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Grassley Amendment to Immigration Bill Allows Amnesty Even with Two DUIs

Tue, 21 May 2013 18:14:27 GMT

An amendment proposed by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to the comprehensive immigration reform bill that clears the path to citizenship for illegal aliens with two convictions for drunk driving has passed.

As the Senate committee continues the markup process on the comprehensive immigration reform bill, very little has changed from the original Gang of Eight proposal that would grant citizenship to the estimated 11 million illegal aliens in the United States. However, on Monday Sen. Grassley was able to pass an amendment that won't grant citizenship to anyone with three drunk driving convictions.

The amendment also stops deportation of anyone who has two or more drunk driving convictions before the passage of the bill:

TWO OR MORE PRIOR CONVICTIONS. —An alien who received 2 or more convictions for drunk driving before the date of the enactment of this Act may not be subject to removal for the commission of an aggravated felony...

The Grassley amendment would mean that citizenship could have been granted to people like Carlos A. Martinelly Montano, who had two drunk driving convictions before he struck a car while drunk, killing a nun and injuring several other passengers, in Bristow, Virginia in 2010:

Carlos A. Martinelly Montano, 24, faces up to 70 years in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 3 on the murder charge and a host of lesser related charges to which he pleaded guilty earlier in the day.

The charges stemmed from an Aug. 1, 2010, crash in which Martinelly Montano struck a car carrying Sister Denise Mosier, 66, as she was traveling to a retreat at the Benedictine Monastery in Bristow, Va.

Martinelly Montano, who entered the country illegally with his family from Bolivia in 1996, had twice been convicted on drunken-driving charges before the accident. After the second conviction in 2008, he was released by the county into the custody of the Department of Homeland Security and was awaiting a deportation hearing when the crash occurred.

Pritzker Assured Employees of Bank's Health Two Months Before Failure

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:46:00 GMT

After coming under fire in 2008 for her role in the failure of her family’s subprime-lending Superior Bank, President Obama’s campaign defended their then-campaign finance chairwomen, Penny Pritzker, claiming, that "she stepped down as chairwoman of the bank’s board in 1994," seven years before it failed. However, a letter sent by Pritzker to the banks employees in 2001 indicates she was still playing a major leadership role, right up to the bank’s failure that occurred less than two months after the letter was sent.

In the letter, obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, dated May 31, 2001, Pritzker, who is now President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Commerce, told bank employees and managers at Superior Bank, that “an agreement had been reached with the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) for a $351 million plan to recapitalize” her family’s failing bank.

Pritzker goes on to inform the bank’s employees, “we have been able to preserve the bank’s future and satisfy the requirements of the OTS and FDIC.”

Not only did Pritzker articulate that the bank still held a bright and prosperous future, she also told the employees that reports in the media about the bank’s troubles at the time were “inaccurate” and “untrue,” and encouraged the employees to “remain focused on the strong business fundamentals of sound and fiscally responsible lending.”

Messages like these were echoed by the bank’s employees to depositors who had concerns about their savings held at the bank. John Courtney, a retired veteran who is still out $60,000 more than 10 years after the bank’s failure was also told that the bank, simply being owned by the Pritzker family, was good enough reason he could rest assured that his money was safe.

Despite Pritzker’s claims to bank employees and managers' claims to depositors that the bank was as strong as ever, two months after Pritzker sent the later, the bank’s principles (the Pritzker family of Chicago and Dwarmin family of New York) failed to inject the necessary capital to satisfy the agreement with the OTS and the bank was placed into a receivership by the FDIC.

To avoid any legal repercussions the Pritzkers made a deal to pay the FDIC $460 million over the next 15 years--interest free, roughly $200 million less than the credits they received from the government to initially buy the bank in 1988. Once the Pritzkers paid $316 million to the government, however, they struck another deal, and the FDIC forgave the balance of $144 million. An attorney who represented some of the depositors in a class action suit, Clint Krislov (an open supporter of President Obama), told Breitbart News, the deal for the Pritzkers “was unprecedented,” and left the depositors still un-whole by more than $10 million.

Here is Pritzker's letter to the bank employees. Pritzker's confirmation in the Senate is set to begin this Thursday.

David Frum, Tea Party Unite Against Senate Amnesty Bill

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:36:00 GMT

On Monday, a broad cross-section of the conservative movement released a joint letter opposing the Gang of 8 Amnesty bill in the Senate. Signers included well-known talk radio hosts, prominent individual activists, tea party and family organizations from across the country. The breadth of the growing opposition to the Senate bill is evidenced by one signature, David Frum of Frum Forum.

Frum has a long history criticizing the tea party. He has called it the "GOP's own worst enemy." That he would set aside his view and join with numerous tea party organizations and activist in opposition to the amnesty bill is a sign the Schumer-Rubio bill does not stand up to thoughtful scrutiny.

The letter signers note that "many of us support various parts of the legislation, but the overall package is so unsatisfactory that the Senate would do better to start over from scratch.” They state that the legislation is “bloated and unwieldy along the lines of Obamacare or Dodd-Frank.” The signers worry that it “cedes excessive control over immigration law to an administration that has repeatedly proven itself to be untrustworthy, even duplicitous.”

When the amnesty bill was first unveiled this Spring, many conservative organizations and activists gave Sen. Marco Rubio and his fellow GOP negotiators some benefit of doubt that the legislation would contain provisions that would tighten and strengthen border security.

Many were even open to a process to legalize the 11 million immigrants already here illegally. The key, however, was to secure the border so that another wave of illegal immigrants didn't enter the country in the future. That assurance is not in the Senate bill.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is trying to rush through the mark-up of the bill by the end of the week. Senate sponsors hope to push the legislation to the Senate floor in early June, after the Memorial Day break. As opposition to the legislation grows, though, their clock may be running out.

Follow Mike Flynn on twitter: @Flynn1776

Miller: IRS Didn't Have Time to Prepare Testimony

Tue, 21 May 2013 15:04:00 GMT

On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee convened a hearing examining the circumstances of the IRS targeting of tea party and conservatives organizations. Appearing before the committee, Acting Commissioner Steven Miller began his remarks noting that the IRS hadn't had time to prepare written testimony. He opened his remarks before the House Ways and Means Committee the same way on Friday.

The decision to not provide formal testimony on the scandal is a sign the IRS is in a bunker defense. Obviously, the agency has the resources to draft formal testimony. It presumably, at this point, has detailed information about the chain of events leading to the scandal. The decision by Miller to simply field individual questions, rather than provide an overall account of the scandal is a deliberate one.

