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Two freight trains collided and derailed early Saturday in southeast Missouri, then triggered the collapse of a highway overpass when several rail cars struck a support pillar. Seven people were injured, including two personnel on the trains and five individuals in cars on the overpass on Highway M near Scott City, about 120 miles south of St. Louis, NBC affiliate KSDK reported. All the injured were treated for minor injuries and released.

The collision occurred before dawn at a rail intersection. "One train T-boned the other one and caused it to derail, and the derailed train hit a pillar which caused the overpass to collapse," Scott County Sheriff's dispatcher Clay Slipis told Reuters.

The crash, which involved BNSF Railway Co and Union Pacific trains, also ignited a fire when diesel fuel leaked from one of the train engines, Slipis said.

The crash came just over a week after a commuter train derailed in Connecticut, striking another train and injuring more than 70 people during the evening rush hour.

On Friday, a truck crash caused the collapse of a bridge in Washington state, sending two cars plunging into the Skagit River. Three people were rescued.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it had dispatched a team to investigate the train crash.

Union Pacific said its train had been primarily carrying auto parts from Illinois to Texas. The Union Pacific locomotive and about a dozen cars derailed in the crash.

BNSF said that its train had been hauling scrap metal from salvage facilities and was heading south along the Missouri River.

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Reuters contributed to this report.

As you read through this story, you may be wondering by the end, exactly what the central tenet of the story is? What is the keystone? Why is this happening?

The one thing that the article deliberately avoids is the fact that these are militant Muslims, and their entire goal is one of nothing less than chaos and mayhem.

Ignoring the problem is bad enough, however, failing to tell the full story? It's a journalistic crime.

• Fifth night of violent riots in Stockholm saw schools destroyed
• Over 70 incidents reported overnight including a torched police station
  
• Turmoil began Sunday night after police shot a man in Husby suburb
  
• Incidents in other parts of Sweden spark fear riots are spreading

UK Daily Mail

By Christian Gysin

It is supposed to be the model multicultural state. But Sweden is facing problems of its own after gangs of immigrants spent a fifth consecutive night rioting  in Stockholm.

Officers are battling to keep the  capital under control after hundreds of cars were torched, a police station set alight and fire services kept from  a major blaze by a stone-throwing mob of youths.

To make matters worse, rioting has now spread to Sweden’s two other major cities, Gothenburg and Malmo.

The disturbances, which have lasted longer than the riots in England in the summer of 2011, started last week after police shot dead a foreign-born pensioner who threatened to attack them with a machete.

Left-wing activists came forward to accuse police of racism – a charge strongly denied by the Stockholm force.

Growing unrest turned to violence  last  Sunday in a north-western suburb called Husby – where more than 80  per cent of the residents are from overseas, mostly Turkey, Somalia and the Middle East.

Trouble then spread to some of the city’s most deprived areas, shattering the country’s proud claim that it is a template for a successful and ethnically diverse society.

The Foreign Office and the US embassy have warned visitors to stay away from certain suburbs.

Government leaders have been stunned by the ferocity of the violence in a country which has long been touted as a paragon of social justice.

For decades, supporters of multiculturalism have pointed to  Sweden as a classic example of a society which allows immigrants to continue practising their  own culture while living peacefully alongside their host communities.

Around 15 per cent of Sweden’s 9.5million inhabitants were born outside the country.

The second largest group of immigrants, after the Finns, are Iraqis – numbering more than 125,000. Former Yugoslavs total over 160,000 and Iranians almost 65,000.

While Sweden is still relatively affluent, with living standards among the highest in Europe, tension has grown in recent years as the country struggles to cope with rising youth unemployment and an ever-growing influx of foreigners.

Unemployment for people born in Sweden is only 6 per cent, but unemployment among those born outside Sweden currently stands at 16 per cent.

The country’s long-standing ‘open arms’ policy for asylum seekers has brought it to a  position where it has one of  the world’s highest proportions of asylum seekers relative to  its population.

Among 44 industrialised countries, Sweden ranked fourth in the total number of asylum seekers and second in the number of asylum seekers relative to its population, according to figures from the United Nations.

Government leaders have struggled to explain or control the outbreak of violence, but the anti-immigrant, nationalist Sweden Democrats have soared to third place in the polls.

