The IRS official who refused to testify this week — while claiming she had done nothing wrong — signed letters to Tea Party groups a year ago that asked them to turn over everything from printouts of their Facebook pages to the credentials of speakers who participated in their events.

A group representing more than a dozen Tea Party groups now suing the IRS released a sample of one of the letters overnight, after the official Lois Lerner was placed on administrative leave. According to one lawmaker, she was only placed on leave after she refused to resign.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel with the American Center for Law and Justice, said the March 2012 letters show a “paper trail” that reveals her “direct involvement in sending intrusive and harassing questionnaires.”

“It appears Lerner did nothing to stop the abusive conduct. And our evidence suggests she was actively participating in the improper targeting in March 2012,” he said in a statement.

It was no secret that Lerner, as head of the exempt organizations division, was aware of the program that had developed in the Cincinnati office under her watch. A timeline provided in the inspector general’s report on the practice showed she was first briefed in June 2011.

But while she apparently raised concerns at that briefing over the criteria used, the ACLJ said the March 2012 letters show she was still involved in carrying out the policy.

At the time, the program itself was in flux. Lerner had earlier ordered the criteria to be changed in June 2011. The criteria was then broadened, but somehow it was changed again in January 2012 “without executive approval,” according to the IG report.

After that, the unit in question sent out a new round of letters requesting additional information, while giving groups that had not responded to the prior requests an additional 60 days to comply. These appear to be the letters that, in some cases, Lerner signed.

A letter posted online by the ACLJ was sent March 16 to the Ohio Liberty Council Corp. Signed by Lerner, the letter gave the group 60 days to respond to a prior letter seeking information on the group’s social media accounts, sponsored events, communications with lawmakers and other material.

So how did well-known heckler and war protester Medea Benjamin — leader of the activist group Code Pink — get into President Obama’s counterterrorism speech on Thursday?

With a press pass.

Politico reported that a photographer who stood in line with Benjamin at the National Defense University saw her wearing a bright green pass pass adorned with her original name, Susan Benjamin.

Security officials eventually escorted Benjamin from the hall after she continually yelled at Obama in protest over drones and the terrorism prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Atlantic recited Benjamin’s history of heckling: “She’s been seen and heard at many big political events over the last year: at CIA chief John Brennan’s confirmation hearing, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre’s press conference, the Republican National Convention.” It quoted a “Senate source” as saying she also used the media pass trick to get into one of its events.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Obama spoke to her as if she was a stranger, which is odd considering Benjamin’s pal Jodi Evans is an big Obama fundraiser.

A co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, which has made a name for itself by interrupting hearings on Capitol Hill, is a fundraising bundler for Barack Obama.

Jodie Evans has pledged to raise at least $50,000 for Obama, according the Democrat’s campaign site.

If we didn’t know any better, we’d suggest this was a planned stunt.

Given her background, Benjamin’s submission to be cleared by the Secret Service for the event, even as press, would have lit up the protective agency’s computer screens like a Christmas tree. Her ties to Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iraqi ‘resistance’, Iran and Cuba, etc., would raise red flags that would likely have to be overridden by someone in the Obama administration’s press or public engagement office.

The questions arise as to who invited Benjamin in the first place and who cleared her? Was it someone in the Obama administration, or was it someone on the faculty at NDU? Either way, it raises troubling scenarios. Did the Obama administration plant a heckler like they planted a questioner to break the IRS scandal? Or did someone at the National Defense University commit an act of gross insubordination to embarrass their commander-in-chief on national television?

Heck, even Obama himself wants to cut this hag some slack.

Obama also added that he is willing to cut the heckler “some slack” because “it’s worth passionate about” the indefinite detention of the prisoners without formal charges.

He’ll cut her some slack. But Tea Partiers and James Rosen are made to suffer? Why, let’s investigate them as if they’re criminals.

Ironically, Obama’s wife once told CodePink to keep up the great work.

First Lady Michelle Obama, accepting an anti-war petition at a fundraiser in San Francisco last week, told the CodePink member who presented her with 20,000 signatures,  ”Keep up the great work,” the  organization’s co-founders say.

     CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin wrote a blogpost today about the First Lady’s visit. In it, she related what she said happened behind the scenes when Kristin Hull, a CodePink supporter – one who paid to get into  the $500 a head fundraiser – personally met up with Michelle Obama at the California Academy of Sciences last Friday.

