Lou Dobbs: Today's Issues

President Looks Shift Attention To Counterterrorism

May 23, 2013

President Obama on Thursday delivered a counterterrorism speech that some view as an effort to deflect attention from ongoing scandals.

Obama used his speech at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. to shine a light on his administrations use of targeted drone strikes, as well as to renew his call for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

Speaking to the issue of Guantanamo Bay, Obama said that he'd lifted a moratorium against the transfer of detainees to Yemen. Obama also announced that his administration is searching for a site within the U.S. to hold military commissions. Both initiatives drew ire among Republicans.

"This speech was only necessary due to a deeply inconsistent counter-terrorism policy, one that maintains it is more humane to kill a terrorist with a drone, than detain and interrogate him at Guantanamo Bay," Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said in a statement.

The president today also adamantly defended his administration's use of drone strikes, which it was revealed on Thursday, have killed four U.S. citizens overseas.

The president announced that on Wednesday he signed a directive establishing guidelines for future drone strikes. Obama said future strikes will only be authorized against terrorists who pose a "continuing and imminent threat" to Americans and only when there is "near-certainty" that civilians would not put in harms way.

"It is in this context that the United States has taken lethal, targeted action against Al Qaeda and its associated forces," Obama said.

For more on the President's attempt to shift attention to his administration's counterterrorism efforts go to FoxNews.com.

Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 7:00 PM

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Official At Center Of IRS Scandal Put On Administrative Leave

May 23, 2013

Lois Lerner, the person who not only ran the department at the epicenter of the IRS scandal, but also refused to testify before Congress finds herself on administrative leave Thursday night.

That news follows calls from lawmakers for her to be suspended or fired after she pleaded the Fifth Amendment before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

Before taking the Fifth, Lerner claimed that she had done nothing wrong, and that she broke no laws.

Following her dismissal from the House hearing, the administration was pressured to take action given that two individuals with far less proximity to the scandal had been fired.

According to Fox News, Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz., sent a let to IRS Acting Commissioner Daniel Werfel, urging the agency to remove Lerner from office, saying they had "lost confidence in her ability to fulfill her duties."

Lerner's problems are seemingly getting worse. Republicans may try to recall her to testify before the House Oversight Committee.

An aide to Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif. told Fox News that Lerner's Fifth Amendment assertion is "no longer valid," since she offered testimony prior to exercising her right against self-incrimination.

For more about Lerner's placement on administrative leave and the still unfolding IRS scandal, go to FoxNews.com.

Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 6:00 PM

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U.S. Stocks Fend Of Global Rout!

May 23, 2013

Wall Street investors today endured another wild ride on Wall Street.

After falling more than 120-points in the first hour of trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to finish down only 13-points. The Nasdaq Composite dipped 4-points. The S&P 500 down just 5-points on the day.

News of an unexpected contraction in Chinese manufacturing activity, coupled with mixed signals regarding the scale of future Federal Reserve bond purchases led to steep declines at the opening bell.

However investors managed to pare losses following stronger than expected news on the housing and labor markets.

New home sales in April rose 2.3% to an annual rate of 454,000 units, that's the second highest level on new home sales since July 2008. Adding to the good news, the media price for a new home jumped 14.9% compared to a year ago, reaching a record high of $271,600.

Stock prices also firmed after the Labor Department reported that weekly jobless claims fell a steeper than expected 23,000, totaling 340,000.

Hewlett-Packard proved to be a huge source of strength in the stock market. HP's stock price surged 17% after posting stronger than expected quarterly results.

Debt and gold prices both jumped as investors sought safety from volatility in the equities market.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped 2.5-basis points, ending at 2.019%.

Gold prices jumped $24.40 or 1.8%. The August gold contract closed at a one week high of $1,392.80 an ounce.

Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 4:00 PM

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More Obama/IRS Stonewalling!

May 22, 2013

If any was expecting a third day of congressional hearings on the IRS scandal would bring them closer to the truth, they were disappointed with the outcome of today's hearing held by the House Oversight Committee.