Instead of formal testimony, Miller read a brief statement. While apologizing for the IRS actions, he said he believed the situation arose from "foolish mistakes" made to make staff's workload more efficient. He argued a similar point before the House on Friday.

Sens. Baucus (D-MT) and Hatch (R-UT) sent the IRS a letter yesterday with 41 detailed questions covering all aspects of the scandal. The agency has until the end of the month to provide answers. Hopefully they will have time to comply.

Follow Mike Flynn on twitter: @Flynn1776

IRS Scandal: IRS Commissioner Defends 'Lie by Omission' to Congress

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:58:00 GMT

Acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who led the agency when it targeted Tea Party and conservative groups, testified before the Senate Finance Committee today, under oath, about when he knew about the conduct of officials in the tax exempt organizations division. He was joined by his successor, Steven Miller, and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russel George.

Senators pressed the IRS officials about his failure to respond to earlier concerns about targeting when they had been raised--long before the release of the Treasury Inpector General's report May 14.

Shulman tried to defend the IRS in his opening statement. "It does its job in an admirable way a great majority of the time," Shulman said.

Yet committee chair Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), who has parted from his Democratic colleagues in taking an aggressive approach to the IRS scandal, led fellow committee members in questioning Shulman's past testimony--and asking why he had not come forward to correct it before.

"What I knew sometime in the spring of 2012 was that there was a list that was being used, knew that the words 'Tea Party' were being used," Shulman said, adding that he felt the proper approach was to ensure that there was an investigation.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) was not satisfied.

"You didn't mention any of this in any of your letters...It's a lie by omission, and you kept it from people who have an obligation to oversee this matter," he said.

Shulman later faced similar questions form Sen. John Thune (R-SD) about why, if he testified in March 2012 and found out about the list of targeted organizations in May 2012, he did not inform Congress of the new information for a year. He stated again that it had been appropriate for the investigation to continue without further comment from him, and remained defiant that he had made the "right decision."

Under questioning from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), Miller admitted that the idea of notifying the public through a planted question at an American Bar Association conference on May 10 had been his idea.

Hearings on the IRS scandal will continue Wednesday at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where Lois Lerner, the IRS official in the tax exempt organizations division who broke news of the scandal on May 10, will testify for the first time, along with Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Neil Wolin.

Photos of Tucson Shooter's Gun and 'High Capacity' Magazine to Be Released

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:42:00 GMT

Police are releasing more than 300 photos from the January 2011 Tuscon shooting rampage that killed six people and wounded former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 12 others. Among the photos to be released are pictures of Jared Loughner's Glock handgun and his "high capacity" magazine.

According to Fox News, the Pima County Sheriff's Department says the photo release will include images that were "part of the investigation as authorities gained evidence at the scene," but not "gruesome crime seen images."

The photographs of the shooter's gun and "high capacity" magazine are being released approximately two months after the sheriff's department released investigative reports showing Loughner's "deteriorating psychological condition."

This photo release was cleared by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns after the publisher of Tucson's Arizona Daily Star, together with other publishers, sought their release. Gun owners should be prepared to see gun control groups around the country politicize the photos as soon as they are released.

Senate to Grill Commissioner in IRS Scandal Today

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:30:00 GMT

On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee will grill Douglas Shulman, the IRS Commissioner who stepped down last November but was in charge when the agency began targeting Tea Party and conservative organizations as early as 2010.

This will be Shulman's first public appearance since the IRS apologized for and admitted to targeting conservatives eleven days ago.

Last Friday, the House Ways and Means Committee grilled Steven Miller, the acting IRS Commissioner who was asked to resign by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew after the Inspector General's audit revealed the IRS "inappropriately" targeted conservatives. Miller, who had intended to leave the agency anyway, will step down next month, and he will join Shulman before the Senate Finance Committee.

On Monday, it was revealed that top White House officials--including the Chief of Staff--knew about the IRS investigation as early as last month but apparently did not bother to tell President Barack Obama, who has said he found out about the investigation from news reports eleven days ago.

Top Democrats Call for More IRS Resignations

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:18:00 GMT

Two top Democrats on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee are calling for the resignation or firing of Lois Lerner, the head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) division responsible for tax-exempt organizations.

Reps. Joe Crowley (D-NY) and Sander Levin (D-MI) say Lerner, who planted a question at a conference to break news of the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, must step down.

“Ms. Lerner should be relieved of her duties,” said Levin.

Crowley says Lerner “failed to answer the question” as to whether the IRS was targeting tax-exempt groups during a congressional hearing. “She then two days later planted a question at a press event, only to then use that opportunity to apologize for what the IRS had been doing,” said Crowley. “If you’re Miss Lerner, you’re worried about your career right now.”

Crowley, who called Lerner’s actions “unacceptable,” joined Levin in calling for her resignation or firing.

Lois Lerner is scheduled to testify before Congress on Wednesday.

Apple Investigated For Dodging Taxes On $44 Billion In Offshore Income

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Apple CEO Tim Cook will testify before Congress on Tuesday as a bipartisan Senate probe seeks answers on how the tech giant used tax loopholes to avoid paying taxes on $44 billion in offshore, taxable income between 2009 and 2012.

“What we intend to do is to highlight that gimmick and other Apple offshore avoidance tactics so that American working families, who pay their share of taxes, understand how offshore tax loopholes raise their tax burden and how those loopholes add to the federal deficit,” said Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI).

The tax dodging charges place Apple in the uncomfortable position of defending itself for not having paid its “fair share” of taxes. Indeed, Apple users have been shown to be more liberal than PC users. And Apple employees donated over ten times as much to the campaign of President Barack Obama--who pledged to raise taxes on upper income Americans--as they did GOP challenger Mitt Romney.

Still, Apple says it broke no laws, paid nearly $6 billion in taxes in 2012, does not use tax gimmicks, and is a job creator.

Whether that answer will sit well with progressive Apple customers remains to be seen.

Either way, critics like Senate Democrat Carl Levin remains incensed and poised to pounce.

“You can’t justify this kind of profit shifting with [these] kind of gimmicks,” said Levin.

Gang of 8 Senators Split over Tax Credits to Amnesty Recipients

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:55:00 GMT

Democrats and Republicans in the Senate's Gang of Eight were divided over an amendment that would deny Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) benefits to illegal immigrants who would receive temporary legal statuts under their amnesty bill. The amendment failed to pass the Judiciary Committee on Monday, as 10 Democrats voted against it while 8 Republicans voted for it.

