The attorney general has been on the hot seat after the discovery that they Justice Department secretly recorded the conversations of some reporters from the Associated Press. The Obama administration has prosecuted twice as much whistle blower as every other president in nation’s history combined.

President Obama declined to make comments about the Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press phone records, which was part of an investigation into media leaks of a Yemen-based plan to bomb an American airliner. CIA agents were put at risk after the news agency ran a story about it last year.

The president said that the leaks were connected to national security and could place people at risk. He continued by saying he would make no apologies and he doesn’t think the American people expect him not to be concerned about the data that might compromise missions or get them killed.

President Obama said he support the revival of a media shield law that would balance the need to protect press freedoms with national security concerns. The president said that the case renewed interest on how the government can achieve that balance. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York announced that he would reintroduce a measure to provide legal protections to journalists who gather news.

The Associated Press and several other media organizations filed protests after the Department of Justice revealed it got phone records of three AP bureaus with regards to a probe of an administration leak after the failed bomb plot in Yemen in 2012. They want President Obama to fire Attorney General Holder.

President Obama spoke at the yearly National Peace Officers Memorial Service that the White House described as an annual ceremony that honors law enforcement who died in the line of duty in the past year. The president also held meetings with advisers and people expected to hear more about how the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups.

The president said he has ordered Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to hold people responsible for the wrongdoings to be accountable and to implement reforms recommended in the report made by the Inspector General. President Obama said that what they did was wrong no matter how they were allowed to take place.

The Obama administration continued to face questions regarding the September 11 attack on a United States facility in Benghazi, Libya. Republicans and other groups criticized the White House for the seizure of journalists’ phone records from the Justice Department, which was said to be part of an investigation into national security news leaks. These issues could make it hard for Obama to achieve presidential normalcy.

President Obama said that he had the opportunity to review the Treasury Department watchdog’s report on its probe of IRS employees who targeted conservative groups applying for tax exempt status. He said that the investigation’s findings were inexcusable and intolerable. He added that the federal government must conduct itself in a way that was worthy of the public’s trust.

The president said that the IRS must be impartial and fair in applying the law and the agency’s employees must act with integrity. He said that the report showed some of the employees failed the test.

The peer-reviewed Wildlife Society Bulletin estimated that more than 573,000 birds were killed by the wind farms across the nation. These included 83,000 hunting birds, such as eagles, hawks and falcons. Each death is a federal crime according to the Obama administration when it prosecuted oil companies when birds drown in waste pits and to power companies when birds were fried by the power lines. But in the case of wind farms, they have not been prosecuted even for repeat incidents.

Wind power has been touted as the pollution free energy alternative to ease global warming. It is a vital part of President Obama’s energy plan. The White House has given a $1 billion a year tax break to the industry that has resulted to doubling the total generated wind power in his first term.

The large number of dead birds at wind farms indicated how the rush of generating renewable energy came with its huge consequences. These were trade-offs that the administration was willing to make for cleaner energy.

The Associated Press collected documents and emails that showed glimpses into the problem. It showed 14 deaths at seven locations in California, five in New Mexico, five in Oregon, one in Washington State, and one in Nevada.

The deadliest place in the United States for golden eagles is Wyoming, where federal officials said more than four dozen golden eagles were killed by wind farms since 2009. Getting precise figures was hard because companies were not required to disclose the number of birds they kill.

President Obama said he learned about the claims last Friday after he read about them in news reports. If some IRS personnel engaged in such practices that have been written in reports, the president said they are culpable and the agency is not place for them.

The president didn’t comment on the details of the probe until it was complete. He said that any wrongdoing would be punished to the extent of the law. He added that the IRS is an independent agency that needs to have absolute integrity and people must be confident that they apply the law in a non-partisan way.

The Obama administration and the IRS have been scrutinized since Friday. The agency apologized for singling out specific groups, especially those who were connected to the tea party, when they applied for tax exempt status.

The IRS insisted that high level employees were not involved in the practice. The draft of an inspector general’s report that was set to be released this week indicated that Lois Lerner, an IRS official who heads the oversight of tax-exempt groups, knew about practice as early as June of 2011.

The report also showed that the IRS started targeting tea party groups in the spring of 2010, which was two years before the agency head told Congress that the targeting was not true. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report said the agency determined it would have to destroy some collected information. This was indicated in a letter dated June 2012 that informed organizations the information would be destroyed.

According to the new data from the Census Bureau, President Obama’s electoral foundation has two pillars. These are young people and African Americans. Black voters were responsible for the win in the 2012 election. The African American turnout of 66 percent of eligible voters was higher than that of white, which was 64 percent. 1.7 million more African Americans voted in 2012 compared in 2008. On the other hand, 2 million less whites went out to vote in 2012 than four years ago.

The participation of African Americans in elections was impressive. It increased 13 percentage points since 1996. During the same time period, white voting rates increased by three percentage points. Hispanic rates have increased four percentage points.

President Obama has dominated the African American votes. In 2008, he got 95 percent of the African American vote. Last November, the president got 93 percent. The percentages are impressive but they are not unique. Then-Senator John F. Kerry got 88 percent of African American votes in 2004. Al Gore got 90 percent of black votes in 2000. During the midterm elections, 89 percent of black voters picked Democratic candidates but didn’t stop Republicans from getting majority of the positions in the House of Representatives.

It would be hard to imagine any other candidate in the future that would create the same enthusiasm in the black community as that of the first African American presidential nominee. But the Democratic Party can try to come close to it.

President Obama urged Washington to learn from the officers and pass common-sense steps to make it more difficult for criminals to get hold of deadly weapons. Some senators are attempting to revive the effort to overhaul the gun laws.

The president said that they don’t also have the opportunity to praise men and women who keep the nation safe. He added that they are out there each day, patrolling the streets. They protect Americans even if it meant putting their lives on the line.

