CONVOY ATTACKED IN AFGHANISTAN
The Muslim militant group Hizb-e-Islami claimed responsibility for the suicide bomb that killed at least six and wounded more than 30.
8. PLANET-HUNTING MISSION IN JEOPARDY
NASA's Kepler telescope is broken and engineers can't yet fix yet, jeopardizing a $600 million mission to search for other planets where life could exist.
9. WHAT QUALIFIES AS MENTAL ILLNESS
The new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders assigned names to tantrums, grief and bingeing, drawing criticism that psychiatrists are going too far.
10. BOB DYLAN'S LATEST ACCOLADE
He became the first rock star to be inducted into the 115-year-old American Academy of Arts and Letters, an artists' honor society.
I'm not sure how many of those cases ... I have actually signed off on.”
-- Attorney General Eric Holder in a Tuesday interview with National Public Radio when asked how often he has authorized the seizure of reporter records.
The acting director of the IRS has left his post three weeks ahead of schedule, but how can it be that others more intimately involved with the targeting and harassment of the president’s political enemies are still on the job today?
That’s the first question facing the White House today as the president continues to struggle to find his feet amid broadening allegations of wrongdoing against his administration.
Team Obama is already talking about getting “back on offense” today after cashiering Miller, but given the violations of public trust on talking points about a September attack by Islamist militants on a U.S. diplomatic outpost and a dragnet cast for reporter records, that’s just goofy.
As FOX News colleague Bret Baier learned just after President Obama’s announcement of the resignation of Steven Miller as the interim head of the agency, Miller was headed for the exits in early June anyway.
Presumably, the president had, or still has, a carefully chosen permanent appointee in the wings since the tax collection agency is crucial to enforcing Obama’s 2010 health law. Even without the current scandal, the president knew that the confirmation of a commissioner of Internal Revenue to a five-year term was going to be a battle royal. So Miller’s slightly earlier departure is no big deal.
Miller is still expected to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday, testimony that might become more candid given that he just got the presidential boot. The former acting commissioner certainly may be looking for somewhere to place blame, given that Miller seems to have kept information from Congress about the politically motivated agenda inside the agency.
Miller, who previously oversaw the office at the center of the scandal prior to his elevation, may seek refuge as a whistleblower and say he was under pressure to keep the lid on the damning revelations ahead of the 2012 election or he may clam up given the potential for criminal and civil penalties.
But whatever Miller opts to do, this is not a great moment for an agency already distrusted and now gripped by a massive scandal to be leaderless and still populated by the same people who were on board when the abuses occurred. More than 100 million Americans are waiting for word from the agency about the status of their tax returns, due last month, political activity for the 2014 cycle is gearing up and the agency is scrambling to start imposing Obama’s health law.
In announcing Miller’s departure, Obama promised to cooperate with congressional investigators and facilitate his administration’s own probe. That’s good, since Obama’s political opponents were the victims of the wrongdoing. Anything that looks like a cover-up would only raise questions about the involvement of others closer to the president. With no national security exemptions to claim, Obama can hardly resist any fact finding.
Given the urgency of the moment for the agency and the depth of the scandal, though, one wonders how Obama can avoid doing more than moving up Miller’s departure by a few weeks.
What about Lois Lerner, who ran the office at the center of the controversy? She is still on the job. Agency critics have accused her of a host of wrongdoings, but Lerner, who the Washington Examiner reports today took in $42,531 in bonuses during the period in question, is still there.
If Obama has the clout to kick Miller out early, surely he or Treasury Secretary Jack Lew have the clout to suspend Lerner and others until the investigation is over. To assure taxpayers, he could even find a trustworthy Republican to act as an all-access watchdog until things can be sorted out – that returns and applications will be handled fairly and that no evidence is being destroyed or hidden.
Given the importance and power of the agency and the depth of the abuses of power, Obama might have taken those steps as soon as news reached the White House last month. Of course, that would have required the White House Counsel’s office to have informed the president.
That failure, like Obama’s conditional and then limited response to the scandal once informed, suggests that Team Obama does not yet understand the severity of its problem. This is big, bad and shows no signs of ending soon. When a president’s foes are harassed by the least trusted federal agency, one that is central to that president’s legacy project, containment is not a viable political option.