As the The Hill notes, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) opposed the amendment, which Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) sponsored, while Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) supported the measure.

According to reports, at least 11 million illegal immigrants would receive the "Registered Provisional Immigrant Status (RPI)" status under the bill and qualify for the EITC once they receive the temporary status.

“This would grant such benefits to millions and be a substantial burden on our country’s finances at a time we’re desperately trying to reduce our deficits,” Sessions said.

According to The Hill, "a low-income family with two kids can receive up to $5,372 in credit, sometimes exceeding the amount it pays in taxes."

Former Senator: Obama Told Me Resistance to Obamacare Would Fade After 2010

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:52:00 GMT

President Barack Obama believed that opposition to Obamacare would actually fade after the 2010 election.

Former Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), the moderate Republican who retired when her term ended at the beginning of this year, said on Monday Obama felt Obamacare would "lessen" after the midterm elections.

In a radio interview, Snowe told Julie Mason, the host of Sirius XM's "Press Pool," that she told Obama the resistance to Obamacare before the 2010 elections was "just the beginning."

"I said, ‘It’s going to grow because I can tell you it’s not going to go away and it’s going to get worse,’” she said, according to The Hill. Obama disagreed.

Obama heavily courted Snowe's vote, and she voted for a version of the bill in the Senate Finance Committee. Snowe ultimately voted against the final version of the bill once it reached the floor.

She told Obama that the country would dislike Obamacare even more “because of the implementation problems, which would just exacerbate and aggravate the opposition and those who were opposed to it to begin with.”

Dem. Senator Blames Tornado on Republicans

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:50:00 GMT

On Monday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) used the devastating Oklahoma tornado as an excuse to bash Republicans for denying global warming and implied Republicans were responsible for actually allowing the destructive natural disaster to occur.

“So, you may have a question for me,” Whitehouse said on the Senate floor. “Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings and disgrace ourselves? I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. We are stuck in this together."

After blaming natural disasters in Oklahoma, Alabama, and Texas on global warming and Republicans, Whitehouse continued his rant by criticizing the Republicans he blamed for then asking the government for federal aid dollars.

"When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover," he said, according to the Daily Caller. "And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms. It hits Oregon with acidified seas, it hits Montana with dying forests. So, like it or not, we’re in this together.”

He continued, "You drag America with you to your fate."

Whitehouse then said he wanted a Republican Party that "returned to its senses" and was a strong and "worthy adversary in a strong America that has done right by its people and the world."

"I don’t want a Republican Party disgraced, that let its extremists run off the cliff, and an America suffering from grave economic and environmental and diplomatic damage because we failed, because we didn’t wake up and do our duty to our people, and because we didn’t lead the world," Whitehouse said. "I do not want that future. But that’s where we’re headed."

As families across Oklahoma were suffering, politics was what was first and foremost on Whitehouse's mind.

Report: Gay Activists Press Schumer to Include Same-Sex Immigration

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:48:00 GMT

Gay activists are pressuring Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to include in the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill a provision that would, according to his fellow Gang of Eight member Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), kill the bill.

According to Politico, Schumer “called a meeting with prominent New York gay elected officials and activists amid concern over whether a provision sought by same-sex couples will be included in the immigration reform bill.”

“The meeting became heated at times, as many attendees made clear to Schumer how critical it is that the overhaul allow allows U.S. citizens to seek green cards for their foreign-born partners,” Politico’s Maggie Haberman wrote.

“Schumer is in a tough spot over the proposed amendment, which key Republicans involved in the reform talks have said would be a deal killer. While some officials who took part in the meeting voiced support for Schumer afterward, others said they would consider it a strike on his record if the provision is left out, noting that he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and was the last of New York’s major elected officials to voice support for gay marriage.”

In a previous Politico story a few weeks ago by Carrie Budoff Brown, Rubio said such a provision--which Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) is driving--would kill the bill. “It will virtually guarantee that it won’t pass,” Rubio said then. “This issue is a difficult enough issue as it is. I respect everyone’s views on it. But ultimately, if that issue is injected into this bill, the bill will fail and the coalition that helped put it together will fall apart.”

Nonetheless, Schumer is under fire from the gay community so he called the meeting. “Sen. Schumer called the meeting because he is in trouble with a key constituency,” Rachel Tiven of the group Immigration Equality said, according to Politico.

Quoting several people in attendance, Haberman described Schumer’s meeting with gay activists as “tense.”

Senior Citizens and Veterans Devastated by Pritzker's Bank Failure

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:43:00 GMT

Fran Sweet, a 68-year old retiree, says she is still out $69,400 after the failure of Penny Pritzker’s subprime-speculating Superior Bank in 2001. Sweet told Breitbart News, “It was not a failure. It was a bank robbery... My feeling is she has no business being nominated to Secretary of Commerce. She has unfinished business here in Illinois, she needs to pay us back the money she stole from us. She stole our life savings.”

Sweet said, “I’m still out $69,400 plus interest for $364,000 that she stole, got $100,000 back right away, and then payments over the years, but if we had our money, we could have been making interest, we lost more than our face value.”

Sweet is not the only one frightened by the idea of Penny Pritzker getting her hands on the Commerce Department. There are still over 1400 depositors who lost over $10 million in total, which seems more and more likely now, will never be fully repaid by the Pritzker family.

Another depositor in the Superior Bank, John Courtney, is also still out $60,000. Courtney told Breitbart News he worked 45 years in construction, before that, odd jobs, he volunteered for the draft in 1964, went to Vietnam in ’65. He’s suffered broken bones, his foot and shoulder specifically from heavy machinery construction in his hard work over the years and been through an open-heart surgery.

“I’m not blaming anyone for what I’ve gone through,” Courtney said, “But for someone who flaunts it, and lets everyone know they are a billionaire, you know, years ago, when a bank went bankrupt, the owner of the bank when bankrupt too. I’m still out $60k.”

When confronted by the idea of Pritzker becoming the head of the Commerce Department, Courtney said, “When I was in school, they taught us you had to have an impeccable character to run for Congress or president or public office, now it seems like the worse you are, the better off you are,” and Pritzker appears to be no different.

The Pritzkers received an unheard-of sweetheart deal, according to Clint Krislov, the attorney who represented some of the depositors in a class action RICO suit, to recover their losses. That suit, however, was unsuccessful, and left the depositors un-whole still.

In that “sweetheart deal,” the Pritzkers agreed to pay the FDIC $460 million to the government, $100 million upfront, with interest-free payments over the next 15 years. John Courtney believes that was not only an outrageous gift to the Pritzkers, but also says, “Had the FDIC required they pay interest, there likely would have been enough money collected to fully repay the depositors.”

