$1 Million Bounty to Be Offered for 'Smoking Gun' in IRS Targeting Scandal … A nonprofit group hopes to award a $1 million bounty to anyone who can provide "smoking gun" evidence to implicate IRS leadership or members of the Obama administration who purposefully targeted conservative and tea party-affiliated groups, TheBlaze has learned. Gregg Phillips, the managing directo...Read More

Voters have had enough of bloated and dysfunctional governments. The public sector still wants to own, control and run everything itself; no major company could survive with this kind of attitude … Successful countries will be those whose government choose to do less – and do it better … The great challenge of the next decade will therefore be to fix government, as John Micklethw...Read More

Federal 'Biosurveillance' Plan Seeking Direct Access to Americans' Private Medical Records … The federal government is piecing together a sweeping national "biosurveillance" system that will give bureaucrats near real-time access to Americans' private medical information in the name of national security, according to Twila Brase, a public health nurse and co-founder...Read More

The (misguided) passion of Glenn Greenwald … It's not that journalists have thin skins – it's that they have no skins. This adage gets trotted out once a month or more in better newsrooms to provide context for the overreaction of a reporter or editor who has found himself on the receiving end of criticism for something they've published. This week, some journalists who hav...Read More

Record Antarctic Ice Extent Throws Cold Water On Global Warming Scare … Antarctic polar ice extent has set another new record, defying alarmist global warming claims. Surpassing the greatest month-of-April ice extent in recorded history, the new record throws cold water on alarmist claims that the Antarctic ice cap has crossed a melting point of no return. – ForbesDominant Social Theme...Read More

The intimacy of crowds … Crowds aren't really crazed – they are made of highly co-operative individuals driven to shared interests and goals … The 19th-century French criminologist Gabriel Tarde likened even the most civilised of crowds to 'a monstrous worm whose sensibility is diffuse and who still acts with disordered movements according to the dictates of its head'...Read More

Marijuana Legalization In U.S. States Making Waves At The U.N. … With Washington State and Colorado opening the door to legal recreational marijuana use, a United Nations report has been published which takes issue with this drift towards legalization. The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), an arm of the U.N. charged with overseeing cooperation with international drug treaties, ex...Read More

Climate Change to Hit Sovereign Creditworthiness … Global warming will harm sovereign creditworthiness around the world this century, with poorer nations the worst hit, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said. Climate change is one of two "global mega-trends" alongside aging populations that dominate global economic risks, the agency said today in a report. – Bloombe...Read More

Another big-name TV doc — Dr. Oz — backs medical marijuana … Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiac surgeon and host of The Dr. Oz Show, says medical marijuana is a good idea … though widespread recreational use is still a bad idea. He's just the latest high-profile doctor to announce his change of heart. The TV-doc announced his about-face on the Larry King Show: "I grew up lik...Read More

Bank of England in no rush to raise interest rates Bank Governor Mark Carney says there is enough spare capacity in the economy for interest rates to stay low, but adds that the time for rate rises is edging closer … Interest rates will remain on hold this year, the Bank of England has signalled, but households must be prepared for a gradual increase in borrowing costs amid a backdrop of &qu...Read More

Jill Abramson forced out as New York Times executive editor … Jill Abramson said: 'I've loved my run at the Times.' … The most august newspaper in the US, the New York Times, was left reeling on Wednesday after its executive editor, Jill Abramson, was fired and replaced by her deputy less than three years into one of the most exalted jobs in journalism. In a move that caugh...Read More

The EU Doesn't Like Its Google Search Results … Google Inc., the search-engine colossus, scans some 60 trillion Web pages to index information for the hundreds of millions of queries it receives each day. Now, according to the European Union's highest court, users there have the right to ask Google to forget much of this data – specifically, any bits about them that they would...Read More

Rubio Has Blunt Words on Climate Change, Hillary Clinton … Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told ABC's "This Week" that he believed he was ready to be president and would take an all-or-nothing approach to running if he does decide to go ahead, while also sounding skeptical notes on climate change and Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state — two likely hot issues in 2...Read More

Fighting for the future of conservativism … Establishment Republicans have been delighted by the victory of Thom Tillis, their favored candidate in last week's North Carolina primary. After expensive advertising campaigns by establishment bagmen like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove's American Crossroads, mainstream conservatives believe they have a candidate who can beat D...Read More

How Monica Lewinsky Changed the Media … Monica Lewinsky's 'Vanity Fair' article reluctantly plunges us straight back into the frothing world of '90s gossip. It may be painful but it answers so many questions about today's media. The Monica Lewinsky confessional in Vanity Fair brings back a torrent of unfond memories of the appalling cast of tabloid gargoyles who drove the...Read More

No reason for these stock market jitters … "Sell in May and go away." This stock market adage has served investors well four years in a row. Every year since 2010, stock markets around the world have suffered significant corrections between a high reached in May and a low in the summer or early autumn: by 15 percent in 2010, 19 percent in 2011, 9 percent in 2012 and 5 percent in 20...Read More

Don't worry, Scotland is not going to vote for independence. That is what people opposed to the idea have tended to think until now. But the Yes campaign has gained ground lately, winning hearts and minds. How is it doing that? What will happen next? And will it be enough to deliver a victory that breaks up the union? – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: What will happen next? Will Scotl...Read More

Fed Chair Unsure If Capitalism or Oligarchy Describes the U.S. … "Are we still a capitalist democracy or have we gone over into an oligarchic form of society in which incredible economic and political power now rests with the billionaire class?" Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont socialist, asked that question of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen at a hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday...Read More

Uruguay Legalizes Pot, Stumbles … Uruguay's decision last year to legalize marijuana was sold to the country's citizens as a way to defeat the criminal gangs responsible for almost all of the 22 tons of pot that are grown or smuggled into the country every year. The trouble is that the latest rules, as designed, suggest that the country may end up undermining the law's intended g...Read More

End The War On Drugs, Say Nobel Prize-Winning Economists … Global War on Drugs … The decades-long global war on drugs has failed and it's time to shift the focus from mass incarceration to public health and human rights, according to a new report endorsed by five Nobel Prize-winning economists. The report, titled "Ending the Drug Wars" and put together by the London Schoo...Read More