  After Hull handed Mrs. Obama a petition urging peacekeeping not war with Iran — a document signed by luminaries like Gloria Steinham, Alice Walker and Eve Ensler – ”Ms. Obama thanked Hull for her advocacy and said, “Keep up the great work,”  writes Benjamin. “As Hull was walking away after her photo with the First Lady, Michelle Obama grabbed her hand, squeezed it and said, “We really need you.”

We wonder what Mrs. Obama has to say today? It’s doubtful anyone in the media will ask. Nor will they ask about Obama’s close ties with Jodi Evans.

The government’s efforts to snoop on Fox News reporter James Rosen during a leak investigation were broader than first revealed — extending to other Fox reporters and even included Rosen’s parents’ home on Staten Island.

The feds swept up information on several phone numbers associated with Fox News’ bureau in DC, the network confirmed, and two phone numbers likely at the White House, an analysis of new court documents reveals.

One of the phone numbers that surfaced in a government subpoena matched that of Brooklyn-born Rosen’s parents’ home on Staten Island, a source confirmed to Fox.

“My son and his wife call us all the time, and we talk about grandchildren,” Rosen’s father, Myron, told Fox. “We don’t talk about nuclear proliferation.

“The fact that they had our phone records, it shows how crazy they are, how desperate,” he fumed.

With any good fortune the Rosens have a lawsuit on their hands. Aim high, Myron. Ask for a billion dollars and work from there. You can leave it to your grandchildren.

Ironic how concerned the Obama administration is with leaks. Except for the ones that make him look good.

Consider two New York Times “scoops” during last year’s campaign. On May 29, 2012, The Times flatteringly depicted Obama deciding which overseas terror suspects would die by drone. The accounts of meetings, including quotations from the president, were attributed to “officials present.”

Three days later, The Times revealed the existence of America’s secret cyber attacks against Iran’s nuclear program. The reporter quoted the president speaking in the White House Situation Room, and described his sources as “members of the president’s national security team who were in the room.”

As Republican Rep. Pete King said at the time, attendance records exist for such meetings. An aggressive prosecutor need only put every person there under oath and ask away.

It will come as no shock that no such prosecution has taken place. Nor was there a serious probe when Obama’s aides gave secret information on the Osama bin Laden raid to a Hollywood producer.

The pattern is obvious: there are good leaks and bad leaks — depending on whether they flatter or damage Obama.

Mayor Bloomberg went on a spitting-mad rant against a city cab-fleet boss who won a court victory over Hizzoner’s planned “Taxi of Tomorrow” — vowing to “destroy your f–king industry” when he leaves office, The Post has learned.

A fuming Bloomberg made the threat against Taxi Club Management CEO Gene Freidman at Madison Square Garden’s private 1879 Club during last Thursday’s Knick playoff game, a witness said yesterday.

“It was like Gene had kidnapped his child. He used the f-word twice,” the witness said.

Freidman confirmed the blow-up to The Post, and said Bloomberg’s tirade included the warning that, “After January, I am going to destroy all you f–king guys.”

We’re in a dangerous time in America. Bother the First and Second Amendments are under furious assaults in Washington and we have a two-bit punk like Bloomberg, drunk on power, looking to crush anyone in his path.

“I saw Bloomberg and his security there in the club, so I went over and said, ‘Tell me what is going on with the Taxi of Tomorrow?’ ” Freidman, 42, said yesterday.

“He turns to me, and said, ‘Come January 1st, when I am out of office, I am going to destroy your f–king industry.’

“I said, ‘Whoa, Mr. Mayor, calm down! Why can’t I sit down with you and figure out something that works?’ He got back in my face and said, ‘After January, I am going to destroy all you f–king guys,’ ” said Freidman, whose company operates a fleet of 925 yellow cabs.

Freidman said a red-faced Bloomberg’s jaw was clenched.

“He was very angry, very scary, very violent in a non-physical way. He was grinding his teeth, he was spitting, he was red and he was in my face,” the self-styled “King of the Road” claimed.

“The mayor was extremely disrespectful, and not ‘mayorly’ at all. He cursed at me, and when we walked away, I asked a friend who was with me, ‘Did the mayor just threaten me?’