The party’s rise reflects the  concerns of many native-born Swedes that their country is  rapidly changing for the worse.

Sweden was ruled for decades by the Left-wing Social Democratic Party which has been committed to the creation of an  egalitarian society since it was founded in the late 19th century.

It was ousted from power by the current ruling centre-Right coalition, which has failed to make major changes in the  country once dubbed ‘the most successful society the world has ever known’.

Tom Moore, Coordinating Meteorologist, The Weather Channel

Northeast | View Regional Video

- A cold, windy and west Saturday from eastern NY to NJ and New England.

- Some locally heavy rain for parts of northern New England (localized flooding).

- Heavy wet snow for elevations above 3500' from eastern NY to northern New England.

- A few mountain locations could see up to a foot of snow

- Accumulating snow above 2500' and rain/snow mix down to 1500'.

- Tree and powerline damage possible

- Much of western NY, western PA and WV should stay dry.

- Frost/freeze possible western PA/WV/western VA overnight into early AM Saturday.

- Highs from eastern NY to new England coast will be in the 40s and 50s (30s in the mountains).

- Highs near 70 in the Baltimore-Washington area, with windy conditions and low humidity.

South | View Regional Video

- Most of the region will enjoy a sunny start to the holiday weekend.

- Temperatures will be considerably cooler and humidity levels way below average from KY and VA down to GA and northern FL.

- Record low temperatures will be common AM Saturday from KY/VA area down to GA.

- Showers and thunderstorms can be expected across the western half of Texas.

- Highs will be mostly in the 80s from Alabama westward.

- Highs in the 70s from Virginia to northern GA.

- The holiday weekend will continue to be great over most areas.

Midwest | View Regional Video

- Periods of showers and thunderstorms can be expected from the Dakotas to Illinois Saturday

- A few thunderstorms could turn severe in the High Plains from western ND to western KS.

- More thunderstorms from the Dakotas to the Ohio Valley Sunday.

- Highs will be in the upper 50s and 60s around the Gt. Lakes and Upper Midwest Saturday.

- Highs in the 80s across the central and Southern Plains.

West | View Regional Video

- A few Saturday showers from western OR and WA up through northern WA to northern OR.

- Scattered thunderstorms (few severe) possible eastern MT and far northeastern WY Saturday.

- Isolated thunderstorms possible across eastern NM.

- The rest of the region will stay dry.

- Highs from north California to Colorado should be mostly in the 70s and 80s.

- Highs in the Southwest ranging from the 60s and 70s at the coast to around 100 in the deserts.

- Chance for more showers Sunday from WA/OR area through ID to MT.

WeatherREADY

Be prepared, make sure your family is ready to weather the storm.

• What to do if a Winter Storm Watch or Warning Is Issued
• Get Your Home Winter Storm-Ready Today
• Winter-ize Your Car

PHOENIX -- A federal judge ruled Friday that the office of America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff systematically singled out Latinos in its trademark immigration patrols, marking the first finding by a court that the agency racially profiles people.

The 142-page decision by U.S. District Judge Murray Snow in Phoenix backs up allegations that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's critics have made for years that his officers rely on race in their immigration enforcement.

Snow, whose ruling came more than eight months after a seven-day non-jury trial on the subject, also ruled Arpaio's deputies unreasonably prolonged the detentions of people who were pulled over.

"For too long the sheriff has been victimizing the people he's meant to serve with his discriminatory policy," said Cecillia D. Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants' Right Project. "Today we're seeing justice for everyone in the county."

Stanley Young, the lead lawyer who argued the case against Arpaio, said Snow set a hearing for June 14, where he will hear from the two sides on how to make sure the orders in the ruling are carried out.

A small group of Latinos alleged in their lawsuit that Arpaio's deputies pulled over some vehicles only to make immigration status checks. The group asked Snow to issue injunctions barring the sheriff's office from discriminatory policing and the judge ruled that more remedies could be ordered in the future.

The sheriff, who has repeatedly denied the allegations, won't face jail time or fines as a result of the ruling.

The sheriff said his deputies only stop people when they think a crime has been committed.

A spokesman for Arpaio deferred requests for all comment to the lead attorney in the case, Tim Casey, who declined comment until reading the judge's full decision.

