Aggressive and unprecedented lobbying by Silicon Valley paid off last week, as the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an immigration bill that will be a boon to the high-tech sector. Among the provisions Silicon Valley secured in their efforts to shape
In March, home prices increased 10.9% from last year at this time but are still down 28% from 2006 levels. Analysts say one key driver for the uptick in home prices is not individuals buying homes but rather large investor
Home prices rose last month by an average of 10.9%, according to the Case-Shiller index. The good news is that home prices continue to recover from the lows seen in 2009. The bad news is that increasingly frothy conditions in
While Washington Republicans concentrate on symbolic top-down “outreach” efforts, a California state senate race may actually provide a better roadmap for how Republicans can win in districts dominated by Democrats and minorities. As the Wall Street Journal noted, Republican farmer Andy Vidak
The day’s top stories in social media and technology for 5/24: Syrian Electronic Army Hijacks Another News Outlet, the dark side of social media, FTC goes after company for lax security that let hundreds of thousands of credit-card numbers get
Kimberly Strassel has a must-read column at the Wall Street Journal today that explains the context in which the IRS scandal emerged–not just during the Obama administration’s attempt to quash the Tea Party, but in Obama’s efforts to shut down all
Current and former U.S. officials are reporting “Iran backed hackers have escalated a campaign against U.S. corporations” and have infiltrated “computer networks running energy companies.” According to The Wall Street Journal, the Iranians “were able to gain access to control-system
The Inspector General Act of 1978 mandates that “particularly serious or flagrant problems” be shared with Congress by the relevant agency within seven days. During yesterday’s congressional testimony Inspector General George argued that such reporting would be “impractical” and “counter-productive.”
The Los Angeles teachers’ union, United Teachers Los Angeles, defeated a combined effort by several other labor unions, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and other public sector unions, in the city’s mayoral election Tuesday. The final tally of
Not really. The IRS had little interest in 501(c)(4) political activities until the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform. That law barred dedicated political-advocacy groups from soliciting and spending soft money–funds that aren’t subject to tight federal campaign-contribution limits and are used
In response to Dems Still Trying to Make IRS Scandal About Citizens United: At the Wall Street Journal, Justice Department veterans David Rivkin and Lee Casey discuss how Citizens United loomed large in the Left’s imagination, even as the IRS scandal was
Frank VanderSloot was one of 16 million-dollar Romney donors identified by Rolling Stone, and now Nate Silver writes that the fact that there is no statistical evidence that the IRS audit of VanderSloot indicates he was targeted. At first glance there
Comparing the unfair advantage of the IRS targeting conservative groups to professional athletes taking illegal steroids, James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal believes Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign deserves the mark frequently associated with sports’s most dubious record breakers:
Idaho-based businessman Frank VanderSloot, who gave $1 million to Mitt Romney’s Super PAC in the last election, told Breitbart News he was audited three times last year and investigated a fourth. VanderSloot was personally audited by the IRS, as was
Yahoo, Inc. has announced that it has cleared the way to purchase the social website Tumblr for a cool $1.1 billion. The Yahoo board approved the deal in a conference call on May 17, but by Sunday, it wasn’t clear
In a commencement address in Atlanta on Sunday to graduating seniors at Morehouse College, President Barack Obama told graduates to fulfill the “special obligation I felt, as a black man like you.” The all-male, historically black liberal arts college was
Anne Hendershott, an eloquent opponent of the Obama administration, states that she has reason to believe she was targeted by the IRS for an audit following publications that were critical of President Obama and Catholics who supported him. Aleteia, a
On Friday, Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY) told outgoing acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller that his testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee had been “offensive” and expressed outrage that nothing bad will happen to Miller because of what he deemed the
While the IRS was targeting the Tea Party and other domestically-focused conservatives, they were allegedly targeting foreign policy groups like Secure America Now (SAN) as well. At the time that they were “singled out for special scrutiny the [IRS],” SAN
In the midst of the scandal over the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) unconstitutional and likely criminal targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups, the Wall Street Journal released some fascinating data about the comparative performance of the U.S. and European
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) demanded that limited government and tea party groups produce Facebook posts, donor lists, and even what books group members were reading, reports Politico. The IRS’s hardball political tactics were all part of a strategy to
It’s Deja Vu all over again. From the Inspector General’s report on IRS profiling: “We could not specifically determine who had been involved in creating the criteria.” And that morsel of information was relegated to a footnote. How is that even
Russia detained U.S. Embassy Diplomat Ryan C. Fogle on the night of May 13; they have since expelled him from the country over accusations that he is a CIA intelligence officer. According to The Wall Street Journal, Fogle was “released
…that he waited a full three days before saying anything about it, and then only in response to a question from a journalist. …that he joined Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in demanding the resignation of the head of the IRS,
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has discovered that the IRS did not merely target groups containing the words “Tea Party” or “patriots” – the IRS gave heightened scrutiny for any
