The New Yorker

(The Borowitz Report)

President Obama used his weekly radio address on Saturday to reassure the American people that he has “played no role whatsoever” in the U.S. government over the past four years.

“Right now, many of you are angry at the government, and no one is angrier than I am,” he said. “Quite frankly, I am glad that I have had no involvement in such an organization.”

Reuters

(Paris) More than 8,000 French households' tax bills topped 100 percent of their income last year, the business newspaper Les Echos reported on Saturday, citing Finance Ministry data.

The newspaper said that the exceptionally high level of taxation was due to a one-off levy last year on 2011 incomes for households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million).

President Francois Hollande's Socialist government imposed the tax surcharge last year, shortly after taking office, to offset the impact of a rebate scheme created by its conservative predecessor to cap an individual's overall taxation at 50 percent of income.

The government has been forced to redraft a proposed bill to levy a temporary 75 percent tax on earnings over 1 million euros, which had been one of Hollande's campaign pledges.

The Constitutional Council has judged such a high rate of taxation to be unfair, leaving the government to rehash it to hit companies rather than individuals.

Since then, a top administrative court has determined that a marginal tax rate higher than 66.66 percent on a single household risked being considered as confiscatory by the council.

Les Echos reported that nearly 12,000 households paid taxes last year worth more than 75 percent of their 2011 revenues due to the exceptional levy. ($1 = 0.7798 euros)

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas, Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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WND

By Chelsea Schilling

Is British CNN host Piers Morgan finally admitting gun advocates have a point when they say the Second Amendment is to protect citizens from tyrannical government?

Morgan has made headlines for many months as he loudly trumpeted the cause of gun control, even to the detriment of his shows ratings.

The Daily Caller

WASHINGTON – Last week, Lois Lerner, head of the tax exempt division of the Internal Revenue Service dropped a bombshell: The IRS had been applying extra scrutiny to conservative groups claiming tax exempt status.

The revelation came seemingly out of the blue, in response to a question during a panel at an American Bar Association conference, leaving the audience baffled, according to reports.

As it turns out, it was not a spontaneous revelation. The question, said outgoing IRS Commissioner Steven Miller in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee Friday, was planted, as part of a prepared strategy for the IRS to release this information to the public.

Under questioning from Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, Miller said it was a “prepared Q and A,” and the question, which came from tax lawyer Celia Roady had been discussed in advance as well.

Roady told U.S. News and World Report later Friday afternoon that Lerner had personally contacted her and requested she ask the specific question. Roady said she did not know at the time what Lerner’s answer would be.*

Later, Miller, questioned by Rep. Peter Roskam, explained that the disclosure had been made to coincide with the conclusion of the inspector general’s report.

Miller said he and Lerner discussed, in a what he believed was a phone conversation, whether “now that the TIGTA report was finalized, now that we knew all of the facts … did it make sense for us to start talking about this in public.”

Asked why he had not first reached out to the committee to tell them, Miller first said they had planned “to do that at the same time,” but that “did not happen.” He later said they “were reaching out to this committee at the same time,” and that they had “called to try to get on the calendar.”

“Is that all you got?” Roskam scoffed.

“It’s the truth,” Miller said.

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Foxnews

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz was born in Canada but is qualified to become president should he mount a campaign in 2016 or beyond.

Cruz was born in Calgary, and his father is from Cuba. But the Republican senator’s mother is from the first state of Delaware, which appears to settle the issue.

Government officials didn’t exactly have to scramble for the information amid speculation the firebrand freshman senator was contemplating a presidential run and might be ineligible, considering similar questions about President Obama’s birth prompted the Congressional Research Office to compile a 2009 report to try to resolve the issue.

The 14-page report by the non-partisan office’s legislative attorney Jack Maskell essentially states the Constitution sets out three eligibility requirements to be president: one must be at least 35, a resident within the United States for 14 years and a “natural born citizen.”

The report states "the weight of scholarly legal and historical opinion appears to support the notion that 'natural born citizen' means one who is entitled under the Constitution or laws of the United States to U.S. citizenship 'at birth' or 'by birth,' including … those born abroad of one citizen parent who has met U.S. residency requirements."

However, Maskell points out in an expanded, Nov. 2011 memorandum “there is no Supreme Court case which has ruled specifically on the presidential eligibility requirements, although several cases have addressed the term ‘natural born’ citizen. And this clause has been the subject of several legal and historical treatises over the years, as well as more recent litigation.”

Cruz has excited the Republican Party’s conservative base during his first five months in the Senate – while annoying moderates – by opposing everything from Obama Cabinet nominations to the bipartisan Senate immigration bill.

The 42-year-old Cruz has yet to publicly announce his intentions, but in front of a microphone he talks mostly about big-picture national issues, with most of the presidential buzz coming from supporters.

“I’ve been in 25 cities in the last few months, all I have to do is mention Ted Cruz’s name, and they stand up and cheer,” former South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint said at a state party dinner earlier this month. “They’re hungry for someone who’s not afraid, willing to stand up and trying to change the status quo.”

Obama’s eligibility was questioned by a group of people labeled birthers because they though his Hawaii birth certificate was fake and that he was born in Kenya. His mother was from Kansas and his father from Kenya.

Others have faced similar questions including Obama’s 2008 presidential opponent Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.

McCain was born on a military installation in the Panama Canal Zone where his mother and Navel officer father were stationed. And George Romney, father of 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, was born in Mexico but still ran for president in 1968.