Wednesday's hearing likely presented Americans with the most vivid example of the obstacles lawmakers face in getting to the bottom of the IRS scandal, which unfairly targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Both Democrats and Republicans appeared visibly frustrated by the lack of answers coming from witnesses appearing before the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., admonished the agency, saying that unless IRS employees don't start talking, a special prosecutor would be appointed.

"There will be hell to pay if that's the route that we to go down," Lynch said.
Defiant to that warning, Lois Lerner, director of the IRS division in charge of the controversial program, claimed that she had done nothing wrong.

"I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee," Lerner told committee members before invoking her Fifth Amendment right, protecting her from self-incrimination.

It was Lerner who originally admitted her division had been applying extra scrutiny to conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status from 2010 through 2012.

Realizing that lawmaker were not going to get any information out of Lerner, she was dismissed from the hearing, leaving members to focus their frustration on former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman.

However, Shulman offered repeated testimony that he'd offered to a senate committee on Tuesday, refusing to take responsibility for the actions that took place while he was chief of the IRS.

Shulman also provided little new reasoning as to why he did not update Congress about the program after the IRS concluded an internal investigation that came to similar conclusions reached by Inspector General J. Russell George.

Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 5:00 PM

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Stocks Fall On Fears Of Fed QE3 Tapering

May 22, 2013

The Federal Reserve today took investors on a wild ride, inducing a more than 270-point swing on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The blue chip index closed trading down 80-points. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 39-points on the day. The S&P 500 finished down 14-points.

Investors this evening feeling like they've been struck with a serious case of whiplash.

Stocks initially surged more than 120 points on dovish comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Bernanke today told lawmakers and investors that a premature tightening of monetary policy could slow or even end the economic recovery. The market took that to mean that the Fed's easy money policy remains intact, and will remain so for the near future.

But stocks showed some weakness when the issue of the Fed's $85 billion a month bond purchasing program came up, with the Fed Chairman suggesting that depending on economic data, there's room for adjustment in either direction.

And with just two hours left in the trading session, the Fed released the minutes from its April policy meeting. Those minutes showed a growing number of officials favor a scaling back of Fed bond purchases. That revelation proved opened a spigot of selling in the market.

Technology stocks proved to be among the biggest losers in the stock market today. Cisco Systems' stock fell nearly 3%. Facebook and Google shares dropped nearly 2%.

However losses on the Dow might have been worse had it not been for better than 1% gains in the shares of Home Depot, JP Morgan Chase and Pfizer. Pfizer today announcing that it will spinoff the remainder of its stake animal-health company Zoetis.

The market today also reacted to a number of earnings. Target revealed first-quarter profits and revenues that were shy of expectations. Lowe's also posted quarterly results that missed both top and bottom line estimates. Meanwhile, Toll Brothers reported quarterly earnings that were 75% higher than the street had expected, driving its stock 2.9% higher on the day.

Reaction to the Fed minutes pressured both crude oil and debt prices. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note jumped 10-basis points to 2.03%.

And crude oil prices fell 2.1%, or $1.90. The July crude oil contract settled the session at $94.28 a barrel.

Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 4:00 PM

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DOJ Overreach Extendeded To Reporter's Parents

May 22, 2013

Outrage of the Department of Justice's investigation of Fox News report James Rosen's news gathering is reaching a new heights following reports of the extremes the DOJ went to in order to monitor his phone calls.

According to a Fox News report, the DOJ seized Rosen's phone records under the Espionage Act, one of the most serious wartime laws on the books.

Attorney Jesselyn Radack told Fox News that the DOJ's use of the Espionage Act could set a dangerous precedent for journalists.

"This kind of puts us into the deep freeze," Radack said. "I feel like we're back to the Dark Ages."

Fox notes that; It's the same law used by the Nixon administration to go after The New York Times and Daniel Ellsberg over the leak of the Pentagon Papers. It's the law used to charge the Rosenbergs, American communists, for allegedly passing secret information to the Soviet Union -- they were executed for the offense in 1953.