Arapio, who turns 81 next month, was elected in November to his sixth consecutive term as sheriff in Arizona's most populous county.

Known for jailing inmates in tents and making prisoners wear pink underwear, Arpaio started doing immigration enforcement in 2006 Arizona voters grew frustrated with the state's role as the nation's busiest illegal entryway.

Typically, Venus, the second-closest planet to the sun, and Jupiter, which orbits beyond Mars, are tens of millions of miles apart. But they have been cycling together while moving ever closer to each other this month, joined by the innermost planet Mercury.

The celestial show peaks on Sunday when the trio will appear as a bright triangle of light in the western sky beginning about 30 minutes after sunset.

Triple conjunctions are relatively rare, according to NASA. The last one was in May 2011 and the next one will not occur until October 2015.

"This triple is especially good because it involves the three brightest planets in May's night sky," the U.S. space agency said on its website.

The formation should be visible even in places with bright city lights, though a clear view of the western horizon is a must.

Astronomers suggest sky-watchers let Venus and Jupiter be their guide. As the sky darkens the planets will be visible to the naked eye.

"They really do shine so brightly that you might mistake them for one or two approaching airplanes with their landing lights turned on," the University of Texas' StarDate magazine wrote on its website.

On Sunday, Mercury forms the top of the triangle. By Monday, Venus and Jupiter will be side by side, less than 1 degree apart.

"After that, Venus and Mercury will continue to climb higher into the evening sky, while Jupiter drops toward the sun," said StarDate.

NASA telescope's planet-hunting days may be over

(Editing by Tom Brown)

The Motley Fool

By Sean Williams | More Articles

Excited or not, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is set to be fully implemented in just six months and one week. Targeted at revamping our entire health care system, it will mandate individuals to carry health insurance and require that health-benefit providers are spending at least 80% of premiums collected on health care for its members.

In addition, this new health reform aims to keep the inflationary costs of premiums reasonably low as health insurance exchanges that are being set up in each state should allow for competitive and transparent pricing. The idea here is that having more pricing visibility will allow consumers to make smarter choices when selecting their own health insurance. But, as California showed us yesterday, there could be a major flaw with that thesis.

Source: White House.

Don't call us, we'll call you
With few states having unveiled detailed plans for their state-run insurance exchange, all eyes were focused on California, which offers quite the blend of individual and commercial customers, as well as a number of soon-to-be Medicaid participants under the PPACA's Medicaid expansion. Yesterday, California unveiled the 13 contract winners who will be participating in its insurance exchange in the coming months. There were some very familiar on the list, including Kaiser Permanente, Blue Shield of California, Anthem Blue Cross -- which is run by WellPoint (NYSE: WLP ) , the nation's second-largest health insurer -- and Health Net (NYSE: HNT ) , which collectively make up a big portion of California's individual insurance market.

However, notably missing from the list were UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH ) , CIGNA (NYSE: CI ) , and Aetna (NYSE: AET ) , which all kindly bowed out of being included into California's health insurance exchange.

When questioned about not wanting to take part in California's insurance exchange, according to The Los Angeles Times, UnitedHealth commented, "We are simply taking the time to carefully evaluate and better understand how the exchanges will work to ensure we are best prepared to participate meaningfully in their development." Similarly, a CIGNA spokesman was quoted as saying, "We will continue to offer individual plans going forward [in five of 10 states], but we've decided not to participate in Covered California in 2014."

On the surface this may not appear to be a big deal since UnitedHealth, CIGNA, and Aetna combined for only 7% of the total health insurance market in 2011 according to research compiled by Citigroup, and are focused primarily on the commercial side of the business. But, the message that these three large insurers are sending California is much more important.

Here's the problem
For one, with UnitedHealth not participating, it tells me that even the largest insurer in the nation is still very skeptical as to how things will play out in these insurance exchanges. California offers a moat of possibilities, but it's simply not worth the price of admission based on UnitedHealth's decision. A lack of a large national insurance presence in California's exchange is only bound to increase the mounting skepticism over how effective these exchanges will ultimately be in manufacturing competition among insurers. Even more so, a lack of recognizable health insurance names could diminish consumer interest in researching these health plans, which would defeat the entire purpose of setting up the health exchanges.

