Here are this week’s full results.
See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day and weigh in…don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!
You know, since they are targeting leakers.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General published a new report Monday that confirms former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke leaked a document intended to smear Operation Fast and Furious scandal whistleblower John Dodson.The DOJ IG said it found “Burke’s conduct in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to be inappropriate for a Department employee and wholly unbefitting a U.S. Attorney.”
“We are referring to OPR our finding that Burke violated Department policy in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to a member of the media for a determination of whether Burke’s conduct violated the Rules of Professional Conduct for the state bars in which Burke is a member,” the IG wrote.
I mean, if awarding a scholarship that is limited by race is somehow a violation of the law and all…
Desegregation may finally be coming to Columbia University.The Ivy League school is asking a judge to change some requirements of the Lydia C. Roberts graduate and traveling fellowships - which limit recipients to people born in Iowa who are "of the Caucasian race."
Lucy Drotning, the university's associate provost, filed an affidavit in Manhattan Supreme Court last week to support a prior action made by the fund's administrator, JPMorgan Chase Bank, claiming the racist provisions set in 1920 are grossly outdated.
"Circumstances have so changed from the time when the Trust was established" that complying with the restrictions are "impossible," the filing says.
"Columbia University is now prohibited by law and University policy from discriminating on the basis of race."
But if Columbia is prohibited by law and University policy from discriminating based upon race, why on earth would it encourage students to apply for scholarships reserved for minority students? More to the point, if that prohibition is in place, why would it accept funds that come from such scholarships?
Somehow the stuff I had planned on writing about doesn't seem as important as what is going on in Oklahoma right now. It will wait until tomorrow. In the mean time, I would rather that we all offer our prayers.
I don't take a position on the thesis that has sparked the controversy or the policy implications of that thesis. That said, I find it disturbing that rather than a rebuttal, the opponents of the conclusions of Jason Richwine's thesis are demanding that no one even be allowed to even do research on the issue.
Harvard students, outraged over a doctoral dissertation arguing that Hispanic immigrants lack “raw cognitive ability or intelligence,” this week urged the university to investigate how the thesis came to be approved and to ban future research on racial superiority.The students presented 1,200 signatures to president Drew Faust and the dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, David Ellwood.
“Academic freedom and a reasoned debate are essential to our academic community,’’ the petition said. “However, the Harvard Kennedy School cannot ethically stand behind academic work advocating a national policy of exclusion and advancing an agenda of discrimination.”
The thesis — “IQ and Immigration Policy,’’ by Jason Richwine, a former doctoral candidate at the Kennedy School — compared IQ scores of US residents, including immigrants from a variety of countries, and concluded that the scores of Hispanic immigrants were substantially lower than those of native whites. The paper argued that the United States should allow only immigrants with high IQs.
It is one thing to argue that Richwine is wrong, but it is another thing completely to argue that Richwine and others should not even be permitted to examine the question and pursue the data to where it leads them, no matter how controversial the conclusions they draw from it. Declaring that certain topics are off limits because they contradict the latter day dogma of academe is the modern equivalent of the treatment received by Galileo. And after all, aren't we told by liberals that we have to be prepared to accept certain inconvenient truths if the scholars tell us they are so?
Looks like someone in the media is finally willing to call the Obama Administration on their pathetic talking points and their efforts to obfuscate in order to deceive the American public.
SCHIEFFER: But Mr. Pfeiffer, and I don't mean to be argumentative here, but the President is in charge of the executive branch of the government. It’s my, I'll just make this as an assertion: when the executive branch does things right, there doesn't seem to be any hesitancy of the White House to take credit for that. When Osama bin Laden was killed, the President didn't waste any time getting out there and telling people about it.But with all of these things, when these things happen, you seem to send out officials many times who don't even seem to know what has happened. And I use as an example of that Susan Rice who had no connection whatsoever to the events that took place in Benghazi, and yet she was sent out, appeared on this broadcast, and other Sunday broadcasts, five days after it happens, and I'm not here to get in an argument with you about who changed which word in the talking points and all that. The bottom line is what she told the American people that day bore no resemblance to what had happened on the ground in an incident where four Americans were killed.
Now I'll give Bob an answer -- why do they send out these talking point quoting folks who were not involved in policy screw-ups? That;s easy -- because you and your bookers are willing to put them on air to recite the talking points in an effort to mislead the American public. If the network news shows refuse to put them on the air, the White House will be forced to either send the involved parties with real answers or you and your fellow journalists will have to report that the "most transparent administration in American history" is once again trying to hide the truth from the American people.
