In The News: Large Earthquakes Increasing

This has to be the most striking news of the week; just take a look at the earthquake monitor:

Seismic Monitor

Massive (8.2) Earthquake In Russia's Far East



Very Strong earthquake Off Chile Coast

Strong Earthquake In Northern California



Magnitude 7.4 Earthquake Reported Near Fiji Islands




Over the last two days, there seems to have been an increase in quakes:




Earthquakes In The World On May 23, 2013 (M2.5 or more)


Earthquakes In The World On May 24, 2013 (M2.5 or more)





The Intifada Is Here, Even If Media Is Silent



More and more Israelis living in Judea and Samaria (Shomron) have come under attack as Palestinian Authority terrorist groups increase the frequency of assaults on drivers in the region. One of the victims is Michal Weisel, who shared her post-attack thoughts with Arutz Sheva.

“We’re in an Intifada, even if they media hasn’t said so yet,” she warned. The Palestinian Authority has launched two past “Intifada” terrorism wars targeting Israeli civilians in a variety of attacks including rock and firebomb attacks on passing cars, stabbings and shootings in civilian homes, and suicide bombings.

The IDF has reportedly started preparing for a third round of “Intifada” attacks. However, current and former military leaders have reassured civilians that there is currently no new Intifada, despite the many recent attacks on Israeli drivers.

Syria: Assad Regime Is Making Gains And 'Planning A Major Push'






Report: Kerry Offers Freeze For Negotiations


{I'm still searching the news for any concessions that the "Palestinians" have offered up and will report back when I find them. Hint: Don't wait, there won't be any, as usual}



United States Secretary of State John Kerry has reportedly proposed that Israel freeze construction east of the 1949 armistice line if it wants to hold talks with the Palestinian Authority.
Kerry met Thursday with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
It was not clear if Netanyahu responded favorably to Kerry’s suggestion of a new constructionfreeze. Israel formerly frozeconstruction for several months in an attempt to bring the PA back to the negotiating table. The PA agreed to talks shortly before the freeze ended, but refused to continue meeting when the construction ban was not renewed.
Netanyahu has reportedly put a stop to new construction in Judea and Samaria (Shomron), but has not issued a public ban on construction, and has not stoppedconstruction for Israelis in Jerusalem.







It is amazing that this game is still being played. We can easily see how obvious it is that the "Palestinians" have absolutely no interest in peace, as revealed by the article below:






Olmert: Abbas Failed To Accept My Peace Offer


{Even though Olmert was basically giving up everything}

More than four years after he offered the Palestinians a state with a sovereign share of Jerusalem and 100% of the West Bank, with some one-for-one land swaps, former prime minister Ehud Olmert accused PA President Mahmoud Abbas of lacking the guts to take the deal.

In an interview with The Tower website, Olmert said he was familiar with all “the arguments” that the Palestinians have put forward for failing to seize the best offer Israel has ever made for a permanent accord, but that the bottom line is that Abbas is no hero and that the Palestinians were afraid.

In the interview, Olmert reconfirms that he was ready to relinquish sovereignty in the Old City, divide Jerusalem, and give the Palestinians the entire West Bank with one-for-one land swaps to retain major settlements. He also goes into new details about his proposal for resolving Palestinian refugee demands.



Olmert was apparently willing to more or less return to the pre-1967 lines, while maintaining the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem, the settlement city of Ma’aleh Adumim to the east, and a slice of territory that apparently would encompass the large settlement of Ariel in Samaria. In exchange for expanding Israeli sovereignty to those areas, Israel would have given up some of its own land to the new Palestinian state.

Olmert, as he has subsequently confirmed, was also prepared to divide Jerusalem into Israeli- and Palestinian-controlled neighborhoods, and to relinquish Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount and the entire Old City. He proposed that the “Holy Basin” be overseen instead by a five-member, non-sovereign international trusteeship, comprising Israel, the PA, Jordan, the US and Saudi Arabia.

After the September 16, 2008, meeting where Olmert’s far-reaching proposal was offered to Abbas, the former prime minister tried to formalize an agreement immediately.

“We asked them to meet the following day, Wednesday, together with map experts, in order to arrive at a final formula for the border between Palestine and Israel,” Olmert said.

“I am still waiting for a phone call from him,” the former prime minister said this week, referring to the PA president.