“My friend responded, ‘No, he threatened you twice.’ ”

You know how you react to bullies like this?  Punch back twice as hard. This may have been caught on video and we can only hope it’s made public.

But nothing would calm Bloomberg — who at one point looked about for security to toss Freidman from the club.

“This was my club that Bloomberg was a guest in, that I had paid to get in, and he wasn’t getting me kicked out of my own place,” said Freidman.

His lawyers have asked MSG to preserve any surveillance video that may have captured the exchange.

Officials have confirmed at least 91 people have been killed in the Moore tornado Monday.

The medical examiner’s office confirmed at least 233 people have been injured.

That number is expected to rise as recovery efforts continue Tuesday morning and daylight arrives.

The tornado claimed an unconfirmed number of children at Moore’s Plaza Towers Elementary.

Also among those killed, a family of four with a baby near 4th St. and Telephone Rd. in Moore.

The scenes of destruction were unthinkable as this monster tornado swept up everything in its path, leaving twisted ruins and mounds of rubble. Yet as with all disasters, brave Americans rushed to the scene,  doing anything they could to help find the wounded. Such selflessness is instinctive, a goodness that lies in most people.

Sadly, punks like Politico “reporter” Glenn Thrush and a cadre of his fellow travelers aren’t most people. They’re simply evil. Bodies haven’t even been recovered and here this schmuck is looking to score some cheap political points at the expense of Oklahoma Senators Tom Coburn and James Inhofe. You see, Inhofe doesn’t buy the so-called “climate change” nonsense that has become a religion to the Thrushes of the world and Coburn dares to express the desire for accountability with government spending. So off to the races:

What the hell is a spending skeptic? Someone who doesn’t want to bankrupt the country? Well, golly, he deserves a natural disaster killing his constituents, including at least 24 schoolchildren. That ought to teach him. And that Inhofe, why he doesn’t buy the global warming scam. Forget the fact the planet isn’t warming, tornados have to be a result of climate change!

Read the reactions to his idiocy from people who actually are concerned about the dead and the path of destruction. Raging butthurt from this tool results:

Douchebag? Check. Low-life scumbag? Check. Jackhole? Check. He at least has some self-awareness.

Thrush wasn’t alone in unmasking his evil. Note the time of this tweet from Vanity Fair editor Kurt Eichenwald, which was well before we knew about the dead.

Eichenwald became very upset that people cursed at him. Poor thing. Instead of just watching the news and praying like the rest of us, these lefty ghouls rush to score points as people lay trapped int he rubble. Unconscionable.

Well, now we know they were aware of this at least a month ago.

The White House’s chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House official said Sunday.

That disclosure has prompted a debate over whether the president should have been notified at that time.

In the week of April 22, the Office of the White House Counsel and its head, Kathryn Ruemmler, were told by Treasury Department attorneys that an inspector general’s report was nearing completion, the White House official said. In that conversation, Ms. Ruemmler learned that “a small number of line IRS employees had improperly scrutinized certain…organizations by using words like ‘tea party’ and ‘patriot,’ ” the official said.

President Barack Obama said last week he learned about the controversy at the same time as the public, on May 10, when an IRS official revealed it to a conference of lawyers. The president’s statement drew criticism, focusing attention on his management style and whether he has kept himself sufficiently informed about the agencies under his authority.

It’s simply not plausible Obama didn’t know about this, especially since the orders to go after Tea Party groups came from the top, according to an IRS official in Cincinnati.

“We’re not political,’’ said one determinations staffer in khakis as he left work late Tuesday afternoon. “We people on the local level are doing what we are supposed to do. . . . That’s why there are so many people here who are flustered. Everything comes from the top. We don’t have any authority to make those decisions without someone signing off on them. There has to be a directive.”

Even if that directive doesn’t come from Obama himself, the buck stops with him, whether he likes it or not.

The public’s interest in the ongoing controversies surrounding the IRS and Benghazi is lower than comparable major news stories in the past, according to a Gallup survey released Friday.

According to the poll, slim majorities say they’re closely following the twin controversies, with 54 percent tracking the IRS’s singling out of conservative groups and 53 percent watching the Benghazi hearings. The levels of interest for both are below the 60 percent average Gallup says comparable news stories tend to generate, based on a 200 story spanning decades.