At the elementary school, Obama watched a group of youngsters learn to write about their favorite zoo animals and quizzed them on simple arithmetic. When one girl had a hard time coming up with the answer to one equation, Obama said in a sympathetic tone that “subtraction is tougher than addition.”
Obama knows how to add pork to the budget, but he just can't figure out how to subtract it.
Heads must roll -- and there had better be Obama appointees frogmarched out of their respective workplaces with cameras running.
This was reported this morning.
NBC's Lisa Myers reported this morning that the IRS deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election:The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."
Now the Treasury Department's Inspector General concedes that the department -- including senior management -- did know about the misdeeds of the IRS before the election.
The Treasury Department’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was auditing the Internal Revenue Service’s screening of politically active organizations seeking tax exemptions, disclosing for the first time on Friday that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.At the first Congressional hearing into the I.R.S. scandal, J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, told members of the House Ways and Means Committee that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel of his audit on June 4, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly thereafter.”
And we've already known that the White House counsel was aware of the impending report before the matter became public -- leading one former Clinton official to suggest the her resignation may be needed.
But this still does not answer a very important question that has echoed down through the last 40 years of American history.
With the slavish assistance of Obama worshiper Piers Morgan.
“I dismiss the premise, the idea that these are scandals,” Carney said flatly, calling the controversy over Benghazi a “total concoction by Republicans,” and the IRS scandal merely “inappropriate behavior” by the IRS.
And, of course, President Obama and his administration just luvvvv a free and independent press.
So never mind those seized records, intrusive questions, or dead Americans -- there's nothing to see here.
And so it continues
I wrote about this issue only six weeks ago, but the senile old man from Nevada is bringing it up again.
The threat of further Republican attempts to thwart the president’s ability to assemble his second-term cabinet has increased the likelihood of a fight over the Senate’s rules, which allow the minority party to insist on a 60-vote threshold for almost every Senate action.Democrats say that Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, in recent days has been trying to gauge whether there is sufficient support among Democrats to force a rule change that would limit the filibuster on presidential nominees. He could conceivably try to enact a rule change with a simple majority — a tactic known as “the nuclear option.” Any revisions to Senate rules usually require 67 votes, a threshold that is impossible to obtain without significant Republican support.
So let's remind the American people what Harry Reid had to say about this matter when he was Senate Minority Leader and George W. Bush was president.
![everything_you_wanted_to_know_about_the_nuclear_option-293x307[1].jpg](http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/everything_you_wanted_to_know_about_the_nuclear_option-293x307[1].jpg)
"The American people have rejected the nuclear option because they see it for what it is — an unconstitutional abuse of power."
Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader, April 26, 2005
What a difference eight years make.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Friday that he will consider enacting the so-called "nuclear option," or changing Senate rules by a simple majority vote, if judicial nominations do not start moving through the Senate, Roll Call reports.During an interview with Nevada Public Radio, Reid warned that he was willing to make drastic changes to Senate rules if action is not taken on the ballooning number of stalled judicial nominees.
“All within the sound of my voice, including my Democratic senators and the Republican senators who I serve with, should understand that we as a body have the power on any given day to change the rules with a simple majority, and I will do that if necessary," Reid said.
"If the Republicans in the Senate don’t start approving some judges and don’t start helping get some of these nominations done, then we’re going to have to take more action."
So let's see.
In 2005, using the nuclear option to get judges confirmed was "an unconstitutional abuse of power." In 2013, using the nuclear option to get judges confirmed is a perfectly legitimate procedure.
Because "Obama".
Or "Tea Party"
Or "the sound of my voice".
Or something.
But certainly not because of any principled reason.
But then again, given that we have seen that the Democrats -- from Obama to Reid and Pelosi, to the lowest Democrat elected official in some podunk town in the middle of nowhere -- adhere to no principles beyond "we have the power" and "we want to", I guess we should not be surprised.
After all, it is clear that there have been laws violated -- the Heritage Foundation even points out which ones.
The statutory provisions that may have been violated include:
- 26 U.S. Code § 7214: Offenses by officers and employees of the United States. This law applies to any officer or employee of the United States who “with intent to defeat the application of any provision of [the Internal Revenue Code] fails to perform any of the duties of his office or employment.” This is punishable by termination of his employment, a fine of not more than $250,000 (under the Alternative Fines Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3571), and imprisonment of not more than five years.