Also see:




Noonan: A Battering Ram Becomes A Stonewall

"I don't know." "I don't remember." "I'm not familiar with that detail." "It's not my precise area." "I'm not familiar with that letter."

These are quotes from the Internal Revenue Service officials who testified this week before the House and Senate. That is the authentic sound of stonewalling, and from the kind of people who run Washington in the modern age—smooth, highly credentialed and unaccountable. They're surrounded by legal and employment protections, they know how to parse a careful response, they know how to blur the essential point of a question in a blizzard of unconnected factoids. They came across as people arrogant enough to target Americans for abuse and harassment and think they'd get away with it.

So what did we learn the past week, and what are the essentials to keep in mind?

We learned the people who ran and run the IRS are not going to help Congress find out what happened in the IRS. We know we haven't gotten near the bottom of the political corruption of that agency. We do not know who ordered the targeting of conservative groups and individuals, or why, or exactly when it began. We don't know who executed the orders or directives. We do not know the full scope or extent of the scandal. We don't know, for instance, how many applicants for tax-exempt status were abused.

But the most important IRS story came not from the hearings but from Mike Huckabee's program on Fox News Channel. He interviewed and told the story of Catherine Engelbrecht—a nice woman, a citizen, an American. She and her husband live in Richmond, Texas. They have a small manufacturing business. In the past few years she became interested in public policy and founded two groups, King Street Patriots, and True the Vote.


In July 2010 she sent applications to the IRS for tax-exempt status. What followed was not the harassment, intrusiveness and delay we're now used to hearing of. The US government came down on her with full force.


In December 2010 the FBI came to ask about a person who'd attended a King Street Patriots function. In January 2011 the FBI had more questions. The same month the IRS audited her business tax returns. In May 2011 the FBI called again for a general inquiry about King Street Patriots. In June 2011 Engelbrecht's personal tax returns were audited and the FBI called again. In October 2011 a round of questions on True the Vote. In November 2011 another call from the FBI. The next month, more questions from the FBI. In February 2012 a third round of IRS questions on True the Vote. In February 2012 a first round of questions on King Street Patriots. The same month the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms did an unscheduled audit of her business. (It had a license to make firearms but didn't make them.) In July 2012 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration did an unscheduled audit. In November 2012 more IRS questions on True the Vote. In March 2013, more questions. In April 2013 a second ATF audit.

All this because she requested tax-exempt status for a local conservative group and for one that registers voters and tries to get dead people off the rolls. Her attorney, Cleta Mitchell, who provided the timeline above, told me: "These people, they are just regular Americans. They try to get dead people off the voter rolls, you would think that they are serial killers."



With all the talk and the hearings and the news reports, it is important to keep the essentials of this story in mind.

First, only conservative groups were targeted in this scandal by the IRS. Liberal or progressive groups were not targeted. The IRS leaked conservative groups' confidential applications and donor lists to liberal groups, never the other way around.

This was a political operation. If it had not been, then the statistics tell us left-wing groups would have been harassed and abused, and seen their applications leaked to the press. There would be a left-wing equivalent to Catherine Engelbrecht.

And all of this apparently took place in the years leading up to the 2012 election. Meaning that before that election, groups that were anti-Obamacare, or pro-life, or pro-Second Amendment or constitutionalist, or had words like 'tea party' or 'patriot' in their name—groups that is that would support Republicans, not Democrats—were suppressed, thwarted, kept from raising money and therefore kept from fully operating.

Second, it is important to remember that there has never been an investigation of what happened in the IRS. There was an internal IRS audit, not an investigation, carried out by an inspector general, who was careful this week to note to the House what he'd done was not an investigation. He was tasked to come to conclusions on whether there had been wrongdoing at the agency. It was not his job to find out exactly why it happened, how and when the scandal began, who was involved, and how they operated.

A dead serious investigation is needed. The IRS has colorfully demonstrated that it cannot investigate itself. The Obama administration wants the FBI—which answers to Eric Holder's Justice Department—to investigate, but that would not be credible. The investigators of the IRS must be independent of the administration, or their conclusions will not be trustworthy.

An independent counsel, with all the powers of that office, is what we need.

Again, if what happened at the IRS is not stopped now—if the internal corruption within it is not broken—it will never stop, and never be broken. The American people will never again be able to have the slightest confidence in the revenue-gathering arm of their government. And that, actually, would be tragic.

Four Signs That We're Back In Dangerous Bubble Territory