Courtney asked, “when have you ever heard of someone owing money to the government, and not being required to pay interest?”

Courtney told Breitbart News that after it had been announced that Superior Bank was placed in a receivership with the FDIC in 2001, depositors lined up at the bank to try and recover their deposits. He said it was like a “soup line...People were there asking about getting there life savings back, and I watched one of the bankers tell an elderly man, he can have a seat, and have a coffee and a donut, and that was all he was going to get.”

To add insult to injury, Courtney explained, that while over the years, the FDIC has made disbursement payments to the depositors, sometimes sending checks for several hundred or couple thousand dollars, and each time deducting a $25 fee for cutting the check, while the Pritzkers never had to pay a penny of interest.

In 2008, regarding Penny Pritzker’s involvement as a top campaign bundler for President Obama’s 2008 campaign, Anne MacKay, the niece of Irene Kortas, another depositor, told the Washington Times:

Ms. Pritzker should be fired by the Obama campaign because of how these matters were handled… She trusted these people and she trusted the Pritzker name, which is well-known in Chicago,” Mrs. MacKay said. “They had given her a toaster and a set of glasses, but obviously they didn’t know what they were doing when it came to protecting her investment."

The Times reported: “Irene Kortas’ estate is still owed about $40,000 from the $209,000 she lost when the bank closed seven years ago. Miss Kortas died at age 79, one year after learning that her savings had been lost.”

John Courtney commented on Ms. Kortas’ ordeal with Superior Bank, telling Breitbart News, “I can’t say this is why...But after the stress of lost savings and moving to a new nursing home because of it, she passed away within a year.”

At one point, during our interview, Courtney recalled asking the bankers about the security of his money, to which they replied, “the Pritzkers own this bank"--implying nothing could be more secure. It had, after all, the Pritzker name, and they are billionaires, so Courtney felt reassured. He said it was only a couple months later that he found out he was going to lose his hard earned and saved money.

“I worked for AT&T for 23 years, when SBC bought out Ameritech, I decided to leave, I got a buyout package and had a 401k for savings and retirement. I had planned on retirement, but after that, there was no retiring, so I had to keep working,” Sweet said.

“Penny Pritzker is a dishonest woman, this is a woman with no morals, she is going to give them (the government) guidance to stiff us more.”

For more details on the Superior Bank failure click here.

Follow @RebelPundit on Twitter.

Photo source: Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times

Washington & Wall Street: Goldbugs, Inflation Hawks & Growth

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:29:00 GMT

“I bought gold at $1,400, I buy every month some gold, and I have an order to buy more at $1,300 because I want to keep an allocation towards gold--physical gold--and not stored in the United States at all times.” -- Marc Faber, CNBC

The past several months have seen the price of gold slump even as the Fed and other central banks have accelerated their massive expansion of paper money. Gold is off about 20% so far this year with silver down almost 30%. The old adage--“don’t fight the Fed”--particularly comes to mind now because the US equity markets have been setting new highs during this same period. All of these gains are nominal, you understand, but for terrified American policy makers and investors, nominal is just fine.

In a conversation with Brian Sullivan of CNBC last week, Marc Faber warned that the recent decline of gold prices is not that significant because there are many ways for inflation to manifest itself in a time of reckless monetary expansion. “The market is going down not because of Greece or the fiscal cliff because there won’t be a fiscal cliff...Markets are going down because corporate profits will begin to disappoint and the global economy will hardly grow next year.”

But global equity markets have not yet fallen, even as growth has slowed. In fact, since the start of 2013, the S&P 500 index has moved up 14% or about 8x the yield on short-term Treasury paper. Banking giant JPMorgan (JPM) has moved almost 20% since the start of 2013, albeit on flat revenue and “record” earnings made possible through heroic cost cutting and other gimmicks. With all that increase in valuation, keep in mind, JPM is just barely trading at book value, this compared with 2x book value prior to the 2007 market meltdown.

Shares of technology giant Apple Inc (AAPL)., on the other hand, have lost more than a fifth of their value over the past five month. Has AAPL suddenly lost its ability to make good products or generate revenue? No. In fact, over the next year, AAPL will probably show more real revenue and earnings growth than any big bank. But the manic crowd of investors that almost turned AAPL into an asset class of its own have since moved on to the next “opportunity” created by Chairman Ben Bernanke and the Federal Open Market Committee, namely large zombie banks.

The great achievement of the FOMC this year has been to expand the supply of paper money to such a degree that even the equity securities of low or no growth banks can soar like F-15 Eagles. As Brian Wesbury of FT Advisors wrote this week, if you had fallen asleep in October 2007 just before the subprime crisis began and awoke today, the Dow and S&P 500 would both be up high single digits. Consumer price inflation of two percent due to the Fed’s generosity, however, would rob you of two thirds of that nominal return. But notice that Bernanke and his colleagues at the Fed don’t like talking about inflation.

The reason why gold prices have fallen since 2013, in simple terms, is the same reason that precious metals prices went up so dramatically since 2007, namely the Fed. Whether you are talking about high growth tech stocks, precious metals, single family homes or consumer-oriented investments, the current price of these assets has less to do with “value” in a cosmic sense and more to do with the opportunity trade-off between paper money and everything else.

For now, low interest rates c/o the Fed are driving certain stock prices higher and others lower. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that the US economy has recovered even half the ground lost since 2007 in terms of jobs and consumer spending. Despite talk of “austerity,” public spending in the US and Europe has exploded but with little tangible benefit for real people.

No matter how many greenbacks the Fed may print, Chairman Bernanke and the FOMC can’t change the fact that rising taxes and inflation are destroying consumer purchasing power faster than the US economy is growing. Rising public spending empowers bureaucrats, but slows real economic growth and will eventually lead to a collapse in asset prices and consumption. The gold bugs, eventually, will have their day.

The Conservative Hispanic Society: IRS Targeted Us Too

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:23:00 GMT

The Conservative Hispanic Society has joined the growing list of conservative groups that feel that they, too, were targeted by the Internal Revenue Service in its recent campaign of harassment. In a statement, CHS is "expressing outrage" over what it feels is Obama's "infiltration of every aspect of our government."

In a statement the Conservative Hispanic Society, a group that represents "traditional Hispanic values," expressed its outrage at the Obama administration’s targeting of conservative Hispanic groups.

CHS feels that they've been targeted for a slowed down approval process.