- 18 U.S. Code § 241: Conspiracy against rights. Section 241 makes it unlawful for two or more persons to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in…the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” Violations are punishable by imprisonment for up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine.
- 18 U.S. Code § 242: Deprivation of rights under color of law. Section 242, enacted as a post–Civil War statute, makes it unlawful for anyone acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to willfully deprive a person of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. Violations are misdemeanors punishable by up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
- 18 U.S. Code § 1001: Statements or entries generally. In his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on May 15, Holder mentioned prosecutions for possible false statements. He was referring to Section 1001, which makes it a crime for anyone to make “any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” on any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branches. So for example, if an IRS agent who engaged in targeting made a false statement about it to his supervisor, to someone else at the IRS, or to the inspector general—or later makes a false statement to the FBI agents and federal prosecutors who will now be interviewing IRS employees—he or she could be found guilty of violating this law. Additionally, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified (but not under oath, so the perjury statute would not be applicable) in March 2012 before the House Appropriations Committee, where he supposedly denied that the IRS targeted conservative groups. If this was an intentional falsehood, he too could face criminal liability under this section. The potential penalty for violating this provision is five years’ imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
Granted, none of these implicate anyone in the White House -- yet. If they are implicated, there are other laws that come into play.
So. Was. Slavery. #tcot RT @whitehouse It's. The. Law. #ObamaCareInThreeWords, twitter.com/whitehouse/sta…
— Greg (@RhymesWithRight) May 16, 2013
There are plenty of people who are supporters of Harris County DA Mike Anderson. There are those still bitter about last year’s primary that don’t like him – and then there are Democrats who oppose him just because.
But hopefully we can all get together in offering best wishes on this news.
Mike Anderson, Harris County's District Attorney, informed his staff Thursday that he has been diagnosed with cancer."I have great doctors and am undergoing treatment. I fully intend to beat this," said a brief email sent Thursday and signed "Mike."
"Many people have asked how they can help me. I would ask that you keep me and my family in your prayers and continue to do the great work that you're doing to make this the best DA's office in these United States."
Politics is politics – but some matters need to rise above politics. This is one.
Science explains that there really is a connection between weakness and liberalism.
Men who are physically strong are more likely to take a right wing political stance, while weaker men are inclined to support the welfare state, according to a new study.Researchers discovered political motivations may have evolutionary links to physical strength.
Men's upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution, according to the research.
Of course, correlation and causation are two different things…
The president can hardly go a day without impugning the motivations of his opponents. They never have honest differences with the president. Instead they are suffering from an illness (“fever”), cowardice (afraid of what Rush Limbaugh might say about them), and lack of patriotism (caring about elections rather than future generations). Mr. Obama is the ultimate ad hominem president.
And we folks here in Texas are not nearly so likely to cut a plea deal to spare this butcher the death penalty.
Harris County authorities and the Texas Department of State Health Services are investigating a local doctor accused Wednesday by an anti-abortion group of performing late-term abortions in 2011."We have several people looking into the allegations," said Sara Marie Kinney, a spokeswoman for the Harris County District Attorney's Office.
In an email, DSHS spokeswoman Carrie Williams said the agency, which monitors abortion facilities across the state, is "aware of the allegations, and we are investigating."
"This is a very high priority for us," she added.
Here are some of the pictures.
The Chronicle won't disclose Karpen's troubled medical past -- but this article does.
I wondered if the Holocaust collaborator’s fingerprints would be found on this scandal.
As IRS efforts targeting politically-conservative groups gained momentum, George Soros-funded liberal groups repeatedly called on the IRS to investigate conservative nonprofit organizations.* * * Several Soros-funded groups including the Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, the Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones and Alternet have worked to pressure the IRS to target conservative nonprofit groups. The subsequent IRS investigation flagged more than 100 tea party-related applications for higher scrutiny, including applications that included the words "Tea Party" and "patriot."
The IRS scandal can be traced back to a series of letters that the liberal groups Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Democracy 21 sent to the IRS back in 2010 and 2011. Both groups were funded by George's Soros's Open Society Foundations. The CLC received $677,000 and Democracy 21 got $365,000 from the Soros-backed foundation, according to the Foundation's 990 tax forms.