Adding more light to the overreach, Fox News is also reporting that not only did the DOJ seize records of phones used by Rosen and other Fox reporters, but the agency apparently also kept tabs on phone calls made to a number which is reportedly that of Rosen's parents.

Rosen's father, attorney Myron Rosen, told FoxNews.com he found the records seizure to be "downright ludicrous."

"My son and his wife call us all the time, and we talk about grandchildren," he said. "We don't talk about nuclear proliferation."

He continued: "The fact that they had our phone records, it shows how crazy they are, how desperate."

These latest revelations will likely do more harm to Obama administration's perception among the American public and lawmakers who over the past few weeks have learned new details about the Benghazi cover-up, and revelations that the IRS has been targeting conservative groups since as early as 2010.

Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 3:00 PM

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American Public And Lawmakers Wary Of IRS

May 21, 2013

It's been a rough 11-days for the IRS. Disclosures that agents unfairly scrutinized the applications of conservative groups took both lawmakers and the America public by surprise, eliciting a backlash not seen in almost 40-years.

According to a Fox News poll, just 42% of voters currently have some degree of confidence in the IRS. The poll released Tuesday found that 7% have a great deal of confidence in the agency, with another 35% having some confidence in the agency. That may actually seem high to some given the recent scandal, but those combined figures are actually 20 percentage points lower from the last time Fox News conducted its last IRS poll in May 2003.

Perhaps more interesting are the responses to questions as to whether or not the Obama administration, specifically the White House had any roll in the IRS scandal that seems to have targeted enemies of then presidential candidate Obama.

According to polling data, 37% of respondents believe that while the White House didn't initiate the practice of IRS employees targeting conservative groups, but they do believe the White House was aware targeting was going on.

Perhaps even more concerning to the Obama administration, 29% believe that the White House directed the IRS to target conservative groups leading up to the 2012 presidential election. 24% say the White House had nothing to do with the IRS scandal.

A second day of congressional hearings also appears to have done little to ease the nerves of lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Appearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, Steven T. Miller, the outgoing acting IRS commissioner and Douglas Shulman, a George W. Bush appointee who headed the IRS from March 2008 to November 2012, rejected the notion that politics played a role in singling out conservative groups for heightened scrutiny.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, asked why neither Miller nor former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman acknowledged the program before given that Congress had been asking about alleged complaints since 2012.

Shulman said that he did not have a "full set of facts," but said he was aware in the spring of 2012 there was an internal list that included the term "Tea Party." Shulman also said he did not know how the controversial program started.

"You should have corrected the record, and you should have done it long before today," Hatch said.

He also accused Miller of lying when he didn't acknowledge the program in letters to Congress last year, despite being aware of it.

"That's a lie by omission, there's no question about that in my mind," Hatch said.
Miller, like he did in testimony last week, said he "did not lie."
And later this afternoon, Fox News reported that Lois Lerner, the director of the IRS division that singled out conservative groups, is expected to invoke the Fifth Amendment Wednesday, when she is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Lerner's attorney reported sent a letter to committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asking if his client could skip the hearing given that she planned to plead the Fifth.

Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 5:00 PM

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Dow And S&P 500 Climb To New Record Heights

May 21, 2013

Stocks bounced back, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average notching its 19th straight Tuesday gain.

For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 52-points higher - The S&P 500 gained 3-points, both indexes closed trading at news record highs. The Nasdaq Composite finished up 6, closing at the highest level since October 2000.

Stocks were mixed for much of the day. Home Depot and JP Morgan Chase were the early advancers on the blue chip index.

Home Depot's stock ended trading 2.5% higher after topping both earnings and revenue targets, and raising its full-year earnings guidance.

JP Morgan Chase rose 1.4% after Jamie Dimon was successful in retaining his titles as CEO and Chairman of Chase.

But it was Merck the proved to be the big winner on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Merck's stock price jumped 4.7%. That run-up a result of apparent speculation among investors that Merck may be preparing to release favorable data on one of its cancer drugs.

The stock market got a further boost following comments out of the Federal Reserve. In recent days, a number of Federal Reserve Bank presidents had indicated that the central bank should begin taping its bond-buying program as early as this summer.