Continue Reading

President Obama’s conciliatory gesture toward the press this week — a review of Justice Department investigations involving journalists — struck some national security reporters as closing the door after the sources have already bolted.

In announcing the review in his speech on Thursday, the president said he was troubled that recent investigations, which involved the extensive tracking of a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, and the seizing of phone records at The Associated Press, “may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable.”

Journalists say that chill has already set in. Jeremy Scahill, who writes about national security for The Nation, said that some sources who used to agree to encrypted chats and off-the-record conversations have recently stopped feeling comfortable with these terms.

“At times it seems that being a Luddite may be the safest way to do serious national security reporting in a climate where there appears to be an intensifying war on serious journalism,” Mr. Scahill wrote in an e-mail.

Noah Shachtman, editor of Wired.com’s Danger Room blog, said that sources had told him to stay away in the recent climate of leak prosecutions.

“There’s one source I have to run into ‘by accident’ at some public function who before I could just contact directly,” Mr. Shachtman said.

James Bamford, author of the 1983 best seller “The Puzzle Palace” about the National Security Agency, said these latest leak cases make it increasingly difficult to establish new source relationships and that affects his reporting over all.

“It’s important to get this information out there that doesn’t come through a press release, through the front door of the White House or the Pentagon,” Mr. Bamford said. “Far more information comes through a side door or a back door.”

Many reporters found themselves spooked by the extent of the government’s investigation of Mr. Rosen, Fox News’s chief Washington correspondent. This week, The Washington Post reported on a 36-page affidavit which detailed just how much information the government had been gathering about conversations between an unnamed reporter, who turned out to be Mr. Rosen, and Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a government employee.

The affidavit, a request for e-mails from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, provided minute-by-minute details about what time both men came and left the State Department and the length of their phone conversations down to the second and also took the unusual step of labeling the reporter a potential “co-conspirator” in the leak of classified information about North Korea’s nuclear program.

In a memo to his staff this week, Roger Ailes, the chief executive of Fox News, said, “We reject the government’s efforts to criminalize the pursuit of investigative journalism and falsely characterize a Fox News reporter to a federal judge as a ‘co-conspirator’ in a crime,” and that “we will not allow a climate of press intimidation, unseen since the McCarthy era, to frighten any of us away from the truth.”

Josh Meyer, director of education and outreach at the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative at Northwestern University and a writer for Quartz, said that in the 30 years he has lived on and off in Washington, he has never found journalists to be so skittish about being under the government’s watchful eye.

“It’s so bad that there’s a gallows humor that has sort of emerged out of this,” Mr. Meyer said. “You see journalists at parties, and you joke about ‘How is the investigation going?’ ” People just assume they’re being investigated, and it’s not a good feeling.”

He said that he was “highly skeptical” of President Obama’s announcement. “One would think he would have done that months or years ago when these investigations were authorized.

In his speech, President Obama said that as part of its review the Justice Department would “convene a group of media organizations to hear their concerns.” Bruce D. Brown, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, called the announcement “a welcome development,” but he remained cautious about what might actually result from these talks.

“We would want to come out of any such dialogue with an acknowledgment from the government that a reporter does not commit a crime when asking for information,” he said. “The second objective would be that the government honor its duties to notify the news media when it seeks journalists’ records. That will give the news media the proper opportunity to challenge those requests in court.”

The announcement is not likely to change the news media’s suspicion that it is under assault.

Jane Mayer, a staff writer with The New Yorker who has reported on national security, said during the Bush administration, she had to start reminding herself that “the ‘e’ in e-mail stands for “evidence” and instead, met people in person to talk about topics that are touchy.” She added that “the surprise has simply been that Obama’s administration has continued, and even accelerated the crackdown on leaks.”

Some journalists think that some of these confrontations between journalists and government sources could have been avoided. Jack Shafer, a Reuters media columnist, published an article called “What was James Rosen thinking?” that questioned why the correspondent did not try harder to protect his source. He said Mr. Rosen should not have used e-mail, not visited the State Department’s offices and not timed his departure from the building at a time so close to his source. He also questioned what purpose publishing the information served.

“Boiled to its essence, the story says the U.S. has penetrated North Korean leadership,” Mr. Shafer wrote. “He would have been less conspicuous had he walked into the State Department wearing a sandwich board letter with his intentions to obtain classified information and then blasted an air horn to further alert authorities to his business.”