These groups have all echoed the refrain that conservative political groups and their First Amendment protected speech are a threat to our free society. Seems to me that it is Soros and his web of left-wing groups intent upon suppressing political speech they oppose that is the real problem in that regard.
He’s right – absolutely right – on this one. Glad to see him showing a little testicular fortitude.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Wednesday that he wants to see the IRS employees responsible for targeting conservative groups behind bars.“My question isn’t about who’s going to resign, my question is, who’s going to jail over this scandal?” Boehner said at a Capitol press conference, as Republicans seized on the tax agency’s admission that it inappropriately singled out Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status for higher scrutiny.
There are folks who need to go to jail for the violations – and others for the perjury in their congressional testimony.
Well, hate isn’t the right word. Oppose would be more accurate -- but the Progracist Left equates opposition to Obama with hatred and racism, so does it really make a difference what word I use?.
Appearing on Tuesday night’s episode of “The O’Reilly Factor,” author and sports journalist Bernie Goldberg agreed with host Bill O’Reilly on a critique of some Republican opinion-makers in the media, saying he felt like President Barack Obama could cure cancer and they would still hate him.
Of course, I would say the same thing about Osama bin Laden, Chairman Mao, Stalin or Hitler – I’d still object to them and what they stand for even if they also were responsible for some great medical breakthrough. After all, Al Gore invented the Internet and I still opposed him.
I’m with the folks from Slate – this is an outrage.
The proposal, which the Raleigh News & Observer reports was unanimously approved by the state’s Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday, would apply to all car manufacturers, but the intended target is clear. It’s aimed at Tesla, the only U.S. automaker whose business model relies on selling cars directly to consumers, rather than through a network of third-party dealerships.The bill is being pushed by the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association, a trade group representing the state’s franchised dealerships. Its sponsor is state Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Republican from Henderson, who has said the goal is to prevent unfair competition between manufacturers and dealers. What makes it “unfair competition” as opposed to plain-old “competition”—something Republicans are typically inclined to favor—is not entirely clear. After all, North Carolina doesn’t seem to have a problem with Apple selling its computers online or via its own Apple Stores.
What is unfair about selling your product yourself without establishing a distribution chain of brick-and-mortar middlemen? Why is it only unfair for automobile manufacturers?
The attackers kicked in the front door to the southwest Houston home, roughed up the resident, then placed him in an upstairs closet.But that holding place was where the resident kept his gun.
He would soon use it on one of the intruders, exchanging gunfire and sending the man to the hospital Tuesday afternoon, Houston police said.
The resident told police he was upstairs at the home in the 8200 block of Braeburn Valley Drive, south of Houston Baptist University, when three men kicked in the front door about 2 p.m. Tuesday.
The intruders attacked him and placed him in a closet, so they could ransack the home, said Sgt. Jerri Brandon with the Houston Police Department.
When he thought the intruders were gone, the man left the closet, armed with a gun that he kept there, he told police.
Downstairs, he encountered one of the men and the two exchanged gunfire, police said.
The resident, who lives at the home with his parents, was not injured.
That’s an occupational hazard for criminals here in Texas.
As it should be everywhere.
Amid an unprecedented effort by the Obama administration to crack down on leaks of classified information, Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday said he was unsure how many times he'd signed off on subpoenas to seize reporter records.
"I'm not sure how many of those cases that I have actually signed off on," Holder told NPR's Carrie Johnson. "I take them very seriously. I know that I have refused to sign a few, pushed a few back for modifications."
The comments from Holder are bound to stir up additional criticism of the Obama administration's approach to First Amendment protections for reporters. The president and his staff are already under intense scrutiny over the Department of Justice's decision to subpoena the phone records for more than 100 journalists at the Associated Press. That Holder could not recall how many times he has done something similar in the past will only fan those flames.
Now I’m not going to flat-out condemn seeking such records. Unauthorized receipt of such classified records can be a crime, and leaking them surely is. I argued the Bush years, and I’ll argue now, that it is proper to investigate such leaks and even to prosecute journalists who receive such records in some instances, because there is no right to receive stolen documents any more than there is a right to receive a stolen car.
But it appears that the first move by the Obama/Holder Justice Department is to grab records of a large number of phone lines rather than to engage in more narrow and nuanced requests for information. Did the Department of Justice need to get the phone records of 100 journalists – 20 separate phone lines including switchboard lines – in order to conduct the AP investigation? Do these uncounted other investigations show a similar pattern of casting a wide net? If so, there is a serious problem in the Justice Department.