Twenty-two percent said they’re not following either story very closely, and 24 percent said they’re not following either story at all.

However, despite the claim of just two employees being involved, FOX19 has exclusively learned from two separate sources that there could be at least four Cincinnati employees involved.

Those four employees, whose names we have chosen to withhold until they have been officially confirmed, have each worked in the IRS Exempt Organizations Department.

This is the same department that has admitted publicly to sending letters to Tea Party and other conservative organizations.

FOX19 has also confirmed those four Cincinnati employees made large requests of information from:

• The Richmond, Virginia Tea Party in January of 2012.
• The Ohio Liberty Council in January of 2012..
• Dan Backer, a lawyer based in Washington D.C. who helped six small conservative groups apply for 501c4 status in February of 2012.
• The Liberty Township Tea Party in March of 2012.

One of FOX19′s two sources went on say that these four IRS workers claim “they simply did what their bosses ordered.” FOX19 reported on Tuesday that the report by the Office of Inspector General states that senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting Tea Party groups as early as 2011.

In fact, according to that report, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax exempt organizations, was told on June 29, 2011 that groups with ‘Tea Party’, ‘Patriot’ or ’9/12 Project’ in their names were being flagged for additional, and often burdensome, scrutiny.

While the IRS is pointing at ‘two rogue employees,’ the number of organizations that were singled out has swelled to nearly 500, according to Rep. Congressmen Darryl Issa and Ohio’s Jim Jordan.

FOX News is also reporting that at least two Cincinnati agents have been subpoenaed to testify before congress on Monday.

Why is Lois Lerner still employed? She needs to be shackled and dragged forcibly into Congress to testify.

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.

According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval.

Lerner also appears to have broken with the norms of tax-exemption approval by granting retroactive tax-exempt status to Malik Obama’s organization.

President Obama told donors like Jessica Biel, Justin Timberlake (who was wearing hipster glasses), and Tommy Hilfiger that Washington gridlock is pretty much Rush Limbaugh’s fault on Monday evening at a fundraiser at Harvey Weinstein’s house in New York’s Greenwich Village. Obama admitted that his theory — that after the 2012 election, the Republican “fever” would break, and they’d decide to co-sign some of his agenda — was wrong. “My thinking was when we beat them in 2012 that might break the fever, and it’s not quite broken yet,” Obama said, according to the White House pool report. This is because of a certain corpulent radio host. “I genuinely believe there are Republicans out there who would like to work with us but they’re fearful of their base and they’re concerned about what Rush Limbaugh might say about them. And as a consequence we get the kind of gridlock that makes people cynical about government.”

Last we checked Rush Limbaugh wasn’t leaking IRS records of anyone to liberal groups, casually dismissing the deaths of four Americans or spying on the media. Heck, Nixon was a piker next to this guy. We suspect at this point the last thing Republicans are concerned with is what Rush has to say. But when faced with a crumbling base, a media falling out of love, he’s got nothing to fall back on other than the Limbaugh card.  There’s justifiable cynicism about government when they’re caught spying on people, leaking tax records and leaving people to die.

It’s worth noting some folks in Manhattan have tired of this tool if these observations from a friend in lower Manhattan are any indication:

Well we just got a little taste of gov’t overkill.  Like I said Obama was coming to town.  He arrived in a motorcade of appx. 20 Federal vehicles and dozens of NYC backup motorcycles, trucks,etc.

He came from the West Side Hwy. in front of [address redacted] and around the block to in front of Reade st. Pub at 5:30.  He left at 7.

Total neighborhood lockdown

A lot of shit for hour and ½.
I could leave but only go to the corner. Ha!  No pedestrian movement for 15 min. before he arrived and 15 till he got totally inside.  Thousands of people going “what the f   “  I went on the balcony and got yelled at to get back inside.

Well, at least his millionaire and billionaire pals weren’t inconvenienced. Here’s another curious nugget from one of his 87 fundraisers last night:

He said in the second term “you start thinking about history and a longer sweep of time.”  He said “the 3 1/2 I’ve got is not a lot of time.”  He talked about visiting disaster sites in Boston and West Texas and being impressed with the spirit of the people. He said he wanted to “see we can institutionalize that.”

What next, government-mandated patriotic spirit?

