IRS "Targeting" Rule Change Was in the Works for Two Years

By Carol Platt Lieblau
By June of 2012 -- long before the IRS targeting scandal became public -- the IRS was secretly planning to change its rules to justify targeting tea party/conservative groups. A newly unveiled email from Treasury Department tax policy attorney Ruth Madrigal, addressed to a number of IRS officials including the infamous Lois Lerner, makes it abundantly clear that regulations were in the works that would authorize the targeting.
The text of the email reads as follows:
Don’t know who in your organizations is keeping tabs on c4s, but since we mentioned potentially addressing them (off plan) in 2013, I’ve got my radar up and this seemed interesting.
It's followed, in the email, by an account of a Fourth Circuit case decided unfavorably toward 501(c)(4) organizations.
The significance of the email is clear:
(1) It indicates that the IRS was fully aware that the targeting of tea party and other conservative groups -- that had taken place since 2010 -- was NOT authorized by any rules.
(2) It proves the existence of a scheme to change the rules "off plan" (that is, not on the public schedule for agency rule changes) to justify the targeting, well before the Inspector General's report blew the whistle on the whole sleazy, First Amendment-hating, un-American enterprise.
(3) By its clear meaning, the email completely upends the administration narrative that the rules were formulated only after the scandal came to light, in order to clear up any confusion within existing regulations.
So does President Obama still believe there wasn't even a "smidgen" of corruption at the IRS?

Obama admin unilaterally changes law to allow immigrants with ‘limited’ terror contact into US

By Caroline May
The Obama administration has issued new exemptions to a law that bars certain asylum-seekers and refugees who provided “limited material support” to terrorists who are believed to pose no threat from the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department published the new exemptions Wednesday in the Federal Register to narrow a ban in the Immigration and Nationality Act excluding refugees and asylum seekers who had provided limited material support, no matter how minor, to terrorists.
“These exemptions cover five kinds of limited material support that have adversely and unfairly affected refugees and asylum seekers with no tangible connection to terrorism: material support that was insignificant in amount or provided incidentally in the course of everyday social, commercial, family or humanitarian interactions, or under significant pressure,” a DHS official explained to The Daily Caller.
...While the administration says the rule change is reasonable, former State Department official and current director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration StudiesJessica Vaughan questioned the administration’s right to unilaterally change the law.
“[T]here is a very legitimate question as to whether the administration actually has the authority to change the law in this way,” Vaughan wrote in an email to TheDC. “It seems to me that they are announcing that they will be disregarding yet another law written by Congress that they don’t like and are replacing it with their own guidelines, which in this case appear to be extremely broad and vague, and which are sure to be exploited by those seeking to game our generous refugee admissions program.”

House Oversight Committee hearing exposes political influence peddling, wasted tax funds in Obamacare co-ops

By Mark Tapscott

It's an Obamacare-inspired program that cost "only" $2 billion and has mostly escaped media attention, but that may be changing now, thanks to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The "it" here is the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan program, which used $2 billion in federally guaranteed loans to fund creation of 24 health insurance co-ops to provide competition to private sector companies.
...As Pollock and watchdog reporter Kelly Cohen reported, a contentious hearing Wednesday of two oversight panel subcommittees focused on a pair of "case studies of political influence peddling and millions of taxpayer dollars wasted."

The first case study was of the Freelancers Union nonprofit, which received $340 million under Obamacare to establish co-ops in New York, New Jersey and Oregon.
Freelancers was ineligible for federal co-op funding due to its for-profit subsidiaries. But aggressive lobbying of the Obama White House and the Department of Health and Human Services got around that roadblock and resulted in $25 million being improperly diverted to one of the for-profit subsidiaries.
The second case study looked at the failed Vermont Health Co-op, which was riven with conflicts of interest and folded after state insurance officials refused to grant it a license to operate.
The Oversight Committee's staff report also described independent reviews that questioned the financial viability of the co-ops, suggesting, for example, that the Freelancer's Union either "is holding too much cash in reserves or that they are over-stating assets.”
The Wednesday hearing won't be the last word on the co-ops because the committee concluded its report with this warning: "In the weeks and months ahead, the committee will continue its work to ensure that Congress and the American taxpayers have the requisite information to fully assess the true costs of the ObamaCare CO-OP program.