![bostonherald[1].png](http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/bostonherald[1].png)
An interesting observation at PrairiePundit.
I think the IRS attacks on the Tea Party groups was part of a coordinated effort to suppress the white vote in 2012. The IRS ate up funding for voter outreach efforts and voter registration drives. It shutdown the efforts of the groups who tried to answer all the intrusive questions and many just gave up. What we are finding out is how Obama was using the resources of the government to suppress the vote.Obama was also getting help with the project from Senate Democrats who were also pushing the IRS to go after the Tea Party groups.
So, when will we be hearing from that pompous windbag Joe Biden and all the liberals complaining about disenfranchisement when government ID is required to vote come out and condemn the IRS for acting to keep folks from getting out the vote?
I've made no secret of the fact that my wife has health problems that leave her physically handicapped. Over the last few years we have reluctantly come to accept that certain accommodations are necessary for her to continue to participate fully in activities she and I enjoy -- a handicapped parking permit, wheelchair accessible seating, and use of handicapped washrooms being among them. We make every effort not to abuse the accommodations.
Unfortunately, it appears that others are not so scrupulous.
Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World — by hiring disabled people to pose as family members so they and their kids can jump to the front, The Post has learned.The “black-market Disney guides” run $130 an hour, or $1,040 for an eight-hour day.
“My daughter waited one minute to get on ‘It’s a Small World’ — the other kids had to wait 2 1/2 hours,” crowed one mom, who hired a disabled guide through Dream Tours Florida.
I won't get into the scummy example these parents are setting for their over-privileged youngsters. That should be self-evident. No, my gripe is with those disabled individuals who go along with this scam. Every one of you who sell your services -- and with those services your accommodations -- harms every single other individual who needs those accommodations. Be ashamed! Be very ashamed!
That is all I can say about the IRS at this time.
It began with the little trickle of disclosure on Friday. It continues to grow.
There’s the unauthorized release of confidential documents for political purposes.
The division of the Internal Revenue Service that improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative groups sent confidential information on 31 conservative groups to the well-funded liberal nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica, according to a revelation made by ProPublica Monday.“The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year,” according to the ProPublica report.
“In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved — meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.),” according to ProPublica.
We also have accusations of the IRS targeting a journalist after he dared to ask tough questions of the president in an interview
Larry Connors, a veteran local news anchor at KMOV Channel 4 in St. Louis, says that the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting him since an April 2012 interview he conducted with President Obama -- a fact that he dismissed as coincidence until the recent reports about the IRS targeting conservative groups."Shortly after I did my April 2012 interview with President Obama, my wife, friends and some viewers suggested that I might need to watch out for the IRS. I don't accept 'conspiracy theories', but I do know that almost immediately after the interview, the IRS started hammering me," Connors wrote on his Facebook page late Monday night.
We also now find out that one of the major players in the scandal has a history of going after critics of Democrat presidents.
Steven T. Miller, the acting IRS commissioner who managed the division that has admitted targeting anti-Obama Tea Party groups, was one of several agents who investigated anti-Clinton organizations including Judicial Watch during that Democrat's administration, according to court documents and interviews.Miller, who headed the IRS Services and Enforcement Division from 2009 until the end of last year, is named in court documents as part of a trio of Internal Revenue Service officials who allegedly characterized the 1998-2001 investigation of Judicial Watch as politically motivated.
According to court papers, one agent in the case reportedly told the legal watchdog group, "What do you expect when you sue the president?" Miller reportedly added that the Judicial Watch audit, coming after the group sent the White House a lengthy Freedom of Information Act request, "had created at least the appearance of a problem."
And then there is the “minor detail” that it was not just one rogue office targeting conservative groups – it was several, including the office right in Washington, DC.
Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea-party-affiliated groups, the documents show.
So what we have here is not an isolated office – we have a pattern of conduct that spans two states and the District of Columbia! The same sorts of inquiries are being made of the same sorts of groups – it cannot be coincidence. And add to that the fact that senior management found out about the issue much earlier than previously disclosed and you have the makings of a serious scandal.
The timeline of events makes it clear that there is still much we have not been told and that there has been a pattern of deceit by the IRS regarding these matters. Indeed, the timeline shows that evidence was intentionally withheld from Congress by those who knew about the targeting of these groups. After all, the first hints of a problem emerged in 2010, and upper level officials knew by the spring of 2012. Why is it that they did not disclose this matter to Congress in the summer of 2012 when there were questions asked about it? Why did they hide the information until after the 2012 presidential election? I think the answers are obvious.
