In response to Juiceboxers Who Visited The WH, Yesterday Suddenly Taking a Hard Line On IRS Scandal:

Thanks for citing me, Deb.  I think that PJMedia's Bryan Preston put it in sharper, better terms than I did:

First, get reliably friendly bloggers and columnists on board with a story that focuses attention away from the White House. Then, isolate and target someone who has already become a central figure in the scandal and, more importantly, who does not work directly for the White House. Finally, make it appear as if these reliably friendly bloggers actually take the IRS scandal seriously, so they become voices in the larger media advocating for a strong response — just strong enough to look decisive, while keeping the White House outside the main storyline.

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In response to IRS Targeting Criteria Included 'Statements...critical of how the country is being run.':

For the record, here's my statement critical of how the country is being run:

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I want to personally thank Anthony Weiner for deciding to run for Mayor. 

Anthony, thank you.

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One of the criteria used to determine which tax exemption applications would receive additional scrutiny was general criticism of how the "country is being run."

Emails released this morning by the House Oversight Committee reveal that there were four criteria used to determine which groups would received additional IRS scrutiny. The list of criteria was produced in response to an email request made by Holly Paz on June 1, 2011. Paz, a manager in the Exempt Organizations Guidance division asked "What criteria are being used to label a case a 'Tea Party case'? We want to think about whether those criteria are resulting in over-inclusion."

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Both the BBC and witnesses at the scene are reporting that at least one of the attackers who hacked a soldier to death with a machete in London shouted "Allahu Akbar." Chilling video has also surfaced of a knife-wielding man with bloodied hands talking to a camera referring to "our land" and calling for the removal of governments: 

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From CBS News:

BURLINGAME (KPIX 5) — A restaurant on the Peninsula that offers several exotic animals on the menu has stopped serving lion meat following an uproar online.

Mokutanya Yakitori Restaurant in Burlingamereceived a shipment of the lion meat last Thursday. Customers who tried the meat told KPIX 5 it was chewy and a cross between beef and chicken.

Owner Jason Li said he received numerous complaints through the restaurant’s Facebook page. After two days, Li pulled the king of the jungle from the menu Saturday night and apologized on the restaurant’s website for offending anyone.

“There’s a lot of people, they’re not ready for this type of meat serving, so I was thinking, just stop,” Li told KPIX 5.

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In response to Shulman Visited White House 118 Times During Tea Party Targeting:

Well, well. Just like the Democrats on the Oversight and Reform Committee who have turned on the #IRS. 

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Senator Rand Paul recently said something at the New Hampshire GOP's "Liberty Dinner" that has stirred some debate.

The New Hampshire Union Leader reports:

He also said the GOP needs to improve from within if it hopes to reclaim the White House. "We need to grow bigger. If you want to be the party of white people, we're winning all the white votes," he said. "We're a diverse nation. We're going to win when we look like America."

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A pretty astounding set of numbers via FreeEnterprise.com:

$1.8 trillion buys a lot of red tape.

That’s how much the federal regulatory machine is costing Americans each year, according to the 20^th edition of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Ten Thousand Commandments report.

This huge number is $50 billion more per year than what a Small Business Administration study found in 2008.

In an op-ed in the Daily Caller, the report’s author Waynes Crews along with CEI’s Ryan Young note “that the cost of regulation has exceeded half the size of the federal budget.” And in the report, it notes that cost of complying with federal regulations is more than the economic output of Canada or Mexico.

Here are some other unfortunate facts about the federal regulatory system:

• 78,961 pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register. While that may be a lot of pages, it only was the fourth-most prolific year of all time (81,405 pages were added in 2010).
• 2,517 rules were proposed in 2012, the most since 2003.
• Of the over 4,000 regulations in the pipeline, 224 are “economically significant,” meaning they’ll cost more than $100 million.
• The top five rule-making agencies of 2012 were the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, Interior, Agriculture, and Transportation. If you include EPA, which is sixth, these agencies accounted for 48% (1,953) of all federal rules.

In response to Cummings Fails to Ask Shulman If He Is a Democrat:

Democrats are actually asking the witnesses tough questions in today's Oversight and Reform hearing, instead of running interference for them (like they've done in past scandals like Fast and Furious and Benghazi) because they realize how toxic an issue this is to American taxpayers of every political stripe.

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