The Party of Less Work

By Rich Lowry
The Democrats once styled themselves the party of workers. Now, they are the party of people who would have been workers, if it hadn’t been for Obamacare.
...This unleashed a torrent of arguments from the Democrats implicitly denigrating the value of work. Perhaps not since Southern fire-eaters attacked Northern “wage slavery” in the mid-19th century has a good honest day’s work been talked about so dismissively. It turns out that discouraging work is just another one of the wonders of Obamacare.

The old jobs crisis was people not having jobs; the new jobs crisis is people having to work. The party devoted to combating inequality is now blithely unconcerned about a law discouraging people — especially people down the income scale — from earning more. So much for its championing of economic mobility.
White House press secretary Jay Carney declared the CBO report a validation of the law: “At the beginning of this year, we noted that as part of this new day in health care, Americans would no longer be trapped in a job just to provide coverage for their families and would have the opportunity to pursue their dreams. This CBO report bears that out.”
If only the number of people effectively dissuaded from working were 5 million, or 7.5 million, the health care law would be an even more stunning triumph of sound public policy and true American values.
...The CBO explains how the Obamacare subsidies discourage work, in a phenomenon typical of means-tested welfare programs. By giving people more resources, the subsidies allow “some people to maintain the same standard of living while working less.” And the phase-out of the subsidies creates another disincentive: “because subsidies decline with rising income (and increase as income falls), thus making work less attractive.”
The penalty on employers with 50 or more employees who don’t provide health insurance “will be borne primarily by workers in the form of wage reductions or other compensation.” It, therefore, “will ultimately induce some workers to supply less labor.” Same with Obamacare’s other taxes, amounting to $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

Democrats consider all this, and pronounce themselves well-pleased with what they have wrought. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) sees only upside in people working less: “What that means is instead they might be able to tuck their child in bed at night and read a bedtime story, or go to an activity, which means they’re better off. At least, that’s how it is in my part of Wisconsin.”
Harry Reid found his inner libertarian in describing the wonders of people liberated from the constraints of employment: “We live in a country where we should be free agents. People can do what they want.” Obviously, if you are afraid to work more because government will take away a subsidy, you aren’t exactly a free agent.
White House economic adviser Jason Furman compared the employment effects of Obamacare to Social Security and Medicare. “Getting rid of Social Security and Medicare would cause more 95-year-olds to work,” he said. “You wouldn’t judge whether Social Security or Medicare are good or bad based on what they do to labor supply.”
No, you wouldn’t — because they are programs for the elderly. Discouraging work among 95-year-olds is entirely different than discouraging work among people in the prime of their lives. No one told us when the bill was being considered that Obamacare would have some of the same effects as a retirement program.

Congress unwilling to offend federal employee unions by limiting official time

By Mark Flatten
Eliminating official time would break federal employee unions -- or at least, that's the warning from civil servants who collect their government paychecks while doing union work.
That's just hype, say Congressional critics who sponsored bills to reign in the practice. Ending official time would simply make the unions pay their own people, stopping the subsidy they now get from taxpayers.
Official time allows union representatives to be released from their regular duties so they can instead do union work while receiving full pay and benefits from the federal agencies that employ them.
Hundreds of top union officials are released full time, meaning they do no work for their agencies.hat cost taxpayers almost $155.6 million in fiscal 2011, the most recent year for which figures are available. The most recent annual disclosures from the three federal employee unions that use the most official time -- the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and the National Treasury Employees Union -- show combined income of more than $273.4 million from member dues and other sources.
“They spend all day long while the taxpayers are paying their salaries, and all they are doing is work on behalf of the union,” said Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., sponsor of a bill to limit the hours unions receive.
“My bill doesn’t take away their rights. It simply says that the unions themselves should pay their salaries, not we the taxpayers,” Gingrey said.