Still, Mr. Shachtman hopes that eventually sourcing will once again favor reporters. “This stuff is cyclical. There are times when one group is harder to talk to. There’s times when that group will be easier to talk to. Certain sources dry up,” he said. “Before you know it, those same sources spring back to life.”

Kerry Holds Talks on Mideast Peace Process

Op-Ed: A Cyberattack Campaign for Syria

Mass shortage continues as government dries up supply.

Steve Watson
Infowars.com

In the wake of huge shortages of ammunition across the entire nation, police departments are turning to ever more desperate measures to keep their officers armed.

In Proctor, Minnesota, the police chief has become so exasperated with trying to find a supplier that he issued a request to members of the public for help meeting the department’s ammo needs.

Chief Walter Woberg made the public announcement after bullet suppliers notified him that he would have to wait “months” for an order of just 1,000 rounds.

“I go, ‘Do you have 40–caliber qualification rounds?’ And they go, ‘Well, no. It’s going to take six to eight months [to get them],’” Woberg told reporters with NNCNOW.com.

The police chief says that as soon as he issued the call, a Proctor resident immediately offered to loan the police department 1,500 rounds from personal supplies.

“The citizens were like, ‘If you need something, we got plenty here,’” Woberg said, adding that many others also offered to provide bullets to the police department.

“I had several other calls from other citizens that said, ‘Hey, if you need more ammunition we have plenty,’” said Woberg, “I know that if I need ammunition I have citizens out there that will gladly come forward.”

The police department says it will reimburse the resident when it has the supplies to do so.

Chief Woberg also noted that he has written to Mn. Senators to ask for action to counter the ammo shortage.

The nationwide shortage, which comes following massive ammo buys by the Federal government, has seen other police departments having to barter between themselves to meet demand.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. said last week that he believes that the Obama administration is attempting to “dry up the market” and deprive gun owners of bullets.

As we recently reported, the Department of Homeland Security has announced plans to purchase another 360,000 rounds of hollow point ammunition to add to the roughly 2 billion bullets already bought over the past year.

Inhofe has introduced legislation into the Senate that would limit such stockpiling of bullets by federal agencies.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.

Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.

The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists.

"I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable," Obama said. "Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs."

Rosen, who has not been charged in the case, was nonetheless the target of a search warrant that enabled Justice Department investigators to secretly seize his private emails after an FBI agent said he had "asked, solicited and encouraged … (a source) to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information."

Obama's comments follow a firestorm of criticism that has erupted over disclosures that in separate investigations of leaks of classified information, the Justice Department had obtained private emails that Rosen exchanged with a source and the phone records of Associated Press reporters.

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Holder previously said he recused himself from the AP subpoena because he had been questioned as a witness in the underlying investigation into a leak about a foiled bomb plot in Yemen. His role in personally approving the Rosen search warrant had not been previously reported.

A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Department of Justice later issued a statement about the review of media guidelines: “This review is consistent with Attorney General Holder's long-standing belief that freedom of the press is essential to our democracy," it said. "At the same time, the attorney general believes that leaks of classified information damage our national security and must be investigated using appropriate law enforcement tools.  We remain steadfast in our commitment to following all laws and regulations intended to safeguard national security as well as the First Amendment interests of the press in reporting the news and the public in receiving it."

The law enforcement official said Holder's approval of the Rosen search, in the spring of 2010, came after senior Justice officials concluded there was "probable cause" that Rosen's communications with his source, identified as intelligence analyst Stephen Kim, met the legal burden for such searches. "It was approved at the highest levels-- and I mean the highest," said the law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said that explicitly included Holder.

Kim has since been indicted on charges that he leaked classified information to Rosen about how North Korea would respond to a United Nations resolution condemning the country's nuclear program. He has denied the charges.

In an affidavit in support of a search warrant to Google for Rosen's emails, an FBI agent wrote that the Fox News journalist -- identified only as "the Reporter" -- had "asked, solicited and encouraged Mr. Kim to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information."

"The Reporter did so by employing flattery and playing to Mr. Kim's vanity and ego,” it continued. “Much like an intelligence officer would run a clandestine intelligence source, the Reporter instructed Mr. Kim on a covert communications plan that involved" emails from his gmail account.