"In fact, we too may have been victims of the IRS. CHS applied for 501(c)(4) status back in 2010. We've not received word from the IRS yet on that application," CHS says in its statement.

"It seems the Obama political machine has infiltrated every aspect of our government. Politics now dictates our response to terrorist attacks. And now the IRS is being used as a weapon to punish people our president has referred to as his 'enemies'," said Chris Salcedo, Executive Director of CHS.

CHS President Steve Navarre also expressed his outrage, saying, "Through the Constitution, our nation's founding fathers tried to guard against elected leaders using the power of government to oppress the people. The type of government overreach displayed by the IRS brings to life our founder’s deepest fears."

CHS reminded President Obama that he and those that serve under him that "we are a people with a government, not the other way around."

"President Obama has lost the trust of the American people with the rash of scandals that his management style has brought upon our nation," CHS said. "This latest abuse of power by the Obama administration will not go unanswered. "

According to its website, "The Conservative Hispanic Society exists to preserve and protect traditional conservative Hispanic values through community involvement, advancement of Hispanic-owned businesses and promotion of conservative policy at the local, state and federal levels."

Maryland Abortionist Who Stored 35 Frozen Aborted Babies Loses License

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:17:00 GMT

The Maryland Board of Physicians has permanently revoked the license of abortionist Nicola I. Riley. In a blistering order issued May 6^th, Riley was prohibited from ever again applying for licensure or reinstatement of her license.

According to pro-life organization Operation Rescue, Riley’s license was first suspended in September of 2010, after having perforated the uterus and pulled out a bowel of a patient at an illegal, clandestine late-term abortion clinic in Elkton operated by abortionist Steven Chase Brigham, who is not licensed in Maryland. Both Elkton Police, and a physician at a Baltimore hospital to which the patient was air-lifted for the emergency surgery that saved her life, filed complaints. Physicians found that part of the fetus had been shoved into the patient’s abdominal cavity when Riley ruptured her uterus.

When police raided the Elkton clinic, they found the remains of thirty-five frozen late-term aborted babies. Both Riley and Brigham were arrested and charged with murder of the babies, but charges were dropped after an expert witness for the prosecution abandoned the case under pressure from the abortion lobby.

Brigham’s bi-state abortion business operates in both New Jersey, which bans abortions in clinics after 14 weeks, and nearby Maryland, which has no gestational limits on abortions. The business was a perfect set-up for the lucrative late-term abortion market where fees often range from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.

According to Operation Rescue, Brigham would initiate the late-term abortions in his New Jersey office, then ship the patients, already in labor, down to his clinic in Elkton where the abortions would be completed with Riley’s assistance. Brigham’s spin on his actions was that, since all the babies died in New Jersey on the first day he saw the patients, Maryland had no jurisdiction to prosecute him. New Jersey has not sought a criminal case against him.

The Maryland Board’s 24-page order states:

In view of the fraudulent and deceptive nature of Dr. Riley’s criminal conduct, her demonstrated lack of candor and integrity on her application to the Board and to Utah and Wyoming, and her demonstrated propensity for dishonesty and misrepresentation, Dr. Riley’s unprofessional conduct is not remediable. In light of the unprofessional manner in which she treated this critically damaged patient, the Board does not believe that Maryland patients would be safe in the hands of this physician. Dr. Riley’s fraudulent acts and unprofessional treatment of the patient merit the permanent revocation of her medical license in this State.

The Board faulted Riley for transporting her critically injured patient to a nearby hospital in the back seat of Brigham’s rental car:

Dr. Riley’s decision was also faulty and unprofessional because it involved lifting up a consciously sedated ad slumped-over patient in order to move her from the operating table to a wheelchair, from a wheelchair to the car, and from the car onto another wheelchair before arrival at the Union Hospital ER...The patient’s bowel, usually in a sterile compartment in the abdominal cavity, was protruding in to her unsterile vagina. [An expert for the State] opined that lifting her up, putting her in a seated position and moving her around in this manner risked further prolapsed of bowel into that area and causing injury to a longer length of bowel.

Riley was also found to have engaged in fraud and deception when she lied on her Maryland medical license application about a prior felony conviction. In addition, the Board found that Riley lied to obtain licensure in Wyoming and her home state of Utah. While serving in the military in 1990, Riley had direct involvement with an identity theft and credit card fraud scheme. She pled guilty to her involvement in the scheme, in which she would take personal information of other servicemen and fraudulently obtain credit cards that she used to purchase jewelry and other items.

Subsequent to Operation Rescue’s discovery of Riley’s conviction and court records from the U.S. Army, which were forwarded to Wyoming and Utah, Wyoming forced Riley to relinquish her medical license. Utah, however, allowed Riley to continue practicing with the restriction that she not perform abortions.

As for Brigham, since he does not have a Maryland license, he cannot be punished by the Board. His New Jersey license, however, is under suspension, though he continues to operate his chain of abortion clinics in that state, Maryland, and Virginia. Brigham’s two remaining Pennsylvania abortion clinics were forced to close.

Obama IRS Scandal Will Go Down in Infamy

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:06:00 GMT

In my experience, the term “BOLO” is a law enforcement term short for “be on the lookout” for criminals and suspects on the run. But for the Obama IRS, BOLO meant, literally, “be on the lookout” for citizen groups who might be opposed to the Obama agenda.

First, we know that the “independent” IRS purposely stonewalled the approval of non-profit applications from “Tea Party” and other conservative groups that were seeking tax exempt status. As reported by CNN:

Among the criteria used by IRS officials to flag applications was a "Be On the Look Out" list, or a BOLO, which was discontinued in 2012, according to the report. The criteria on the BOLO included:

Whether "Tea Party," "Patriots" or "9/12 Project" was referenced in the case file.

Whether the issues outlined in the application included government spending, government debt or taxes.

Whether there was advocating or lobbying to "make America a better place to live."

Whether a statement in the case file criticized how the country is being run.

Whether it advocated education about the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

And how bad was the stonewalling? Epic. Over the course of 27 months, not a single Tea Party type organization received tax exempt status. This was no political witch hunt, says the IRS. So why is it that liberal groups had their applications approved in as little as nine months?

And it was not simply a matter of lengthy bureaucratic delays. Conservative groups were subjected to an unprecedented amount of scrutiny, draining both time and resources. Politico explains:

A Politico review of documents from 11 tea party and conservative groups that the IRS scrutinized in 2012 shows the agency wanted to know everything--in some cases, it even seemed curious what members were thinking. The review included interviews with groups or their representatives from Hawaii, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere.