PK'S NOTE: I love Trey Gowdy.

Gowdy, Jordan, Chaffetz Press AG on President’s IRS Comments

Reps. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) today sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder regarding the President’s comments claiming not a "smidgen of corruption" at the IRS, despite an ongoing criminal investigation.
Text of the letter:
February 5, 2014

The Honorable Eric Holder
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Holder:
We are writing you today to inquire about the President’s recent comments regarding the criminal investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS’s) treatment of taxpayers applying for nonprofit status for their organizations based on political persuasion.
In May of 2013, President Obama said he would not tolerate partisan targeting and vowed to “make sure that we find out exactly what happened” at the IRS.[1] Since this situation came to light, we have received very little information on the Department of Justice’s criminal investigation. You testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 29, 2014, that the investigation is open and still proceeding, and criminal charges are still possible, noting, “All the options are on the table, given the fact that there has not been a determination either to bring charges or to decline the case.”[2]
Additionally, on January 30, Deputy Attorney General James Cole sent a letter to Representative Jim Jordan refusing to allow any Department employees to testify before Congress because of the on-going nature of the investigation, stating it is the commitment of the Department to avoid
“… any perception that our law enforcement efforts are subject to undue influence from elected officials. Our disclosure of non-public information about this pending investigation would be inconsistent with this long-standing policy and could undermine judicial confidence in the independence of the criminal justice process.”
In contrast to these statements, on Sunday, February 2, the President stated there is “not a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS regarding this targeting, despite the fact the investigation, to the best of our knowledge and according to your recent testimony, is not complete. We hope you can restore our confidence that the investigation into the IRS will be thorough and not swayed by any political biases.
In that vein, we are hoping you can answer several questions:
1)    If the IRS investigation is “ongoing,” and there has been no determination as to whether criminal charges will be brought, how does the President know there is no criminality?
2)    Is the President being briefed on the investigation while it is ongoing?
3)    Can Congress be briefed on the status of the investigation and preliminary findings through a bipartisan, bicameral briefing?
Thank you in advance for your prompt response.

[1] Shear, Michael. “Obama Dismisses Benghazi Furor but Assails I.R.S.” The New York Times 13 May 2013.
[2] Becker, Bernie. “Holder: No decision on charges in IRS case.” The Hill 29 January 2014.

Rep. Mulvaney Introduces Congressional Term Limits Bill

By Matthew Boyle

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) announced in a release he introduced a bill this week that would establish term limits for members of Congress.

The bill would limit members of Congress—in both the House and the Senate—from serving more than 12 years in either chamber, or 24 years total between the two chambers.
“Believe me, 24 years is more than enough time to serve in Washington,” Mulvaney said in a statement.

(I actually pushed for much shorter terms but compromised at 12+12 in order to gain the support of additional co-sponsors). And I want to thank my friends Steve Scalise (R-La.), Reid Ribble (R-Wis.) and Steve Palazzo (R-Miss.) for their work in getting this bill together. Now the question becomes: how can we convince enough members of Congress that they are the problem?

While the bill hardly stands a chance at passing this Congress, as leaders of both parties would likely oppose it, it offers an interesting political dynamic.

