From Sac Bee:

Federal judges should be on notice: The U.S. Justice Department seems fully prepared to stretch the truth – or worse, spread falsehoods – to obtain search warrants. That’s what it did in labeling a journalist as an espionage “co-conspirator” for simply doing what reporters have always done – attempting to solicit information from government employees.

As has now been revealed by the Washington Post, the FBI obtained a search warrant in 2009 allowing it to track the emails and phone records of James Rosen, a Fox News reporter. Rosen was working on a story about how North Koreawas likely to react to U.N. sanctions. Rosen reportedly received information from Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department adviser who had received a top-secret CIA memo predicting that the North Koreans might conduct a nuclear missile test in response to U.N. sanctions.

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From Contra Costa Times:

The Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the storm over the agency’s targeting of conservative groups told Congress on Wednesday that she had done nothing wrong in the episode, and then invoked her constitutional right to refuse to answer lawmakers’ questions.

In one of the most electric moments since the IRS controversy erupted nearly two weeks ago, Lois Lerner defended herself during a brief appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The committee is investigating the agency’s improper targeting of tea party and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, and Lerner oversees the IRS office that processes applications for that status.

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From American Thinker:

How ought Republicans to respond to the growing list of indefensible abuses of power by Barack Obama?  Consider what he has done.  Obama has created the virtual equivalent of an “enemies list” and used the federal government to persecute these opponents of his plans.  Obama has repeatedly and transparently lied to the American people about the misdeeds of his lackeys and his knowledge of those misdeeds.  Obama has hidden behind a gaggle of subordinates whose responses to questions sound like the “…to the best of my knowledge at this point in time…” mantra which Richard Nixon’s lieutenants recited when called before the House Judiciary Committee in 1974.

Barack Obama committed precisely the sort of “high crimes and misdemeanors” which the Founding Fathers intended to be cause for impeachment.  Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, should begin the process of investigating whether Obama should be impeached.

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From SJ Mercury:

The San Jose City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to raise the city’s tax on marijuana collectives to 10 percent starting in July.

Raising the city’s marijuana tax was among Mayor Chuck Reed’s budget recommendations for the coming year. San Jose voters in 2010 approved a tax on medical marijuana providers of up to 10 percent of gross receipts. The council later that year set the rate at 7 percent, with collection beginning in March 2011.

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From Roll Call:

Even as emergency personnel continued to search through the debris of Monday’s tornado in Oklahoma, talk on Capitol Hill had turned to the question of paying for the recovery.

Rep. Peter T. King, a Republican from Long Island, told CQ Roll Call he was prepared to go to bat for the victims in Moore, Okla., as he did when Superstorm Sandy devastated the Northeast last year.

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Photo courtesy of 401(K) 2013, Flickr

From Forbes:

Although sequestration’s spending cuts grab headlines, the tax hikes are having greater fiscal effect. Unlike the much-mentioned March 1, sequester, the tax hikes began January 1, and are permanent. The disparate impacts and disproportional reaction have everything to do with Washington’s entitlement culture – that Washington feels entitled to tax and spend.

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From SGV Tribune:

Sometimes it seems there’s a deliberate attempt by bureaucrats to use language as off-putting as possible with the purpose of creating a wall of boredom that only the most determined or demented will take the time to penetrate.

Exhibit A: the Congestion Mitigation Fee proposal being considered by Los Angeles County’s transportation officials.

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From Daily Caller:

The Democrat-led group in the Senate now pushing the draft immigration bill defeated numerous GOP amendments on May 20 that would have improved current enforcement measures, curbed financial aid to illegal immigrants and excluded many criminals from the proposed amnesty.

The Democratic-led group also rolled back a 1986 law that requires border agents to track the arrival and departure of all visitors at international airports, seaports and land borders. The law was included in the broader 1986 amnesty, but was never implemented.

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From Sac Bee:

California state government violated civil service rules by giving hundreds of salaried managers part-time jobs that paid them an hourly wage, according to an audit released Friday.

The audit concluded that departments overpaid some for their hourly work, underpaid others, and used a poorly worded policy as an excuse to circumvent the notion that managers receive a fixed wage to do whatever is required to get the job done.

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Photo courtesy of comedy_nose, flickr

From LA Times:

It seemed like a fairly good idea at the time — the idea of Abel Maldonado running for governor.