They were asking for a “U-Haul truck’s worth of information,” one conservative organization the Waco Tea Party told Politico.

We also know that the IRS targeted conservative donors with painful audits. For example, consider the case of Frank VanderSloot, who made a sizable donation to a Romney-connected organization. Shortly thereafter, after an opposition research firm dug through Mr. VanderSloot’s divorce records, the IRS subjected the conservative donor to three audits in four months. Mr. VanderSloot had never been audited previously and now faces $80,000 in legal fees.

The IRS also reportedly “leaked” confidential tax information on conservative benefactors, such as Charles and David Koch, of Koch Industries, who are important donors to a number of constitutional government groups. And they did the same to conservative organizations as well. For example, as reported by Breitbart.com, one of Obama’s campaign co-chairmen leaked the tax records of our pro-traditional marriage friends at the National Organization of Marriage to a homosexual activist who also happened to be an Obama campaign supporter. There were also illegal leaks of taxpayer information (of conservatives) to the leftist publication ProPublica.

And what was the purpose of this all-out assault? Was this simply a case of retribution against enemies? No, this was much bigger than political payback.This was a systemic, and concerted effort to squash the Tea Party movement, the most organic and powerful political movement in recent memory, during election season. This was about campaign politics.

This is a scandal for the ages. Reports are that nearly 500 groups were targeted. The Obama IRS jihad against conservatives had the effect of suppressing the First Amendment-protected activity of virtually the entire Tea Party movement as Obama was seeking reelection. If you want to know how an election is stolen in plain sight, this is how.

Of course, per usual, the finger pointing has begun. But there is no question in my mind that all fingers should be pointing to the top of the White House food chain. As the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel points out: “Mr. Obama didn't need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he'd like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action.”

The president took to the airwaves this week to feign angry indignation about the IRS targeting his enemies, while denying any knowledge whatsoever of what his administration had been up to. I am not surprised that Obama is pretending, in careful language, not to know about the worst abuse of power by a presidential administration in a generation. Let’s call it Obama’s Nixonian “I’m not a crook” moment.

Why do I believe that Obama knew exactly what his Internal Revenue Service was up to (besides it being in the news for the last two years)? Because of the record of Steven T. Miller--the man Obama first hired and has now pretended to fire as acting commissioner of the IRS.

Make no mistake about it. When Obama appointed Miller head of the IRS, the president should have known what he was getting. Before becoming acting commissioner, he had been the commissioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division of the IRS, where, according to the IRS faux folksy website, “Steve oversaw the administration of tax law relating to employee plans, tax-exempt organizations and various government entities.”

Perhaps the description should more accurately have read “oversaw and undermined the administration of tax law relating to...tax exempt organizations.” At Judicial Watch we know this well because, very early on, we were one of the many conservative organizations and Clinton critics that Miller’s tax exempt branch subjected to politically-inspired audits.

As the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard reported in his “Washington Secrets” column, “Steven T. Miller, the acting IRS commissioner who managed the division that has admitted targeting anti-Obama Tea Party groups, was one of several agents who investigated anti-Clinton organizations including Judicial Watch during that Democrat's administration, according to court documents and interviews.”

As I relate in my book, The Corruption Chronicles, when Judicial Watch complained about the audit and its political nature, an IRS official told us, “What do you expect when you sue the President?”

Miller was one of the IRS officials who oversaw the invasive audit of Judicial Watch even while conceding that the audit "had created at least the appearance of a problem." It seemed every time we complained about the audit, Miller’s bureaucrats expanded its scope until it covered seven years’ worth of records!

So, now we find that Miller, despite this record of being a top official partly responsible for the last wave of IRS abuse during the Clinton years, was rewarded by Barack Obama with the top position at the IRS. Given our well-publicized experience with him, it is no surprise to me that Miller was content to allow this illegal IRS harassment of Obama’s hit list--and the subsequent cover-up.

As I say, Obama pretended to “fire” Miller this week, an empty gesture considering the fact that Miller had already planned to leave--and, in fact, will be running the IRS for several more weeks. It was an attempt by the president to show command of a situation that continues to spiral out of control.

In fact, Thursday night we learned courtesy of ABC News that the woman in charge of the IRS office during the Tea Party attacks is now running the Obamacare IRS office!

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’s Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

These IRS abuses are one more example of how the Obama administration is off the rails and out of control.

News is breaking by the moment. As Democratic Senator Max Baucus said during an interview with Bloomberg’sCapital Gain, “I have a hunch that a lot more is going to come out.”

Arguing To Repeal Proposition 13

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:03:00 GMT

In an article published on Bloomberg.com, David Crane, president of Govern for California, argues that California Governor Jerry Brown should instigate the repeal of proposition 13, the People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation, which was enacted during his first tenure as governor in 1978.

In 2011 Brown said of Proposition 13 that it “started the centralization of power” in the state. As stated here, before Proposition 13, the property tax rate in California averaged slightly less than 3% of market value; there were no limits on increases for the tax rate or on taxes based on the assessed value of property. Some real estate properties were reassessed 50% to 100% in one year.

After Prop 13, property taxes were driven back to 1976 assessed value and property taxes were limited to a maximum of 2% per year as long as the property was not sold. If the property was sold, the property was reassessed at 1% of the sale price.

Crane argues that Prop 13:

… simply shifted revenue collection from localities -- which rely on property taxes – to Sacramento, the state capital. Taxation moved from relatively stable property taxes to erratic income taxes and regressive sales levies. By moving to income taxes that treat capital gains as ordinary income, California raises much of its revenue from a boom-or-bust system.

Crane complains that the two tax-reform models being considered by the California legislature from the Commission on the 21st Century Economy and the Think Long Committee for California leave “untouched a significant source of stable revenue and fail(s) to tax real estate, California’s biggest industry, which, because of the state’s climate and other advantages, would still attract capital, even with higher property taxes.”

The author acknowledges that oil and gas companies, commercial-property owners and government employees would oppose repeal, but those guys in the black hats would be opposed by the good guys, including

environmentalists who favor taxes on fossil fuels, local governments and school districts desperate for more control over their affairs, education reformers who support decentralization, anti-poverty advocates keen to shield welfare and other government aid from being siphoned off for pensions and health-care costs, businesses and taxpayers attracted by lower sales- and income-tax rates, and good-government groups in favor of more local control.

Crane actually lauds Brown as a “great politician,” praising him for starting to “move government closer to the people by devolving some functions from the state to local governments.”

Can you say jail inmates?