Newly-Passed Farm Bill's Costs Ballooning Despite Food Stamp Cuts

By Jerome Hudson
Coming in at almost $1 trillion, and after three years of legislative delays, Congress has passed a farm bill. President Obama is expected to sign the farm bill into law at Michigan State University Friday.
A key takeaway from the nearly 1,000-page mega-bill is a measure that could cut about $9 million from food stamps over ten years. The cuts are said to trim an average of $90 a month in benefits from some 850,000 Americans who rely on the program.
However, the farm bill’s overall spending totals are exploding.
The Congressional Budget Office says this year’s farm bill is projected to cost a total of $956 billion from 2014-2023. That’s a 49 percent increase from 2008’s $640 billion farm bill which was vetoed by President Bush due to its nearly 50 percent cost increase over the 2003 farm bill. Both houses of Congress overrode Bush’s veto.
One reason for the new farm bill’s bloated budget is the move to end guaranteed direct payments – payments farmers receive regardless of their harvest quality or crop prices – and increase crop insurance subsidies by $7 billion over a decade. Direct payments have been a part of the farm bill for more than 80 years and have attributed to steady increases in farmland values.
In 1996, the Freedom to Farm Act, pushed by then-Speaker Gingrich as a start to phasing out all farm subsidies, drastically cut price supports and withdrew the government from grain management. When grain prices started to fall after this, pressure from agricultural interests led to the implementation of the direct payment system.
Farmers usually insure about 80 percent of their crops, which promises a guaranteed yield and price. In a bad year, crop insurance (a taxpayer subsidy) covers crops if the crops' prices fall. If a massive flood wipes out most of a farmer’s crops, crop insurance makes up for the losses. If a natural disaster drives up the price of crops, crop insurance must match the new price.
...A Republican-backed provision that would have forced members of Congress to disclose if they or any of their immediate family members were receiving crop insurance subsidies was stripped from the original version of the farm bill.
In all, with the steady diminution in direct payments and the expansion of crop insurance, the new farm bill will likely exacerbate risks, leaving American taxpayers holding the bag.

By Bridget Johnson
President Obama enacted part of his promised Climate Action Plan today with the creation of regional “Climate Hubs” to coordinate a global warming response with farmers, ranchers and owners of forest land.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the seven Regional Hubs for Risk Adaptation and Mitigation to Climate Change “are going to do a risk analysis of crop production and of forestry, in terms of changing climates.”
“It will establish the vulnerabilities that we have in each region of the country. We’ll determine from those vulnerabilities strategies and technologies and steps that can be taken to mitigate the impacts and effects of climate change, as well as adapting to new ways of agriculture,” Vilsack told reporters today at the White House daily briefing. “It will take full advantage of the partnerships that we have with land grant universities, our sister federal agencies, as well as the private and nonprofit sector. And every five years, these climate hubs will be reviewed.”
The USDA, which is overseeing the hubs, said the program is part of Obama’s State of the Union promise “to responsibly cut carbon pollution, slow the effects of climate change and put America on track to a cleaner environment.”
...“The president’s been quite insistent in cabinet meetings and in private meetings that he expects his cabinet to be forceful and to act. We can’t wait for congressional action. So pursuant to his Climate Action Plan, we established a number of climate change hubs.”
....“So combined with the new farm bill and the new opportunities it creates, these climate hubs, I think, will equip us to make sure that the 51 percent of the land mass of the United States is protected against changing climates, that allow us to maintain the economic opportunity that agriculture creates in this economy,” Vilsack said.
...Vilsack’s examples of how that “management” might work included telling a farmer determined to be at risk from climate impacts “to either adapt and shift to a different crop that they’ve produced or use a different seed technology, biotechnology, whatever they might, to eliminate the risk, or if the risk is not something that can be eliminated, how we mitigate the impact of it.”
As an example of risk factors that will be assessed, he said better forecasting and climate-related disaster planning could have helped livestock producers in the Dakotas. “When that snowstorm hit, it didn’t wipe out just a few animals. It wiped out the entire operation. Nobody anticipated and expected that severe a storm, that early. That’s one impact,” he continued. “…When you take a look at the intensity of the storms that we have seen recently, and the frequency of them, the length of drought, combined with these snowstorms and the subzero weather that we’ve experienced, the combination of all those factors convinces me that the climate is changing, and it’s going to have its impact, and will have its impact, and is having its impact on agriculture and forestry.”
The USDA will be using $120 million already in their budget reserved for climate issues — but Vilsack couldn’t say how much the hubs will exceed that. “It’s difficult to assess precisely how much money will be spent, because it depends on what the risks are and how significant they are and what conservation programs will be used,” he said.
“But I can tell you that it will be a significant investment made in each region of the country, because of the importance of it.”

