Friday afternoon, the Democratic National Committee sent out an official email accusing Republicans of "making up so-called scandals," doctoring emails and stirring up "false rumors" about White House cover-ups.

Friend --

Getting in President Obama's way has been the top priority for Republicans in Congress since day one. But now they've gone too far.

They've been caught red-handed making up so-called 'scandals' out of thin air to stir up false rumors of vast 'cover-ups' happening in the White House.

Did they find a single shred of evidence to back up their outrageous claims? No.

But rather than let the truth stand in their way, Republicans actually doctored emails between administration officials about Benghazi. Then, they released them to the press, trying to pass them off as real in order to create their scandal. Fortunately, they got caught in the act when the White House released all of the actual emails.

Tell President Obama you've got his back right now, no matter what Republicans come up with next.

While Republican leaders were focused on stirring up controversy, Michele Bachmann was talking about impeaching President Obama for absolutely no reason, and Republicans in the House voted to repeal Obamacare -- for the 37th time.

That's how they think they should be spending their time and your money.

Make sure the President knows that you stand behind him and his agenda right now -- and that you won't let Republican games distract you from advocating for real change that will benefit all Americans.

Stand with President Obama today -- and send the message to Republicans that it's time to stop playing political games and get back to work for the American people:

http://my.democrats.org/Stand-With-The-President

Its time for them to do their damn jobs.

Thanks,

Brad

Brad Woodhouse
Communications Director
Democratic National Committee

As a reminder, the Washington Post fact checker gave White House Communications Director Dan Pfieffer three Pinnochios for making these very claims on the Sunday shows last weekend.

It has long been part of the Washington game for officials to discredit a news story by playing up errors in a relatively small part of it. Pfeiffer gives the impression that GOP operatives deliberately tried to “smear the president” with false, doctored e-mails.

But the reporters involved have indicated they were told by their sources that these were summaries, taken from notes of e-mails that could not be kept. The fact that slightly different versions of the e-mails were reported by different journalists suggests there were different note-takers as well.

Indeed, Republicans would have been foolish to seriously doctor e-mails that the White House at any moment could have released (and eventually did). Clearly, of course, Republicans would put their own spin on what the e-mails meant, as they did in the House report. Given that the e-mails were almost certain to leak once they were sent to Capitol Hill, it’s a wonder the White House did not proactively release them earlier.

The burden of proof lies with the accuser. Despite Pfeiffer’s claim of political skullduggery, we see little evidence that much was at play here besides imprecise wordsmithing or editing errors by journalists.

Fox News President Roger Ailes has sent a memo to Fox News employees in response to the Obama Justice Department secret monitoring of reporters, executives and the naming of Chief White House correspondent James Rosen as a criminal co-conspirator.

Dear colleagues,

The recent news about the FBI’s seizure of the phone and email records of Fox News employees, including James Rosen, calls into question whether the federal government is meeting its constitutional obligation to preserve and protect a free press in the United States.  We reject the government's efforts to criminalize the pursuit of investigative journalism and falsely characterize a Fox News reporter to a Federal judge as a "co-conspirator" in a crime. I know how concerned you are because so many of you have asked me: why should the government make me afraid to use a work phone or email account to gather news or even call a friend or family member? Well, they shouldn’t have done it. The administration’s attempt to intimidate Fox News and its employees will not succeed and their excuses will stand neither the test of law, the test of decency, nor the test of time. We will not allow a climate of press intimidation, unseen since the McCarthy era, to frighten any of us away from the truth.

I am proud of your tireless effort to report the news over the last 17 years. I stand with you, I support you and I thank you for your reporting with courageous optimism. Too many Americans fought and died to protect our unique American right of press freedom. We can’t and we won’t forget that. To be an American journalist is not only a great responsibility, but also a great honor.  To be a Fox journalist is a high honor, not a high crime.  Even this memo of support will cause some to demonize us and try to find irrelevant things to cause us to waver.  We will not waver.