The Internal Revenue Service’s scrutiny of conservative groups went beyond those with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names—as the agency admitted Friday—to also include ones worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and even ones that lobbied to “make America a better place to live,” according to new details of a government probe.

The investigation also revealed that a high-ranking IRS official knew as early as mid-2011 that conservative groups were being inappropriately targeted—nearly a year before then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told a congressional committee the agency wasn’t targeting conservative groups.

The new disclosures are likely to inflame a widening controversy over IRS handling of dozens of applications by tea-party, patriot and other conservative groups for tax-exempt status.

The details emerged from disclosures to congressional investigators by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The findings, which were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, don’t make clear who came up with the idea to give extra scrutiny to the conservative groups.

We’ll take a wild stab and guess it’s some of Obama’s campaign henchmen. Or maybe Obama himself. Until he’s under oath we just won’t know. Not that being under oath would stop him from lying.

On Sunday, a government official said the report will note that IRS officials told investigators that no one outside the IRS was involved in developing the criteria the agency now acknowledges were flawed.

Yeah, and Benghazi was just a protest over a YouTube video. Meanwhile, Maine Senator Susan Collins called for an Obama apology. Good luck with that.

When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department.  The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community.  They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012.  “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

Summaries of White House and State Department emails — some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard — show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points.

For all the talk about State Department officials here, who on the Obama campaign had input on this? It’s quite evident their concocted tale that al Qaeda wad finished was fantasy and the Benghazi attack posed a threat in the midst of a campaign. If only Mitt Romney had the guts to run this ad.

Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham says it’s time for Mrs. Clinton to testify under oath.

Graham, interviewed in his Senate office, said Clinton should return to Congress to address the issues raised. Should she be subpoenaed?

“I hope she would come back without that, but yes,” he replied. “I think she needs to come back and answer questions. Did she know that Cheryl Mills called the DCM (deputy chief of mission) to tell him, watch the member of Congress and don’t talk to him? And there’s now evidence that she was made aware of the security concerns and basically ignored security requests.”

He said Mills and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others also should be called to testify about the attacks. Those killed included Christopher Stephens, the first U.S. ambassador to die in the line of duty in a generation.

The federal government gave cover to UMass Dartmouth officials who are refusing to release information on taxpayer subsidies given to the accused Boston Marathon bombing suspect and three other former students charged with covering up his crime — in a move that one legislator called “outrageous.”

Officials at the U.S. Department of Education said yesterday that University of Massachusetts Dartmouth could only share “directory information” on alleged bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his college buddies — Dias Kadyrbayev, Azamat Tazhayakov and Robel Phillipos — who face conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges.

While state community colleges have already released financial aid information on bombing mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev, UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Divina Grossman has repeatedly refused and, under pressure, finally wrote to the federal government seeking an exemption to privacy rules for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

“It’s just absolutely outrageous that the average person in this country has very little privacy remaining yet the taxpayers have no right to know whether someone is receiving taxpayer money to attend a public college. It just doesn’t make sense,” said state Sen. 
Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth). “It is my understanding that UMass folks are taking a very conservative view of the law and a very strict interpretation of the law to avoid disclosing information that is going to greatly anger taxpayers in Massachusetts.”

These same people would gladly release private records of a political enemy if it could help them. But a terrorist? Nope, he’s got special privileges.

Americans put reforming immigration and reducing gun violence — the focus of much of the attention on Capitol Hill in recent weeks — at the bottom of a list of 12 priorities for Congress and the president to address. Americans instead say leaders in Washington should give highest priority to jobs and the economy, followed by making government work more efficiently and improving the quality of education.

So what dominates the news 24/7 is of little to no interest for the public. And the media wonders why people are tuning them out in droves.

These data are from Gallup Daily tracking conducted May 4-5, in the midst of continuing disagreements on how to reform the nation’s immigration laws, and highly contentious lobbying on the part of gun control groups and the National Rifle Association on the issue of gun laws. But these arguments clearly do not reflect the average American’s views on what should occupy the time of those in Washington. The roughly half of Americans who indicate they would like Congress and the president to make reducing gun violence and reforming immigration top priorities is more than 30 percentage points lower than the 86% who say creating jobs and growing the economy should be a top or a high priority.