Obama, suffering from his own hubris, blames everyone else

By Noemie Emery

...The first law of physics is that every act taken produces an equal swing in the other direction, which our current conditions tend to bear out. If conservatives are sometimes extreme (and they are), they are no more so than has been Obama, who bent laws and then broke them, and respected no limits in the avid pursuit of his goals.
When he tortured the rules to pass health care, he destabilized politics and created the poisoned political climate and toxic divisions of which he and his allies complain. As Charles Krauthammer says, the Tea Party was created by Obama and health care, and the fierce fight against it echoes the manner in which it was passed. The "current unrest," as he says, is "the residue of that hubris." He's right.

Chicago-area school officials don't like 'no guns' stickers that picture guns

By Ashe Schow

School officials in a Chicago suburb are not thrilled with a state law passed last year requiring schools to post a "no gun" sticker featuring an Image of a handgun with a red slash through it.
Guns were already not allowed in schools before the law was passed, and now some school officials are worried the Image on the warning sign might send the wrong message.
“One of my biggest concerns as a principal is safety and security,” Tinley Park High School Principal Theresa Nolan told the Southtown Star. “It is bothersome to have to post a sticker of a gun that says, ‘Hey, folks, leave your guns at home.' ”
Nolan said she feared the Image could be misinterpreted.
“I think the general public will be alarmed by it and wonder if people have been allowed to bring guns to school in the past,” Nolan said. “I have no knowledge of guns ever being in this building,” she said of her 22 years with the school district.

Nolan said she was not opposed to the law or posting the sign, but wished it could have been more subtle.
“I would have appreciated something more subtle, yet still recognizable — a logo, perhaps, not a gun,” Nolan said.