Team Obama is already talking about getting “back on offense” today after cashiering Miller, but given the violations of public trust on talking points about a September attack by Islamist militants on a U.S. diplomatic outpost and a dragnet cast for reporter records, that’s just goofy.
While Obama can continue to dibble out information on the Benghazi raid, the other two big scandals besetting his administration, the targeting of his enemies by the IRS and the spying on reporters, will only get worse if the president doesn’t do more than just sound upset in making a symbolic firing.
And Now, A Word From Charles
“But then [President Obama] has the chutzpah to essentially warn Republicans not to make this into a political event when what we're talking about is the IRS applying political criteria inexcusably unconstitutionally, probably criminally, in deciding who it's going to investigate. So I found this the bare minimum. It will hold him for 12 hours, but no more.”
-- Charles Krauthammer on “Special Report with Bret Baier.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/16/radical-treatment-option-needed-for-obamas-scandal-sickness/?intcmp=trending#ixzz2TTPP3NqG
Holder facing liberal backlash over AP records grab
While Attorney General Eric Holder's Capitol Hill appearance Wednesday was marked by a heated argument with his chief Republican critic, more and more Democrats are joining the fray -- in a sign that the Justice Department's seizure of journalists' phone records may trigger a bipartisan challenge to his leadership.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., was among the Democrats who sharply questioned Holder Wednesday on the controversy. She questioned why and how Holder was able to recuse himself from that case, and said it appears the department's actions "have, in fact, impaired the First Amendment."
"Reporters who might have previously believed that a confidential source would speak to them would no longer have that level of confidence, because those confidential sources are now going to be chilled in their relationship with the press," she said.
The toughest criticism of Holder is still coming from Republicans. To date, Holder has fended off a succession of Republican-led efforts to oust him. At the hearing Wednesday, he dismissed a recent call from the GOP chairman for his resignation as ill-informed.
But the volume of Democratic complaints may be rising.
Liberal radio host Bill Press took the left's criticism to a new level Thursday when he publicly called for Holder to be forced out.
On his Twitter account, Press wrote: "What 'breach of national security' are we talking about re the AP story? It's BS and Holder should be fired."
Making clear the tweet wasn't just a slip of the keyboard, he then wrote: "I'll repeat what I said earlier. POTUS should fire Eric Holder."
"POTUS" is shorthand for the president.
Democratic lawmakers have stopped short of calling for Holder's resignation, but have pressed him for answers on why the department found it necessary to go around the back of AP bosses and obtain their phone records -- which was done as part of an investigation into sensitive intelligence leaks.
Holder, in defending the records grab, has called the leak one of the most serious he's ever seen, while noting that he recused himself from the case and his deputy is actually the one leading the investigation.
Other Democrats have been more defensive of Holder, and suggested the latest controversy would be used for partisan purposes. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said it was Republicans who demanded the leak investigation in the first place.
"Now, of course, it is convenient to attack the attorney general for being too aggressive or the Justice Department for being too aggressive," he said.
Holder similarly went after Republicans for their scrutiny on Wednesday. He lashed out at Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., after he accused Holder of purposely and repeatedly keeping information from Congress.
"No, that's what you typically do," Holder responded. Following crosstalk, Holder added, "That is inappropriate and is too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress. It's unacceptable and it's shameful."
Issa led the charge in Congress against Holder and his department over the botched Operation Fast and Furious anti-gun-trafficking program. Republicans eventually voted to hold him in contempt of Congress over resistance to providing certain documents pertaining to that case.
But Holder had since been able to keep his head down -- until the Associated Press revealed this week that Justice had secretly sought its phone records.
Prominent Democrats swiftly joined Republicans in questioning whether that step was necessary.
"The burden is always on the government when they go after private information -- especially information regarding the press or its confidential sources. I want to know more about this case, but on the face of it, I am concerned that the government may not have met that burden," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Monday.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/16/holder-facing-liberal-backlash-over-ap-records-grab/#ixzz2TTQ65spY
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