The affidavit states that FBI agents had tracked Rosen’s entrances and exits of the State Department in order to show that they had coincided with Kim’s movements. Based on that and other findings, the affidavit by FBI Agent Reginald B. Reyes, stated, “There is probable cause to believe that the Reporter has committed a violation” of the Espionage Act “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator of Mr. Kim.”

It also said that Google was specifically instructed not to notify “the subscriber” -- Rosen -- that his emails were being seized.

In new documents disclosed Thursday, the Justice Department sought and obtained approval to keep the search warrant, which was approved by a federal magistrate, under seal. It was unsealed in November 2011, but never made a part of the docket of Kim’s case and went unnoticed until this week.

Justice officials have since said they do not intend to criminally charge Rosen, but media groups have condemned the issuance of the search warrant itself.

"The Justice Department's decision to treat routine newsgathering efforts as evidence of criminality is extremely troubling and corrodes time-honored understandings between the public and the government about the role of the free press," said Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

In his speech Thursday, Obama reiterated his determination to pursue leak investigations. "We must enforce consequences for those who break the law and breach their commitment to protect classified information," he said.But, he said, "Our focus must be on those who break the law," not journalists. He said he was calling on Congress to pass a media shield law and had raised the issue with Holder, "who shares my concern."

As part of the Justice Department review of guidelines, the president said, Holder will convene a group of media organizations to hear their views and “report back to me by July 12th."

NBC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pete Williams contributed to this report.

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The Denver Channel

7 News

An Interstate 5 bridge has collapsed over a river in Washington State, sending vehicles plummeting into the water.

ABC affiliates in Washington identify the bridge as being the one over the Skagit River.

Both the northbound and southbound lanes have fallen into the river, Washington State Patrol Trooper Mark Francis said in a post on Twitter.

Photos show the collapsed bridge and what appear to be vehicles in the water.  A reporter for KXLY4 reported "several cars submerged."

A reporter for a local newspaper said the north end of the I-5 bridge collapsed.  She said the freeway was closed.

The Naval Air Station Whidbey Island was sending helicopter to search for possible victims down river.

The collapse was reported about 8 p.m. Denver time.

Map showing bridge location:

Link to map: http://goo.gl/maps/9aZjP

The I-5 Skagit River Bridge is a through-truss bridge that was built in 1955, according to the websiteBridgehunter.com. It is the same basic type of design of the Interstate 5 Bridge over the Columbia River in Vancouver, according to the site.

Conservative Refocus

Barry Secrest

Some Facts seem to get lost both in the media and in our meager understanding thus far, regarding the illegal targeting of political groups by the IRS, so to recap, here are just a few of them.

First, we keep hearing some low-level numbers that are not accurate at all with regard to the number of Conservative groups targeted including Tea Party groups.

The actual number is closer to 500 and that's only the number of active organizations that we know about.

Here is the report from Fox News on the actual number of groups that we know were affected:

The IRS targeting of conservative groups is far broader than first reported, with nearly 500 organizations singled out for additional scrutiny, according to two lawmakers briefed by the agency.

IRS officials claimed on Friday that roughly 300 groups received additional scrutiny. Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Tuesday that the number has actually risen to 471. Further, they said it is "unclear" whether Tea Party and other conservative groups are being targeted to this day.

The lawmakers disclosed the additional information in a letter Tuesday to Lois Lerner, the IRS official who first disclosed the inappropriate practice. They sent the letter as a highly anticipated watchdog report was released, finding "inappropriate" action at the IRS.

The Republican congressmen also revealed that the IRS itself determined their effort was biased against conservatives more than a year ago.

The question becomes, then, how many inactive Tea Party organizations and otherwise do we not know about? What will be done to regress these groups?

Next is the "ProPublica problem." This deals with a clearly illegal operation in which the IRS actually sent a list of Conservative organizations and their donor's names to a progressive media outfit called "ProPublica." We have included a few facts from a Daily Caller story on this issue.

The division of the Internal Revenue Service that improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative groups sent confidential information on 31 conservative groups to the well-funded liberal nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica, according to a revelation made by ProPublica Monday.

“The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year,” according to the ProPublica report.

“In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved — meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.),” according to ProPublica.