Celebrating Mediocrity At The Expense Of Merit

By Derek Hunter
...The Washington Post ran a story this week about Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring and their plans to have a special pizza party, game room and dance for students who’ve gotten straight A’s. The story wasn’t celebrating students for an achievement most of us never reached, instead it was about how this singling out of students who achieved academic perfection would impact those students who didn’t.
“The students that don’t get to go end up feeling bad,” the mother of a child with an undescribed learning disability told the Post. Maybe, but so what? Have we really reached the point where we can’t celebrate success because not everyone achieves it in every situation?
Barbara Marinak, an associate professor of education at St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, told the Post, “You’re creating a caste system that could easily result in bullying and victimization, which is what we’re trying to prevent, especially in middle school.”
First of all, think back to when you were in school. How many straight A students at your school were noted bullies? Was the hallway outside the computer lab considered a dangerous place for students with fragile self-esteem to walk without a chaperone? Of course not. If anything, it was the high achieving students who were the victims of bullying. Why not celebrate them?
A normal person might look at the reward of a pizza party as an incentive to inspire students who want to be invited to the party to work harder to try to achieve that standard. Even if they fail, they will have learned that to achieve requires hard work.
...Seinfeld’s latest project is “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee,” an Internet show that is just that – him driving comedians to get coffee (or eat) and talk about comedy. Pretty basic, and an important resource for anyone thinking about getting into comedy since they talk about their process.
This week Jerry found himself on the business end of a manufactured controversy about race and sexism. No, he didn’t say anything racist or sexist, he said something worse in the minds of progressives – that he doesn’t give a damn about race or gender, he cares about merit. If you’re funny, he wants to have you on his show, if you’re not…he’s not interested.
When asked about why he’d had so many white men as coffee-mates, Seinfeld told Buzzfeed/CBS News that he doesn’t waste time on the “P.C. nonsense” of quotas for his guests, saying “Oh, this really pisses me off.”
When the interviewer persisted, Seinfeld responded, “People think it’s the census or something. This has gotta represent the actual pie chart of America? Who cares? Funny is the world that I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested. I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that.”
Unsurprisingly, the progressive bouncers at the door of “decent society” sprang into action. At Gawker, an unfunny white guy named Kyle Chayka opined, “He seems to suggest that any comedian who is not a white male is also not funny.” You would have had to have suffered a recent closed-head injury to glean that from what Seinfeld said, or be a progressive hack looking to have someone buy him a drink in what I can only assume is a hipster-doofus (guessing Brooklyn) neighborhood bar.
...(Time) Writer Lily Rothman constructed a no-win situation of Jerry because, well, meritocracy can’t be allowed to stand. She writes, “It’s possible that Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee won’t drive conversation for long enough to have an impact, but if the issue stays in the spotlight, Seinfeld’s perspective will lose. A continued lack of diversity on his show would prove his detractors’ point — and make him look racist and sexist, even if he’s merely failing to actively think about matters of race and sex — while increased diversity would seem to acknowledge that the “nonsense” isn’t so nonsensical at all.”
Seinfeld, and anyone sane, probably wasn’t aware that he was trying to “win” anything, so what his “perspective will lose” remains a mystery. But she not-so-skillfully constructed a scenario to make it appear as though Seinfeld either starts caring about the race and gender of his guests, and books accordingly, at which point progressives will claim a perverse victory of some sort, or he’s a racist/sexist.
But she wasn’t done. “There’s no longer a way for a prominent comedian with Seinfeld’s level of influence to be so glib about the issue — especially given that of his 26 guests, only 2 have been women and another 2 have been non-white. (There have been no minority women guests so far.)” Jerry Seinfeld will be made to care, or the head-counters will attack. Don’t go for the funniest people you can find, Jerry, go for the grocery list of progressive’s diversity trading card sets.

America Has Lost Her Will to Live

By Selwyn Duke
...Yet the very same people who claimed they could orchestrate the health care of 317 million people will insist that "we can't deport" 20 million people. In fact, even though deportation should be reflexive, it isn't even on the radar screen. To suggest it brands you bigot or xenophobe, and the only thing really at issue is the rate of surrender: will it be sudden with full-on amnesty or the slower "path to legal status" -- the coup de grace or the death by a thousand cuts?

So all we hear instead are ridiculous arguments justifying the illegals' presence, as if they have no country to which to return. We'll hear that they're hard-working people who love their families, which is about as meaningful as saying they're bipeds who breathe air. I'm sure that German soldiers during WWII were generally hard-working people who loved their families, too, but as long as they posed a threat to the US, they had to be dealt with as such.

Particular indignation is exhibited when defending children of illegals, who, we're told, "are here through no fault of their own." This also is meaningless. Countless millions of children throughout the world are poor through no fault of their own, yet we don't propose they all be allowed green cards. And how many children have ended up in foster care through no fault of their own after their parents were imprisoned for committing crimes? Perhaps we should stop enforcing laws, period -- "for the children."