Today, however, New York Fed President William Dudley and St. Louis Fed President James Bullard offered no such assessments.

In a speech to an economic conference in Frankfurt, Germany Bullard said the Fed's bond buying has been effective and that it remains the best policy option at the moment.

Dovish comments out of the Fed helped boost the dollar and eased pressure on debt prices. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note ended unchanged, at 1.932%.

That dollar strength however did hurt dollar-traded commodities. Gold prices ended trading down 0.5%, closing at $1,377.60 an ounce. Crude oil prices edged lower ahead of tomorrow's Energy Department report on gasoline and crude oil inventories. The June crude contract finished down 55 cents, expiring at $96.16 a barrel.

Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 4:00 PM

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DOJ Targeted Fox News Reporter

May 20, 2013

The Department of Justice's controversial practice of going after the media escalated on Monday, when the Washington Post revealed that the DOJ had targeted Fox News Report James Rosen in a 2009 criminal investigation.

Rosen, who is now Fox News' Chief White House Correspondent was named in an FBI affidavit as a "co-conspirator" as part of a leak investigation concerning information about North Korea's likely response to U.N. sanctions.

Unlike the case surrounding the Associated Press, where the DOJ seized phone records of AP reports and editors, the DOJ actually claimed Rosen had broken the law. The FBI claimed that by soliciting classified information from his government source, Rosen committed a criminal act "at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator."

Learning of the FBI investigation into Rosen and his source, Michael Clemente, Fox News' executive vice president of news, issued a statement defending Rosen.

"We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter," Clemente said. "In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press."

The investigation into Rosen and his source also generated astonishment among members of Congress. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also offered a statement of support for Rosen and journalists whose job it is to keep the American public informed of government activities.

"The sort of reporting by James Rosen detailed in the report is the same sort of reporting that helped Mr. Rosen aggressively pursue questions about the Administration's handling of Benghazi. National security leaks are criminal and put American lives on the line, and federal prosecutors should, of course, vigorously investigate," Rubio said in the statement. "But we expect that they do so within the bounds of the law, and that the investigations focus on the leakers within the government -- not on media organizations that have First Amendment protections and serve vital function in our democracy."

The Post report comes on the heels of the DOJ seizing phone records of AP reporters and editors as a part of a 2012 leak investigation.

The fallout of the DOJ's phone record and email seizures is already beginning to have an impact on newsgathering efforts according to AP President Gary Pruitt.

Pruitt said on CBS "Face the Nation" this past Sunday that, "We're already seeing some impact. Officials are saying they're reluctant to talk."

Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 4:00 PM

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IRS Official Earns Four Pinocchios

May 20, 2013

The Obama administration earns its second set of four Pinocchios in as many weeks.

Lois G. Lerner, the IRS's director of the exempt organizations division, the department that unfairly singled out conservative group applications, has some explaining to do.

A detailed fact checking report by the Washington Post reveals how Lerner may have misled reporters and Congress in rationalizing her department's scrutiny of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Lerner originally blamed the practice on a huge influx of applications from 2010 thru 2012.

"But between 2010 and 2012, we started seeing a very big uptick in the number of 501(c)(4) applications we were receiving, and many of these organizations applying more than doubled, about 1500 in 2010 and over 3400 in 2012," Lerner said when apologizing for the scandal brought to light during an American Bar Association panel discussion.

However, the Post reported that, "The real jump did not come until 2011, long after the targeting of conservative groups had been implemented."

Furthermore, the Post points out that, "The inspector general report released last week said a Cincinnati office began drafting the new criteria as early as May 2010. But statistics included in the report show the number of applications in that group actually declined between 2009 and 2010 -- from 1,751 to 1,735.

The Post fact-check column adjusted the numbers to reflect the rise from one calendar year to the next, as opposed to fiscal year. Even then, the increase was from 1,745 to 1,865.

Applications did not begin to rise significantly until 2011 and 2012."

The Post also called into question a number of Lerner's other assertions, including the notion that she looked into the issue only after learning of the issue through media reports. Sound familiar?

Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 3:00 PM

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