It seems clear that the IRS sent these names to a Left-Wing organization in order for the media writers to both investigate these individuals and castigate, if not completely ruin them in the media.

These are clearly criminal acts.

Next is the issue of rather or not former IRS Director Doug Shulman lied to Congress in  his address in front of a committee back in 2012 and well prior to the 2012 elections.

Below are the central tenets of the story from The Hill:

Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) said the former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) commissioner appointed by President George W. Bush lied to Congress under oath when he told lawmakers last year that the agency did not give special attention to certain groups.
Following the House’s opening investigative hearing into the IRS's revelation that it gave extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, Crowley was asked if he believed Douglas Shulman lied to Congress.

“I think Mr. Shulman did,” said Crowley in an interview with Fox News. “My understanding is that it was common knowledge if they were going after political groups back then.”

Crowley was referencing a 2012 House Ways and Means Committee hearing in which Shulman, in response to questions from Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), held that the IRS was not targeting specific groups applying for tax-exempt status.

"There's absolutely no targeting,” said Shulman at the time.

Not true at all, with regard to Shulman's statement of "no targeting" as it turns out.

Indeed the timeline begins for illegal targeting of Conservative groups all the way back to 2010,  according to this House Ways and Means Committee timeline:

March-April 2010
According to TIGTA, the IRS’s Determinations Unit “began searching for other requests for exemption involving the Tea Party, Patriots, 9/12 and IRC § 501(c)(4) applications involving political sounding names, e.g., “We the People” or “Take Back the Country.”

June 3, 2011
Chairman Camp sends letter to Commissioner Shulman inquiring about IRS targeting of taxpayers who donated money to conservative groups, as well as information regarding audits of 501(c)(4) organizations.

June 29, 2011
According to TIGTA, IRS Exempt Organization Division director Lois Lerner is apprised of the IRS’s discriminatory practices.

July 1, 2011
The IRS responds to Chairman Camp’s June 3 letter by issuing a directive to halt investigations pending further guidance. The IRS failed to provide any explanation or assurances to the Committee that targeting was not occurring.

October 6, 2011
Chairman Boustany sends letter to Commissioner Shulman requesting information regarding the tax-exempt sector.

November 18, 2011
The IRS responds to Chairman Boustany with some requested information but includes no mention of knowledge of targeting conservative groups.

December 16, 2011
Ways and Means Oversight staff met with IRS staff, including Lois Lerner. The IRS staff did not mention knowledge that the IRS targeted conservative groups.

March 1, 2012
Chairman Boustany sends a follow-up letter to Commissioner Shulman with additional questions about reports that “the IRS has been questioning new tax-exempt applicants, including grassroots political entities such as Tea Party groups.”

March 12, 2012
The IRS responds with no mention of knowledge of targeting conservative groups.

March 22, 2012
The Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee holds its 2012 hearing on the tax return filing season and general IRS operations. Chairman Boustany asks then-IRS Commissioner Shulman about reports that the IRS has been targeting Tea Party groups. Shulman responds, “I can give you assurances…[t]here is absolutely no targeting.”

Yet, despite frequent congressional inquiries into the practice all the way back into 2010, it wasn't until June of 2012 and under pressure from Congress, that Inspector General George opened an audit on the IRS which eventually led to our learning of a both dangerous and extreme abuse of power that we are learning more and more about every day.

We also know that despite earlier stories, the practice was taking place all over the US and was not limited to one office and just a few rogue agents in Ohio.

In a story from (FOX19) in Cincinnati, we have learned the following:

The claim that the ongoing IRS scandal is limited to low level employees is falling apart.

Keep in mind, at least 300 groups were targeted out of Cincinnati alone.  Those applications spent anywhere from 18 months to nearly 3 years in the system and some still don't have their non-profit status.  300 groups multiplied by at least 18 months for each group, means thousands of red flags would have been generated in the system.

So who in the chain of command would have received all these flags?  The answer, according to the IRS directory,  one woman in Cincinnati, Cindy Thomas, the Program Manager of the Tax Exempt Division.  Because all six of our IRS workers have different individual and territory managers, Cindy Thomas is one manager they all have common.