Crane conveniently ignores that Brown started California down the road toward bankruptcy when he allowed public employee unions to engage in collective bargaining in his first time as governor.

Crane concludes by writing, “I worry that Brown wants to run for president before the next California budget crisis rears its ugly head.”

If only.

Michelle: Barack Has 'Grit'

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:01:00 GMT

Michelle Obama, speaking at the commencement for Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School in Nashville, Tennessee, tried to inspire the students by noting that she could “take up a whole afternoon talking about” President Barack Obama's failures.

And just which failures did she list? Benghazi, the AP scandal, the IRS scandal?

Not quite. Try this:

And then there’s this guy, Barack Obama, who lost – I could take up a whole afternoon talking about his failures, but – he lost his first race for Congress, and now he gets to call himself my husband,
She added, “ … failure is the key to success for so many great people … Take Steve Jobs, who was fired from Apple early in his career, and now his iPods and iPads and iPhones have revolutionized the entire world. Oprah was demoted from her first job as a news anchor, now she doesn’t even need a last name.”

What’s the best way to deal with failure, from the Gospel according to Michelle?

She pontificated:

When something doesn’t go your way, you’ve just got to adjust. You’ve got to dig deep and work like crazy. And that’s when you’ll find out what you’re really made of, during those hard times, but you can only do that if you’re willing to put yourself in a position where you might fail. Resilience and grit, that ability to pick yourself up … are some of the most important skills you’ll need as you make your way through college and through life.

You’re not born with those characteristics, according to Michelle’s Gospel: “You can dictate whether you’ll have grit.”

She’s saying her husband, who hides behind every underling taking the fall while he goes golfing, has grit?

There’s your laugh for the day.

White House: 'Nobody Here Did Anything Wrong'

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:00:00 GMT

As the fire around the White House derived from the Benghazi, IRS, and AP scandals continues to burn, the White House is in denial over its culpability. One Obama Administration official boasted to The Hill, “Our basic thrust is that nobody, here, did anything wrong. That’s why none of this is going to stick.”

This is from the same administration whose fearless leader has oft-proclaimed, “The buck stops with me.”

Even though Obama stalwarts have tempered their support, such as Bill Press (who said Attorney General Eric Holder should step down), Jon Stewart (who criticized Obama for the number of times he has claimed he heard of trouble from the media rather than in-house), and Chris Matthews (who moaned about Obama’s passivity), the White House knows nothing is that serious. One administration official dismissed it as “the sort of ebb and flow of Washington.”

Even Laura Murphy, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office, worried, “It is alarming. The bigger question is whether [Obama] is sensitive to the fact that he campaigned telling people he was going to breathe a new era into the enforcement of civil liberties. These incidents, while taken together with not revealing what the drone policy is or not being able to close Guantanamo, paint a more damning portrait.”

Some GOP members, such as Rep. Jason Chaffetz (UT) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN) have called for impeachment, while Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) says he will “stop at nothing” in pursuit of the truth.

Bob Woodward has said, “It’s a big mess, obviously.”

GOP consultant Mark McKinnon said that the three scandals offered “more smoke than fire …the IRS issue will have some long-range consequences. It confirms the suspicions and paranoia of people prone to believe government has too much power, and it’s particularly problematic that the IRS is so closely tied to the implementation of ObamaCare.”

But the administration official retorted, “I don’t buy that. These things are totally newsworthy and valid points for conversation. But they don’t string together to make a compelling philosophical argument.”

As they say at the White House, “Nobody here did anything wrong.”

Bloomberg Pushes Gun Control in Commencement Speech

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:02:00 GMT

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided to take advantage of a commencement speech he was delivering at Kenyon College in Ohio to push his gun-control agenda. Bloomberg told the students:

I believe we will win, sooner or later, because I believe that all of you, your generation more than any other at least since the 1960s, is reshaping society in fundamental ways by making your values known and your voices heard.

He borrowed liberally from Barack Obama’s playbook for youths to appeal to those in the crowd gullible enough to fall for the same platitudes, offering this: “We'd not be fighting for change, I'd not be fighting for change and you would not be fighting for change if we didn't believe we could win.” He asserted that gun control is “something you really should think about.”

Of course, Bloomberg and Obama don’t want young people to think.

Bloomberg co-chairs Mayors Against Illegal Guns and spent roughly $14 million from his inexhaustible bank account to aid legislation demanding universal background checks, but the bill died in the Senate last month.

The diminutive Napoleon said that the death of the gun control bill was "Washington at its worst -- the worst thing that it's ever done." He implied members of Congress lacked courage, but the students he was addressing were better candidates, saying loftily, “Have the courage to think for yourself and to believe in your ideas. That kind of courage lies at the heart of human invention and progress, and the lack of it lies at the heart of our political problems today.”

Then he started his real demagoguery. He listed different mass shootings, and then said:

And after each one, those in Washington just shrugged. Then Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut -- 20 children, six faculty members, all gunned down. As a parent I can tell you it is just unthinkable if it happened to one of your children. After Newtown, President Obama and some congressional leaders finally, finally stood up and said something has to be done. I did everything I could to support them and to push Congress to act, but our efforts so far have not been enough to pass a piece of legislation requiring background checks for all gun purchases, that 90 percent of Americans agree with, including more than 80 percent of gun owners.

Returning to his bald-faced appeal to the students’ vanity by reiterating the pusillanimous behavior of Congress, Bloomberg said:

Why? Why do I tell you this? Number one, this is one of the great tragedies happening in America and two, because I believe it comes down to one word, and that word is courage. Too many members of Congress did not have the courage to stand up to the increasing extremist views of the NRA's Washington lobbyists, Many of them feared that voting for a common sense policy that would lead to someone challenging them in a primary, or hurt their chances to win a party's nomination to higher office is too big a price to pay for saving 30-odd thousand lives a year.

Bloomberg quoted a statistic that in the four years since the graduates had started college, more than 40,000 American people had been killed with guns, then added, "That's nearly as many Americans we lost in combat in the entire Vietnam War.”

Of course, Bloomberg didn’t tell the students that when he traveled to Bermuda he sought gun-carry exemptions for his own security guards.

That might get them to thinking.

Tea Party Rising in Favor with Americans After IRS Scandal

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:28:00 GMT

A new CNN/ORC poll shows the Tea Party has gained approval from Americans since the scandalous IRS targeting of the conservative group. The all-time high for the Tea Party in the CNN/ORC poll is 38%; the newest poll shows the Tea Party at 37%, a 9% increase since March 2013.

Even the number of those who disapprove of the Tea Party has fallen from 48% to 45% since March.