Nine Years after Kelo, the Seized Land Is Empty

By Alec Torres
Nine years after the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision gutted the right of American property owners to resist eminent-domain seizures, the neighborhood at the center of the case remains a wasteland.
Fort Trumbull in New London, Conn., was bulldozed to fulfill the vision of politicians and developers eager to create a New Urbanist mixed-use “hub” for upscale living in the depressed town near the mouth of Long Island Sound.
But after nearly a decade, the land is nothing but vacant urban prairie. After homeowners were forced off their property for the sake of “economic development,” the city’s original development deal fell apart, and the urban-renewal corporation that ordered the destruction has not found a developer to use the land.
...Traditionally, these transfers of property, or eminent domain, had only allowed governments to acquire private lands in order to build a public structure like a school or highway. The Constitution permits seizures for such instances of “public use,” but the Supreme Court decision expanded that power to allow governments to acquire people’s land with “just compensation” for a “public purpose,” which in Kelo meant the government’s belief that a different owner might bring in more tax revenue.
Even that chilling premise has failed in New London. Instead of generating more economic activity, New London now has a massive plot of unused land.
New London’s original plan was to raze homes in the neighborhood of Fort Trumbull to make way for a $300 million Pfizer, Inc. research center as well as office buildings, luxury condos, hotels, a conference center, and high-end retail stores. Promising to lop 80 percent off the property-tax rate for a ten-year period, the struggling city hoped the new development would bring in jobs, more residents, and increased consumer spending.
However, in 2008, the construction company charged with developing the land, Corcoran Jennison, backed out due to insufficient capital. In 2009, Pfizer left New London, selling its new facility to a submarine manufacturer a year later.
Two later plans to develop the land likewise fell through. River Bank, a development firm, proposed a residential townhouse development in 2009 (after the city again promised tax abatement), only to have the project postponed and later cancelled due to inadequate funding. Then, in 2010, the Yale Design Workshop, at the request of the city, created plans for a large development that included restaurants, a hotel, offices, art galleries, bicycle lanes, water taxis, a pedestrian bridge to downtown, and more with the use of “private, local, state, and federal funds.” The project never came to fruition.

Mulsim Brotherhood in the Oval Office

By Lee DeCovnick
The Muslim Brotherhood, founded by virulent anti-Semites, subsidized by Adolf Hitler, and its stated goal for the MB in America includes the following:

The Ikhwan [the MB] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.

The MB has even been thoughtful enough to list some it's North American front groups: (scroll down the PDF for the English translation)

The MB ultimately would like to eliminate all the Christians, all the Jews, and all the Buddhists, all the Hindus; every single infidel on the planet, while establishing a Global Caliphate run by, of course, the Muslim Brotherhood.

What a swell bunch of folks.

Say, did you read the Washington Free Beacon bylined by Adam Kredo? I guess the entire MSM somehow missed this news item.

Anas Altikriti, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, is closest to the camera, on the left side of the photo.
A senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood was recently hosted at the White House for a meeting with President Barack Obama, prompting an outcry from critics of the global Islamist organization.
Anas Altikriti, a top British lobbyist for the Muslim Brotherhood whose father heads Iraq's Muslim Brotherhood party, recently met with the president and Vice President Joe Biden as part of a delegation discussing problems in Iraq.
Altikriti, whose work has also been tied to Hamas, can be seen smiling in photos published by the White House as he stands next to Iraqi Parliament Speaker Usama al-Nujaifi, who is pictured shaking hands with President Obama in the White House's Roosevelt Room. The meeting was first highlighted by the blog Harry's Place.
Altikriti's presence in the White House was surprising to many who said the U.K. organization he heads, the Cordoba Foundation, has been singled out by British Prime Minister David Cameron as the "political front for the Muslim Brotherhood."
Paul Stott, an U.K. academic and expert in British jihadism at the University of East Anglia, said Altikriti's presence in the meetings represents "part of the long term U.S.-U.K. engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood, a strategy which hit choppy waters when it became clear people in Egypt were far from ready to let the [Muslim Brotherhood] run the country the way they wanted."
"The coup could have put paid to this glad handing, but it is clearly continuing," Stott said.
Altikriti has been called the "key political lobbyist for the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain." His Cordoba Foundation has been criticized for working "closely with other British extremist groups which seek the creation of an Islamic dictatorship, or caliphate, in Europe," according to the British Telegraph newspaper.
Altikriti formerly served as a spokesman for the British Muslim Initiative (BMI), a group that has been singled out for close links to Hamas. BMI's founder and president Mohammed Sawalha has served as a senior military operative for Hamas.

So, a senior member of the MB is invited to the Oval Office, and is photographed with the President. We can only wonder how many such meetings have taken place already, and how many more will occur in the next three years while Obama remains in office?