As Fox News employees, we sometimes are forced to stand alone, but even then when we know we are reporting what is true and what is right, we stand proud and fearless.  Thank you for your hard work and all your efforts.

Sincerely,

Roger Ailes

Ailes' words come at quite a fitting time with Memorial Day right around the corner.

If you haven't read Roger Ailes: Off Camera by Zev Chafets, I highly recommend it.

Did Attorney General Eric Holder lie under oath about his involvement in the phone monitoring of reporters? It sure looks like it. Holder was asked last week by Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson about his involvement with prosecuting the press and he claimed he had no involvement. Last night, NBC News reported Holder personally signed off on the secret monitoring of Fox News Reporter James Rosen. In that case, Rosen was named as a "co-conspirator" and treated as a criminal for trying to obtain information from a source. More from Gateway Pundit:

First of all you’ve got a long way to go to try to prosecute the press for publication of material. This has not fared well in American history… In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. This is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy.

As Guy mentioned, NBC News has reported Attorney General Eric Holder personally signed off on the secret monitoring of Fox News Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen. Rosen's movements, personal and work phone numbers, personal and work emails and even his parents' phone number, were monitored. Now, even the liberal Huffington Post is saying Holder should go. This is what the Huffington Post homepage looked like last night:




H/T Washington Examiner

NRA Life of Duty is out with a new Patriot Profile about "Frog Dogs." This profile features a Navy SEAL who details his journey through battle with his work dog Chopper.

Some SEALs carry ladders, comm gear, breaching tools, explosives and other various kit items specific to the specialty they bring to the fight. Whether Trevor Marshek was rappelling off a cliff, parachuting off the back of a plane, or scaling a wall, his special piece of kit came in the form of a 110-lb. dog with 2" canines. Many warriors go their separate ways after war, but Trevor brought his buddy home with him.

When all else fails, blame George W. Bush for everything.

"You say it happened on his watch. It happened on the appointment of the head of the IRS, who was appointed by President Bush," Pelosi said. "His length of stay extended into President Obama’s stay, but I think that that points to the fact that, why is this a politicized issue, because we all are concerned about how the IRS does what it’s supposed to do, supports the law, but does not do it in a selective way."

Pelosi referred to a Bush appointee. That appointee is former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman. As a reminder, Shulman was appointed by Bush but has donated his money to Democrats.

Yesterday the head of tax exempt organizations at the IRS, Lois Lerner, made an opening statement before the House Oversight Committee claiming she had "done nothing wrong" and then proceeded to plead the Fifth surrounding the IRS targeting of conservative groups. Now, according to counsel and Chairman Darrell Issa, because Lerner made and opening statement before invoking her Fifth Amendment rights, she effectively waived her right to do so and will be called back before the committee to testify. Lerner is also still under subpoena.

Republican Representative Darrell Issa said on Thursday he will call Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner back to testify before his committee on the IRS-Tea Party scandal after she asserted her constitutional right not to answer questions.

"We are obligated to bring Lerner back because she did not properly take the Fifth (Amendment)," Issa said.

"She clearly chose to make her statements and then not open herself up to even any questioning as to the statement she made," said Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

According to a new Rasmussen Report, the majority of Americans believe other agencies outside of the IRS also targeted conservatives. The report also shows the majority of Americans believe the IRS targeting came from Washington and directly from the White House, not a few "low-level" employees Cincinnati.

Most voters think the Internal Revenue Service’s decision to target conservative groups was made in Washington, D.C. and that it wasn’t the only government agency going after these groups.

Just 20% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the IRS’ explanation thus far that low-level employees at its Cincinnati office made the decision to target the conservative groups. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% think the orders came from Washington, with 26% who think the decision was made by someone at IRS headquarters and 39% who believe someone who works at the White House made the call.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of GOP voters think the decision to have the IRS target these conservative groups was made by someone at the White House, and a plurality (41%) of unaffiliated voters agree. Only 13% of Democrats share that assessment.