So much for that bogus 90% statistic Obama and the Democrats toss around. Again, it should be stressed the top two items Democrats (and some Republicans) are obsessing over are at the bottom of the pile. Notice also another of the left’s obsessions — so-called climate change — doesn’t even merit a mention. This should send a strong message to the GOP to ignore the dire warnings coming from the same folks pushing these issues and focus on the economy. It’s a winning message, as Mark Sanford demonstrated last night. But you can guarantee one thing: The media will bury this story since it doesn’t fit the narrative.

Saying that he embodies the organization’s core values and beliefs, members of the National Rifle Association elected Aurora, CO mass shooter James Holmes as their new president Monday, sources confirmed. “Mr. Holmes is not only a powerful symbol and advocate of Second Amendment rights, but he’s also a high-profile gun owner himself,” said NRA member Tyler Paulson, 46, who claimed he could think of no one better to lead the group through its current challenges than the man who shot and killed 12 people in a Colorado movie theater.

We can’t wait for the guffaws the Newtown parodies will produce.

The United States is the most violent country that has ever been created, Ayers said.

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., committed daily war crimes in Vietnam “and I get asked about violence when what I did was some destruction of property to issue a scream and cry against an illegal war in which 6,000 people a week are being killed,” Ayers said. “Six thousand a week being killed and I destroyed some property. Show me the equivalence. You should ask John McCain that question … I’m against violence.”

“To conflate a group of fundamentalist people [in Boston] who are nihilistic in some way with a group of people who spent their lives trying to oppose the murder of 6,000 people a week … and still the killing went on. And still the killing went on. What would you have done?” Ayers said. “There’s no equivalence [with Boston]. Property damage. That’s what we did.”

In other words, he was an incompetent terrorist, as were his dead buddies.

The Weather Underground never accomplished what it set out to do: to end the Vietnam War, to end the system that created war and to create a more-just society, he said.

Ayers said he still holds out hope for the creation of a peace culture and a peace movement in the nation.

In his talk to the crowd, Ayers mentioned that in 1970, he lost three friends in the Weather Underground, including his lover, Diana Oughton. He did not explain in his talk how they died – they were killed when nail bombs they were making in a Greenwich Village townhouse blew up.

Sure, why explain it when you can rationalize it away with some fiction and revisionist history.

Authorities said the bombs were intended to be used at a dance at the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey.

“No one knows for sure but I think they were. And had they carried it out it would have been a catastrophe,” Ayers said. “But they didn’t and it didn’t happen. But what did happen is, on that same day John McCain murdered civilians. Do we have any responsibility for that? Should there be any reconciliation for that? Should he tell the truth about it?”

Actually, on that day McCain was a POW in Vietnam, where he was held prisoner from 1967 to 1973. But according to this “activist” Bill Ayers, he murdered people that day. What an asshole.

Via Instapundit.

Hilarious.

When Vice President Biden arrives in South Carolina on Friday to headline a sold-out dinner for state Democrats, here’s what you can expect to go down:

Biden will stoke speculation that he wants to run for president in 2016 by pressing the flesh in the first-in-the-South primary state. He will show himself to be on a first-name basis with many of the local politicians and county activists who will line up to greet him. They will gush over his attributes — genuine, down-to-earth, rock solid on the issues. As Dick Harpootlian, the state party chairman, put it, “We’re tickled pink to have him.”

Yet by the time he leaves, the reality of being Joe Biden will sink in: A promotion to the top job is a long shot, at best.

For Biden, who, his family and advisers say, is weighing whether to run in 2016, several paradoxes are at work. He is beloved by grass-roots Democrats, but mainly as the avuncular No. 2 to Barack Obama. From the South Carolina Lowcountry to the Iowa heartland, there are no signs — none yet, at least — of a “Draft Joe” movement. “There just isn’t,” said Sue Dvorsky, a former head of the Iowa Democratic Party.

Biden clearly has the experience and gravitas to ascend to the presidency, but many Democrats say he may have been in Washington too long (since 1973) to win an election. He is President Obama’s governing partner yet is rarely seen as Obama’s heir apparent. For that mantle, and for the nomination, he is likely to face stiff competition in the form of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former secretary of state and, according to most everyone, the 2016 front-runner.

Clearly has the gravitas? Have they been paying attention?

Privately, Obama’s White House advisers often knock Biden as an unscripted politician drawn to the spotlight and prone to making gaffes. But what they see as a lack of discipline and polish, voters may admire as refreshing candor, supporters say.