And they are still hiding from the truth. Consider the fact that the IRS will not say whether it will comply with Congressional requests for documents related to this scandal. The agency should be complying immediately, not stonewalling. But then again, they’ve been stonewalling on this issue for three years – why should they change now.
But more disturbing is what we know from the White House. The White House counsel’s office knew about this matter last month, but the President claims not to have known until it hit the press last Friday. I’ve been asking if he is so disengaged (and therefore incompetent), but others look at it and find the denial unconvincing and instead conclude that Barack Obama is part of this corrupt cover-up. I think time will tell on this one – and I don’t discount the possibility (probability?) that Obama is corrupt.
The reality, though, is that this one may be too big for Congress to investigate alone. We're dealing with federal crimes having been committed here -- at least by low-level employees and quite possibly by higher-ups -- to advance the agenda of the President of the United States and cripple his critics. As a result, the Justice Department cannot ethically be involved in the investigation or prosecution of any case arising from this matter -- not that Eric Holder is smart enough or ethical enough to recognize that fact. I therefore support the call by Gov. Bobby Jindal and Gov. Scott Walker for a special prosecutor to investigate the matter wholly independent of corrupt administration under which and on behalf of which it occurred,.
You may be aware of the yaz recall. What you may not be aware of are the yaz side effects. Please click the link to learn more if you or a loved one took Yaz or Yasmin.
The White House has known about the IRS scandal since April -- but it was only last Friday that President Obama found out about it, from the press.
The White House counsel’s office was informed in April of an inspector general’s review of the Internal Revenue Service, press secretary Jay Carney said Monday.
Carney told reporters that the counsel’s office was told of the examination into the targeting of conservative groups during the week of April 22, but not given details about the review’s findings. President Obama, Carney said, was not told about the review and learned of it only after news reports emerged Friday, just what Obama said earlier Monday.
Even if there were not details, one would have thought that the president would be informed of such a politically sensitive matter, one which certainly makes it look like his administration has been targeting his political opponents. That he was not informed ought to raise the question of who is in charge at the White House and why Obama is being left out of the loop on sensitive matters -- first Fast & Furious, then Benghazi, now the IRS scandal. It is, after all, part of a pattern.
Wow! If you are redoing your home, one of the things you need to do is look at these great bathroom vanities. They will certainly add to the beauty of your home.
Soledad O'Brien, formerly a hack reporter at CNN, had this to day.
“First of all it’s only white people who ever said that–if we could just see beyond race. If only people didn’t see race, it would be such a better place and you are responsible for bringing up these icky race issues Solidad, you should just let sleeping dogs lie.”O’Brien added: “I was like, again, OK white person, this is a conversation you clearly are uncomfortable with and I have no problem seeing race and I think we should talk about race.”
Contrast this with the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Apparently the problem is that white people have internalized Dr. King's Dream, while folks like O'Brien have rejected it. Just consider the obvious contempt that drips from her use of the term "white person" as a pejorative.
But why are we surprised by this? After all, the top African-American in US Government, Barack Obama, has shown similar contempt for white people in his public remarks on race.
And Martin wept.
Looking for low cost used cars for sale in NY? Well, you can find them with RCO Auto Sales -- they have quality used cars for you at only a fraction of their original cost. So if you happen to be in that neck of the woods and looking for used cars Staten Island or in any of the other boroughs, you should really take a good look at what they have to offer.
Here are this week’s full results,
See you next week!
Let's have Joe Biden tell us how important this is.
That's right -- this really is a "big effing deal". The American people were lied to yesterday about when IRS officials knew about illegal activity with regards to tax exempt status for Tea Party and other conservative groups!
Senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general's report obtained by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner.The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.
But on June 29, 2011, Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog's report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with "Tea Party," ''Patriot" or "9/12 Project" in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says.
The criteria for flagging groups got changed in January 2012 to target "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement".
Wow! Educating Americans about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was made a criteria for harassment and punitive treatment by the government? That's just outrageous -- the Constitutiona and Bill of Rights are the birthright of every American and every American should be educated about them.
And more outrageous is that the head of the IRS then denied this sort of targeting was going on in March of 2012. That, my friends, is perjury.
