By TIM TALLEY

The Associated Press

MOORE, Okla. —

A monstrous tornado at least a half-mile wide roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled against winds up to 200 mph. At least 51 people were killed, and officials said the death toll was expected to rise. Monday night, the state medical examiner's office said at least 20 of those who died were children.

More than 120 people were being treated at hospitals, including about 50 children. And search-and-rescue efforts were to continue throughout the night.

Tiffany Thronesberry said she heard from her mother, Barbara Jarrell, shortly after the tornado.

"I got a phone call from her screaming, 'Help! Help! I can't breathe. My house is on top of me!'" Thronesberry said.

Thronesberry hurried to her mother's house, where first responders had already pulled her out. Her mother was hospitalized for treatment of cuts and bruises.

Rescuers launched a desperate rescue effort at the school, pulling children from heaps of debris and carrying them to a triage center.

http://www.ajc.com/news/ap/indiana/tornadoes-slam-plains-midwest-1-dead-in-okla/nXw3f/

PHOTO: President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

By ABBY D. PHILLIP (@abbydphillip)

May 13, 2013

President Obama said today he has "no patience" for reports that the Internal Revenue Service singled out conservative groups for additional scrutiny, promising accountability if allegations of political motivations at the agency turn out to be true.

"So we'll wait and see what exactly all the details and the facts are," Obama said at a news conference. "But I've got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it. And we'll make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this."

But trouble appears to be brewing for the Obama administration as allegations emerge that the IRS engaged in wide-spread targeting of conservative groups for several years, in many cases delaying the groups' applications for tax-exempt status.

"People have to be confident that they are ... applying the laws in a nonpartisan way," Obama said today.

Click here to watch President Obama condemn the 'outrageous' controversy at the IRS.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/president-obama-irs-targeting-conservative-tea-party-groups-19169511




http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-patience-irs-targeting-conservatives/story?id=19168977#.UZIwNDpApdg

Source: The News Virginian


President Barack Obama said Monday he will not tolerate political bias at the Internal Revenue Service and promised to get to the bottom of the agency's admitted targeting of conservative groups.

"You don't want the IRS ever being perceived to be biased and anything less than neutral in terms of how they operate,'' Obama said. The president said "I've got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it, and we will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this."

Virginia U.S. Sen. Mark Warner called the efforts of the IRS "appalling'' and "completely unacceptable." "We need a quick but thorough investigation, and those who are found to have been responsible for this betrayal of the public trust should be fired,'' Warner said.

Virginia U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine said "there's no excuse for ideological discrimination in our system." He said swift action is needed by the Obama administration and said appropriate safeguards should be established "to prevent this from ever happening again."

While the IRS apologized on Friday for what it described as the targeting by low-level employees, a draft report by a watchdog group obtained by the Associated Press indicates the agency knew about targeting two years ago.


Read more: http://www.dailyprogress.com/newsvirginian/news/president-virginia-leaders-bash-irs-targeting-of-conservative-groups/article_2046690e-bc27-11e2-9658-001a4bcf6878.html

Source: NEW YORK TIMES


By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Published: May 13, 2013

Over the last two years, government watchdog groups filed more than a dozen complaints with the Internal Revenue Service seeking inquiries into whether large nonprofit organizations like those founded by the Republican political operative Karl Rove and former Obama administration aides had violated their tax-exempt status by spending tens of millions of dollars on political advertising.

The I.R.S. never responded.

During the same period, the agency singled out dozens of Tea Party-inspired groups that had applied for I.R.S. recognition, officials acknowledged on Friday, subjecting them to rounds of detailed questioning about their political activities. None of those groups were big spenders on political advertising; most were local Tea Party organizations with shoestring budgets.

For the I.R.S.’s bipartisan legion of critics, the agency’s record has underscored its contradictory and seemingly confused response to the fastest-growing corner in the world of unlimited political spending: tax-exempt groups that have paid for at least half a billion dollars in campaign ads during the last two election cycles.

The I.R.S. has done little to regulate a flood of political spending by larger groups — like Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, co-founded by Mr. Rove, and Priorities USA, with close ties to President Obama — as well as Republican leaders in Congress and other elected officials. And an agency that is supposed to stay as far away from partisan politics as possible has been left in charge — almost by accident — of regulating a huge amount of election spending.

“We’ve complained about a few big fish and we’ve heard nothing from the I.R.S.,” said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, which filed many of the complaints with the agency. “We would far rather see scrutiny of these big fish — the groups that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence elections — than to see the resources spent on hundreds of small groups that appeared to spend very little on elections.”


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/us/politics/irs-ignored-complaints-on-political-spending-by-big-tax-exempt-groups-watchdog-groups-say.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

?1368460011

By the way, the poll also showed most Americans trust Hillary Clinton over Republicans on Benghazi, by a 49-39 margin.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/13/1208779/-39-percent-of-people-who-think-Benghazi-is-the-biggest-scandal-ever-don-t-even-know-where-it-is

Source: AP via salon.com

VALLEY SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — Authorities say they have arrested the brother of an 8-year-old girl who was mysteriously stabbed at her home in a quiet Northern California community last month.

Calaveras County Sheriff Gary Kuntz told reporters at a news conference that the arrest was made late Saturday afternoon. He says the 12-year-old boy will be charged with homicide.

The boy had told police last month that he encountered an intruder in the home on the day Leila Fowler was killed. He described the man as being tall with long gray hair.

The April 27 attack shook the tightknit Valley Springs community of about 7,400 people and set off a massive manhunt. Investigators did a door-to-door sweep of houses, storage sheds and horse stables


Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/12/brother_arrested_in_fatal_calif_stabbing_of_girl/

Posted on Americans Against The Republican Party:

https://www.facebook.com/Republicansareidiots1?directed_target_id=0

WASHINGTON -- Students taking out government loans to help pay for college should pay the same rock-bottom interest rate that the Federal Reserve charges big banks, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposed Wednesday.

With the interest rate on federal student loans set to double to 6.8% this summer, Warren said it's unfair that big banks can borrow money at 0.75% from the central bank's discount window.

Warren acknowledged that the Fed's policy, which also includes a near-0% federal funds rate, is designed to help boost the economy by providing cheap credit.

But, she said, "our students are just as important to the economic recovery as our banks."

"Let's face it: Banks get a great deal when they borrow money from the Fed," she said. "In effect, the American taxpayer is investing in those banks. "

"We should make the same kind of investment in our young people who are trying to get an education," Warren said.