“He’s genuinely witty; he’s spontaneous,” Shrum said. “I think it makes him much more real to voters.”

Makes him real? A real moron, if anything.

These outtakes belie the seriousness of his role. Some historians have begun calling Biden the most powerful vice president of modern times. Obama tasked him with some of the top priorities of this administration — the 2009 economic stimulus and middle-class recovery, the war in Iraq, fiscal negotiations with Congress, and the push for stricter gun laws.

Middle class recovery? Let us know when that happens.

Seattle police were determined during the day to let protesters peacefully move about the city while not tolerating lawbreaking affecting property and peoples’ safety. By nightfall, police were using pepper spray and pushing protesters back. The night ended with 18 arrests and eight officers.

Hundreds of sign-carrying, flag-waving demonstrators jammed downtown streets Wednesday in a series of May Day marches and rallies — some at the peak of afternoon rush hour — protesting capitalism, promoting worker rights and pushing for changes in federal immigration laws.

From the Central Area to Capitol Hill to downtown, the daytime marches and rallies were peaceful. But by 8 p.m. the scene was starting to show signs reminiscent of May Day 2012, when groups of demonstrators, including black-clad anarchists, broke free from a march and smashed windows in businesses, a courthouse and cars.

Well, they only have to harken back to 2012 to know these animals were going to riot.

By evening’s end Wednesday, police were pushing the mob back using pepper spray, there were 18 arrests and eight officers injured — mostly scrapes and bruises — and the streets were littered with debris.

From the start, police seemed determined to carry out their main goal: Let protesters peacefully move about the city while not tolerating lawbreaking affecting property and safety.

Memo to the Seattle PD: Communist agitators  are not peaceful. Meanwhile, some illegals are demanding respect and want to be treated with dignity. Why, of course.

At the rally in Judkins Park, Pablo Alvarado, of Shelton, Mason County, wore long sheets of sketch paper over his clothes, scrawled with marker: “We are not immigrants, not criminals … not foreigners” it said on the front. And on the back it added: “We are original inhabitants of this continent.”

Alvarado, who said he was an undocumented worker originally from Mexico, said he wanted to achieve legal status and to be treated with dignity.

Try not being a criminal first and we’ll work from there, OK, Pablo? By the way, did we mention things were peaceful until all the violence broke out?

Several dozen protesters, many using bandanas to cover their faces, began clashing with police in downtown Seattle hours after a peaceful immigrant-rights march ended.

Naturally the Associated Press pushed this peaceful nonsense.

Several dozen protesters, many using bandanas to cover their faces, began clashing with police in downtown Seattle hours after a peaceful immigrant-rights march ended.

Even the ass-kissing mayor of Seattle said things were peaceful. Up until all the violence broke out.

Despite lacking a permit to march, Seattle police escorted them as through downtown.

“That first march came downtown. It was absolutely peaceful…it was almost a festive affair and they had some serious messages, too, that they wanted to express. No incidents whatsoever,” McGinn said. “The second march was very different, and it wasn’t just merely because it was unpermitted. I think it also had to do with the nature of the individuals in it and what they wanted to do.”

Gee, ya think? More photos of the mostly peaceful violence from Twitchy.

“We want to leave no stone unturned,” Obama said during a news conference.“Based on what I’ve seen so far, the FBI performed its duties. Department of Homeland Security did what it was supposed to be doing.”

No stone unturned, huh? Well, here’s a massive boulder.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent a written warning about accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2012, long before pressure-cooker blasts killed three and injured hundreds, according to a senior Saudi government official with direct knowledge of the document.

The Saudi warning, the official told MailOnline, was separate from the multiple red flags raised by Russian intelligence in 2011, and was based on human intelligence developed independently in Yemen.

Citing security concerns, the Saudi government also denied an entry visa to the elder Tsarnaev brother in December 2011, when he hoped to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, the source said. Tsarnaev’s plans to visit Saudi Arabia have not been previously disclosed.

Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said Monday that the police response to the Boston Marathon bombing “should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.”

The former Republican presidential candidate, writing for a libertarian website, said the reaction to the twin blasts — which killed three and wounded more than 200 more — was like a “military coup in a far off banana republic.”

“The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city,” Paul said.