 Suggesting a very high level of skepticism, 60% think it’s at least somewhat likely that other government agencies also targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups. Just 30% consider this unlikely. This includes 39% who say it’s Very Likely other government agencies were involved and only nine percent (9%) who feel it’s Not At All Likely.

Perhaps most stunning is the fact that 37% of Democrats think it likely that other agencies were used to target conservative groups.

In terms of conservatives being targeted by federal agencies, we already have evidence of that with True the Vote's experience.

The group received an unprecedented level of scrutiny from the IRS since its original application for 501(c3) status was filed in 2010. The IRS sent rounds of questions over several years that went as far as demanding to see each and every tweet Engelbrecht had ever sent out and each and every speech she had ever given.

The IRS did not stop there. They demanded to know who had spoken at the group and to see each and every speech the speakers had given. They demanded to know the identities of all members of the group and who had attended their meetings. The list of probing and outlandish questions was exhaustive.

Soon, the IRS began to audit Engelbrecht’s family business and her personally. And the scrutiny from the federal government did not stop with the IRS.

Two DOJ agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) began to make their presence felt in Engelbrecht’s life as well.

“They [FBI] contacted us, asked questions about one of the people who attended a program," Engelbrecht told Breitbart News. "They asked for us to call if he ever showed back up. They repeated [their calls] over time, but no longer about that individual. They said they were just calling to check up with us. They called to check up with us a great deal and said it was ‘routine."

The UK Telegraph is reporting a soldier who was walking on the street has been beheaded in Woolwich.

Several witnesses described seeing a "beheading" while another described seeing a man wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt being attacked with a machete-style knife and dumped.

 Prime Minister David Cameron called a meeting of the Government's Cobra crisis committee, describing the incident as "truly shocking".

Cobra meetings are crisis response committees set up to coordinate the actions of different agencies, including the security services, police and local authorities.

The BBC reported sources had told them the men were shouting "Allahu Akbar" as they carried out the attack and had filmed carrying it out.

One witness, called James, told LBC radio: "We saw clearly two knives, meat cleavers, they were big kitchen knives like you would use in a butcher's, they were hacking at this poor guy, we thought they were trying to remove organs from him."

Regular police officers in England are not allowed to carry guns and have to wait for armed response teams to show up in serous situations. It took the armed response team 20 minutes to get to the scene. The suspects had big knives and a illegal gun to carry out their crime.

 "Then two black guys got out of the car dragging a white guy across the road towards the wall.

"One of the guys had a knife that looked about a foot long and a machete and the other bloke had a gun.

"They started slashing him up with the knife and hitting him in the stomach with the machete.

"It must've taken about 20 minutes for the police to arrive, I think it must've been because they were waiting for armed police.

The man was heard saying: "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you," he said.

(Photo: ITV News)

This incident is alarming for obvious reasons, but the most important thing to point out is that this happened in a big city in the middle of the day. This did not happen on a battle field in the Middle East, but in Woolrich, England.

UPDATE: Video:

According to Republican Rep. Jim Jordan and White House visitor logs, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House 118 times in 2010 and 2011. This is the same time period when Tea Party groups were inappropriately targeted and intimidated by the IRS.

Testifying in front of lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Shulman admitted that many of the meetings with the White House were to discuss how to implement ObamaCare.

"The IRS has a major roll in the money flow," Shulman said.

Shulman denied ever discussing 501c(4) groups with White House officials and failed to name who he met with during his visits. At the time Shulman met with the White House throughout 2010 and 2011, Tea Party and Patriot groups were expressing opposition to ObamaCare.

Inspector General Russell George said during testimony that he did not speak with anybody in the White House about targeting of Tea Party groups during his audit and did not ask IRS officials if they communicated with the White House about the targeting.

"We did not question anybody about whether they talked to the White House," George said.