CNN polling director Keating Holland stated, "Politically, the group that may have benefited the most from last week's news is the Tea Party movement, which may be getting something akin to a 'sympathy vote' for being targeted by the highly unpopular IRS."

Billionaire Climate Activist: Obama Will Loose $upport Unless Keystone Pipeline Killed

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:23:00 GMT

Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate activist, is threatening Barack Obama if he approves the Keystone XL pipeline. Steyer told Grist magazine that he thinks the vast majority of major fundraisers for Obama will turn their back on him if he doesn’t kill the pipeline:

If you look at the people who support Obama, and then you look at the people who support him actively and give money, the number of people who care about climate in this second group is actually a majority — not out of the people who support him, but the people who are really active and give money. It’s an enormously high percentage … If those people decided that he was no longer somebody who’s worth supporting, even though he doesn’t have to run again, it would be terrible for him.

Steyer asserted that Obama was abandoning his idealism in favor of following poll numbers: "His whole thing is, he’s trying to retain popularity to push his agenda. It’s absolutely about polls. There is no doubt in my mind, the reason that he’s considering approving Keystone is because Keystone polls well.”

There has been pressure from climate activists on Obama’s Organizing For Action (OFA) advocacy group to force the group to condemn the pipeline, but OFA has remained silent, waiting until the federal review of the pipeline is finished.

Why I Live in Oklahoma

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:34:00 GMT

"Oklahoma City sees more tornadoes than any other city, so, again, they're used to this kind of thing. And when they move there they know what they need to do. Kids learn at an early age what a storm shelter is, what a tornado warning is, and what you need to do when it happens. So they're the most prepared folks for this time of year and this type of storm activity. But when the storms happen and when they're this violent, it makes you wonder why on earth would people live here. But people do..." - Janice Dean, Fox News

"A super cell has formed in Newcastle. The cloud is very low. This is going to turn into a tornado." That's what Gary England at News 9 started telling me at 2:30 p.m. on Monday afternoon. "Here we go again," I thought lightly. All storms that hit the South OKC/Moore area (where I live) start in Newcastle.

The tornado formed, grew, and gained speed rapidly. As multiple storm chasers surrounded it, they began calling out streets within 15 minutes of my house. Then within 10 minutes, then 5 minutes, then 3 minutes--and then the power went out. Shelter time.

As I sat in the closet under the stairs, I was getting text updates from Larry O'Connor, who was following the News 9 live stream and giving me street names. My radio was barely getting reception because of the electrical storm surrounding the funnel, so I couldn't hear if the danger was getting closer or farther away. When the radio did have reception, I could hear the storm chasers reporting houses being ripped apart. "This thing is picking up houses," said one. "The debris cloud is just getting bigger and bigger. This is ripping through residential areas. Massive destruction," reported another.

It's a special kind of anxiety sitting in a small dark room listening to a live account of your neighbor's houses being destroyed and wondering if yours is next. The tornado mercifully missed me by a little over a mile. That may seem like a long way, but in tornado time--especially one that is a mile wide--it's really not.

Another storm cell immediately appeared in my area. Swirling dark clouds floated over the roof of my house within 15 minutes of the tornado passing by. That cell, thankfully, dissipated and never formed to inflict more damage. As soon as it was clear that my car wasn't going to get picked up by a tornado, I jumped in to check on friends' and loved one's houses and charged toward the damaged areas to help dig for survivors. Oklahoma first responders were already on scene, and the damaged areas were blocked off to outsiders to keep the area clear for emergency vehicles and to keep civilians safe from downed power lines and debris.

Around the damaged areas, cars were pulled over in random places and neighbors were standing in the streets. Some people were just walking around, others just sitting on the ground. There was a constant sound of sirens. After watching a dozen emergency vehicles swarm around the scene, it was clear the best place to be--since I couldn't physically help--was off the streets and out of their way. I watched probably 50 emergency vehicles fly be me in less than 10 minutes, going in all directions. Police cars would cross each other going north and south, east and west; it seemed like insanity.

Friends of mine were missing and found, and others gave me accounts from within the destruction area. One friend of mine at the Warren Theater texted me: "We just got 14 out of 18 people out of the heart clinic next to the theater but unsure about the rest. Then sent dogs in. We can't get in there."

More and more I kept hearing reports and seeing images of hundreds of citizens--not first responders--digging through the rubble trying to find neighbors and perfect strangers. As devastating as the destruction was, seeing dozens of my fellow Oklahomans in plain clothes standing on top of debris digging out perfect strangers gave good feelings a chance to compete with the understandably bad ones.

That's why Oklahomans live here (outside of the awesome cost of living): We pull together. Within an hour of the tornado's destruction, News 9 announced it would be taking donations for victims. Within 30 minutes of that announcement, cars were lined up for blocks to donate food, water, clothing, and money. Thousands of dollars were raised within an hour and the generosity only kept growing. By the time News 9 had to shut down the donations area for the night, the cars were backed up for a mile, money raised, and a large energy corporation had announced it was donating $1 million to the cause.

In the midst of that one fundraiser, news agencies, city officials, and state officials took every chance they could to tell eager Oklahomans that they did not need any more volunteers. "Everyone wants to help," a local anchor said. "Right now they need thoughts and prayers."

"Manpower is not an issue," local news agencies kept declaring.

Oklahoma County Commissioner Brian Maughan reinforced this by telling Oklahomans that a few churches who were providing shelter and reunification sites needed generators but not bodies. Any time an official or news anchor approached the public with a need, it was always followed up with multiple reminders that no more volunteers were needed.

A friend of mine who is an RN wrote on Facebook: "So I tried volunteering as a first responder at Moore Warren, tried the Healthplex in Norman, tried the ER I work in up in OKC and everyone is fully staffed and fine."

This type of attitude does not just happen during tornado season. During some of the incredible blizzards that Oklahoma has suffered, some causing dozens of deaths, I had friends and family who got in their giant pickups and went out on the road just to pull/dig people out and help them get home. One friend commented to me that there was a "traffic jam" of citizens trying to help other people on the roads in devastated areas. So although the tragic loss of life leaves a devastating sting, we'll pull through. Our community always does.

In the midst of unthinkable devastation and loss, after we turn to our God in prayer, we can turn to our neighbors and think, "You're doin' fine, Oklahoma."

For those who would like to help my community:

Text STORM to 80888 for Salvation Army, REDCROSS to 90999, FOOD to 32333 for $10 donations.
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Animals: Oklahoma Humane

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Photo credit: CBS11