CFPB exodus: Brain drain or growing pains?

Nearly two years after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau opened its doors, the agency is grappling with an exodus of key staffers who helped the agency get off the ground.
Dozens of CFPB policymakers, rule writers and attorneys have left in recent months, lured by opportunities in the private sector, burnt out by the bureau’s breakneck pace or disgruntled with what they say is a lack of clear leadership.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-brain-drain-92120.html#ixzz2VCVxkIwI

Another Scandal at the IRS

Another week, another controversy for the Internal Revenue Service. This time, the problem for the tax collectors involves misuse of agency travel cards.
A new report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, or TIGTA, the IRS’s own auditor, points to a “lack of aggressive steps” to address misuse of the credit cards IRS employees use when traveling.
The report follows a scathing audit by TIGTA that found the IRS tax-exempt division targeted conservative groups and delayed their tax documents.

http://reason.com/archives/2013/06/02/more-trouble-at-irs-as-audit-finds-misushttp://reason.com/archives/2013/06/02/more-trouble-at-irs-as-audit-finds-misus

No More Tax Dollars for Sports Stadiums

Somebody once said sports reporters are the best writers because they have to come up with new ways to tell the same basic story over and over. If that is true, then those who cover the business of sports may be second-best.
“Officials, Flying Squirrels in Stadium Talks” has been the story here in Richmond, Virginia for several years now. The minor-league ball club is not happy with the Diamond, the current stadium, and would like to move to a nicer facility. Several possible sites have been considered, but nothing has gelled. The team says it is committed to Richmond. Yet in the back of everyone’s mind lies the possibility that the Squirrels might grow tired of waiting and pull up stakes. After all, that’s just what the Richmond Braves did when Gwinnett, Georgia, built them a new field in Lawrenceville.

http://reason.com/archives/2013/06/03/no-more-tax-dollars-for-sports-stadiums 

Answers needed in death of Tamerlan Tsarnaev acquaintance

LAST WEEK, a team of FBI agents and Massachusetts police officers questioned Ibragim Todashev, an associate of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings who was killed days after that calamity.
One of the agents left the interview with minor injuries. Mr. Todashev was carted out with, apparently, several bullet holes in his body. We say “apparently” because journalists have gotten a tangle of conflicting reports from law enforcement sources about what happened, many of which look bad for the FBI.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/answers-needed-in-death-of-tamerlan-tsarnaev-acquaintance/2013/05/30/36cec7f4-c96d-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html 

Eric Hoffer Revisited

In 1968, a year after Israel's stunning victory over the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq -- which put Israel in control of the Sinai, Judea, Samaria, the Golan, and their populations -- Eric Hoffer, pre-eminent American philosopher and the 1983 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, had this to say about the political aftermath of its military achievement:

The Jews are a peculiar people. Things permitted to other people are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it; Poland and Czechoslovakia did it; Turkey drove out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchmen; Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese -- and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. ...  Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/06/eric_hoffer_revisited.html#ixzz2VCUR0a2a

The Smoking Gun in Plain Sight

As the Obama administration descends into a whirlpool of scandals, a race has begun among Congressional committees and news organizations to find the proverbial smoking gun -- the document that will link President Obama directly to the IRS's targeting of conservative groups, or to the Justice Department's unprecedented legal actions against the Associated Press and Fox News reporter James Rosen, or to the Pentagon's ghastly failure to launch a rescue mission when our consulate in Benghazi came under attack last September.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/06/the_smoking_gun_in_plain_sight.html#ixzz2VCU6vn3Q

IRS Employees Responsible for Scandal Received Large Bonuses

In a hearing with new acting IRS chief Danny Werfel, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) revealed that the IRS gave more than $92 million in bonuses to employees, including several involved in the targeting of conservative groups.
Lois Lerner, the director of the tax-exempt organizations division at the IRS, received $42,000 in bonuses during the period when groups were being targeted, according to Rogers.

http://spectator.org/blog/2013/06/03/irs-employees-responsible-for