It turns out Cindy Thomas' name is one we have heard before.  The independent journalism group ProPublica says in November of 2012 they had requested information on conservatives groups that had received non-profit status.  Along with that information, the IRS released private information on nine conservative groups that had not yet been approved and personal information had not been redacted.  The person who signed off on that release: Cindy Thomas.

What this means for you... consider this chain of command since the story broke.

Former Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller… retires

Joseph Grant, Commissioner of Tax Exempt and Government Entities... retires.

Lois Lerner, Head of Exempt Organization…says she will invoke her 5th amendment right to not incriminate herself when called before Congress on Wednesday.

Holly Paz, Director of Exempt Organizations, subpoenaed to Washington to be interviewed by members of Congress.

All of this IRS leadership, in Washington D.C.

Then one level down is Cindy Thomas, the highest ranking employee in Cincinnati in this Tax Exempt and Government Entities Department that no one in Congress is talking to... yet.

And that is Reality Check.

The simple fact remains that there are many more facts about this abortion of justice that have yet to be completely uncovered. The facts are all there, it simply becomes a matter of finding the pieces of this particular puzzle and locking them into place. However, the details increasingly coming into view already displays a picture that's beyond disturbing even though much of it is still obscured.

The most basic element of the story seems to hinge upon the fact that the single major player in all of this who knows the entire story, and at a mid-management level within the overall IRS hierarchy,  just invoked the fifth amendment.

When a government employee invokes the Fifth amendment, after asserting their innocence under oath, it would ostensibly be in order to protect both themselves and their superiors, at the very least.

Either way, the invocation of a constitutional precept, while ironic for a government manager who has apparently spend her entire career trying to defeat the US  Constitution, should tell you everything else you wanted to know about this story and what it all actually means to we as Americans.

The Matthew Brower Show with Barry Secrest-5/23/13-at 9:30PM (Eastern)

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The Daily Caller

By Jeff Poor

On Tuesday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel, host Bret Baier revealed that the intrusions into James Rosen’s privacy went beyond Rosen himself and also involved his parents.

Baier laid out the specifics of Rosen’s situation during the panel segment, first reported by The Washington Post earlier this week.

“The U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. said because of this case — it’s an open case — active prosecution, they’re limited in what they can share,” Baier said. “The government exhausted, they said, ‘All reasonable non-media alternatives for collecting this evidence before seeking court approval for a search warrant based on the investigation and all the facts known to date. No other individuals, including the reporter, have been charged since Mr. Kim was indicted nearly three years ago.’ We can report that James Rosen, to his knowledge, was never contacted by anyone in the administration.”

Panelist Kirsten Powers noted that breach of protocol, but also noted he had not been charged with a crime.

“Which they’re supposed to do which is normal operating procedure,” Powers said. “The fact that he hasn’t been charged — I’m sorry. They just went through his emails and his private Gmail and that’s OK, but they haven’t charged him with anything, so let’s move on?”

Powers then criticized the Obama administration on those grounds, noting how they would leak information if it improved their image. But Baier revealed that in addition to Rosen having his own phone records seized, the federal government had also seized Rosen’s parents’ phone records.

“You know, I just want to point out one more thing,” Baier said. “You know, we said the different numbers. We have the documents now, and the seized toll records also relate to James’ parents’ home in Staten Island.”

Daily Caller editor in chief Tucker Carlson responded by lashing out at the media for not reacting to these attacks on Fox News and added that Rosen might not be alone, based on what CBS News’ correspondent Sharyl Attkisson told a Philadelphia radio host about her own computer on Tuesday.

“It’s unbelievable,” Carlson said. “This began when the administration tried to weed Fox News out of the White House press pool. You had a politician determining what is and what is not a news organization, and by and large, the press stood still and allowed that to happen. By the way, Sharyl Attkisson, a terrific reporter at CBS, is reporting she believes her personal commuter was compromised. We don’t know by whom, but it does suggest this story may grow a lot bigger before it ends.”

More from Jeff Poor at the DC

Krauthammer: Obama, Democrats created ‘climate’ for IRS tea party targeting

Former Bush attorney general: Special prosecutor to investigate IRS a ‘lousy idea’ [VIDEO]

Laura Ingraham: ‘I’m thinking of moving to Arizona’ to ‘primary challenge Sen. Jeff Flake myself’ [AUDIO]

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