The National Association of Police Organizations has given the Top Cops awards every year since 1994. These are given to law enforcement officers named by their colleagues for their exemplary service. One of the awardees this year was Lt. Brian Murphy, who was shot several times after being the first officer to respond to the shooting incident at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, along with seven other police officers from the Oak Creek, Wisconsin police department. Other awardees came from police departments in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Houston.

At the awarding ceremony, President Obama recounted how Detective Ivan Marcano of the New York Police Department stopped an attack on a taxi driver when he was off duty with his girlfriend. The president demonstrated how Marcano went after the gunmen after he was shot by placing his left hand on his chest.

Then the president asked Marcano’s girlfriend, who was part of the crowd, to stand up for a round of applause. President Obama said jokingly to Marcano that his girlfriend deserved a nice dinner after allowing her to go through that.

The letter was sent by the group Thursday and emphasized on President Obama’s respect for Lincoln. It suggested the pipeline would be a similar turning point in American history. The proposed pipeline project would transport heavy crude from Alberta to the refineries on the Gulf Coast.

The group included wealthy liberal donors, such as actress Blythe Danner, Esprit founder Susie Tompkins Buell, and environmentalist Jayni Chase. They told President Obama that they would support him in every way possible as the president try to find ways to respond to the threat of global warming.

White House spokesman Clark Stevens noted in an email that during his first term, President Obama implemented the first-ever greenhouse gas emissions limits on cars and doubled the amount of renewable energy in the nation. The spokesman declined to comment on what the administration would decide with regards to the Keystone XL pipeline.

The letter highlights the frustration of the president’s supporters with his unwillingness to take actions on global warming now that he won his second term. Wendy Abrams, an Obama bundler who first talks about climate change with the president when he was still a law professor at the University of Chicago, said she doesn’t understand why the president is considering approving a project that increasing the global carbon output.

Abrams said that she saw the similarity between the current fight over cutting carbon emissions and the debate over abolition when she saw the movie Lincoln. She said that that in time, the case would be obvious.

Kathy Washienko, a clean energy investor, contributed the maximum legal amount to President Obama’s reelection campaign. She wrote that the atmospheric concentration of carbon is now over 400 parts per million. She said that it is a reminder that carbon emission reductions can’t be made if the nation is going in the wrong direction.

The tour placed the attention to economic and educational successes that have led to the city’s growth. President Obama accused his opponents of putting politics first instead of policies that could help improve the nation’s economic recovery.

President Obama toured the Manor New Technology High School and viewed student projects on robotics, bungee jumping, earthworms, and solar cars. The president praised the facility as the type of educational opportunity that most Americans don’t have. He urged Congress to approve funds for his program to expand preschool.

Before the president went on his trip to Texas, White House Officials argued that federal investment of $1 billion in manufacturing institutes could help set off an industrial revival and generate new jobs. This was included in President Obama’s proposed budget but Republicans have been don’t want to hear about it.

This made President Obama to issue an executive order that created three manufacturing hubs utilizing $200 million from the budgets of five agencies, which are the Departments of Energy, Defense and Commerce, NASA and the National Science Foundation. White House officials said the president would urge Congress to finance the other hubs.

President Obama announced an executive order that requires government data to be made available to the public in formats that can easily be used by businesses and researchers to create new services and products. He said that the executive orders are not substitutes for Congressional action needed to create jobs and bolster the economy.

Republican officials described President Obama’s trip to Austin as a campaign-style stunt that would not help the economy or create jobs.

President Obama will promote plans to develop a thriving and rising middle class in the nation. This was according to White House spokesman Jay Carney. On Friday, the president will attend a White House event to promote the implementation of the 2010 health care law. The issue would be the main object of contention in next year’s congressional elections.

Republicans said the president has no choice but to talk about jobs and health care because Americans are not satisfied with his policies regarding the two issues. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of said that President Obama is going around the nation to bash Congress and claim he is not at fault.

McConnell said that President Obama needs to be straight with Americans with regards to health care. The senator added that the president should tell them about what’s coming, which are lost jobs, wage cuts, and higher premiums.

The goal of President Obama’s jobs tours is to highlight regions generating jobs and economic growth and show them as examples that can be applied to the whole nation. His tour starts in the Austin area, which is a high-tech hub in the center of Texas.

President Obama will repeat the ideas he discussed in his State of the Union speech, where he urged for an increase in minimum wage and more pre-Kindergarten education programs. He has criticized Republicans in Congress for the sequestration and their opposition to his debt reduction plan.

Because of the statistics released by the Pentagon, President Barack Obama warned the Defense Department that he expected leaders to take tougher action against sex offenders and add to their efforts in preventing crimes from happening. He said that he has no tolerance for this type of crime.

Members of Congress were disappointed about the report. Lawmakers introduced several bills that would revise military law to improve the prosecution of sexual assault cases and provide more legal support to victims.

Senators probed Air Force leaders about the arrest of Air Force’s chief for sexual assault prevention on charges that he groped and attack a woman. Lawmakers described the incident as an example of cultural problem within the military that its leaders failed to change.

Some lawmakers said they were upset to learn about the two cases where Air Force generals gave clemency to convicted sex offenders. They said that the decisions would discourage other victims to report sexual abuse or rape.

President Obama said he told Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to implement guidelines to prevent sex crimes in the military and hold offenders accountable. The president added that people in uniform who have experienced sexual assault should know that their commander in chief got their backs.

The Pentagon estimated that 26,000 personnel experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2012. This was up from around 19,300 in 2010. Military officials said they were concerned that most victims were reluctant to file charges because they fear retaliation or alienated from their units. The Pentagon recorded 3,374 sexual assault cases last year.