And as Legal Insurrection notes, part of a larger pattern of Obama Administration officials targeting conservatives.
No wonder the IRS has made this decision.
IRS on conf call saying no disciplinary action against employees who targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny.
— Karen Tumulty(@ktumulty) May 10, 2013
Which goes back to the acknowledgement of IRS wrongdoing on a Friday. The goal was obviously to bury the story and make sure that information like this, if reported, got the most limited audience possible. They needed to do so because the results of an internal investigation on the matter are set to come out in the coming week. So much for the most open and transparent administration in American history!
By the way -- such use of the IRS during the Nixon years was the basis for one of the articles of impeachment prepared against him.
So that Joe Biden quote is truly correct on this matter.
I'm going to probably offend some people here by saying I like the fact that Boston Marathon Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried, and disagree with those who tied to prevent his burial and those who want his body moved.
As local Muslim groups fume over the burial of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev at a cemetery in central Virginia, authorities in the state say they were never consulted about it and are questioning whether any laws were broken that might allow them to 'undo' the burial.‘First of all the county was not one, consulted on this particular issue. The county was not aware of this coming forward, and most importantly, the county did not provide any permission for this to happen,’ Floyd Thomas, Board of Supervisors Chairman, told MyFoxBoston.
He said Caroline County officials are looking into whether or not the burial at Doswell cemetery was legal and added that if it was, there is not much that the county can do now.
Yes, I've made my share of comments about finding a pig farmer who would have allowed the body to be placed under his pigsty. But the reality is that we allow even the most despicable individuals to have a last resting place in this country, and if Tsarnaev's wife wants him buried here then there is no legitimate reason to prevent it. After all, we allowed this burial of a presidential assassin.
![781_132829300087[3].jpg](http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/781_132829300087[3].jpg)
If we can allow the family of a presidential assassin to bury his body, then surely we can do the same with Tamerlan Tsarnaev. May his corpse rot undisturbed while his soul suffers eternal torment for his evil deeds.
And since the Second Amendment enshrines a civil right, gun control is messing with civil rights.
Colorado Democratic lawmakers who recently helped pass some of the toughest gun-control laws in the country now face the political backlash of recall efforts.Two groups are targeting state Rep. Mike McLachlan and state Sens. Angela Giron, Evie Hudak and John Morse.
The Democrat-controlled legislature passed bills that ban magazines holding more than 15 rounds and require background checks for all gun transfers. They were signed into law in March by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.
One of those facing recall is the despicable creature who dared to attack a rape victim for saying she believed that she could have prevented her sexual assault if she had been permitted to have the means to shoot her rapist.
Just a reminder that Progressiveness has always been a racist ideology and that it remains so today.
>What are “progracists”?Progracists are people who continually classify individuals by “race” and yet can’t see how that is racist.
Progracists hate Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of an America in which people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” because progressive policies are based on race consciousness, ethnic division, and identity politics.
* * * Progracists always accuse everyone else of racism to deflect attention from their own racist policies and beliefs.
I've noted this truth many times here on my blog -- but I love the neologism to define the so-called "progressives" as what they really are.
Early in his administration, Barack Obama made a not-too-veiled threat to abuse the IRS. Now it appears that the threat was carried out last year just as the Obama Campaign faced serious heat from his opponents.
The IRS apologized Friday for flagging Tea Party groups for a higher level of scrutiny than other organizations during the 2012 election.Lois Lerner, the director of the agency’s section that oversees tax-exempt organizations, said that career employees at an Ohio office had plucked out groups with “patriot” or “Tea Party” for additional reviews — a decision she termed an “error in judgment.”
Those employees, Lerner told reporters on Friday, were “less sensitive than they should have been about the impact this might have.”
“We made some mistakes,” Lerner said. “For that, we apologize.”
Interestingly enough, the White House refuses to tell the American people when it first became aware of this abuse of power, despite the fact that conservatives complained of it in the spring of 2012 and even provided documentation of the outrageous and illegal demands being made by the tax agency -- and while the MSM applauded the effort. Also, why is it there has been no discipline -- no terminations -- of the guilty parties? Why have there not been indictments and prosecutions for what is clearly illegal activity -- and civil rights violations -- by these IRS employees?
Senate Republicans want an investigation of this outrage and House Republicans promise one after having been "misled" (lied to) last year when they looked into the matter. Even Obama supporters, allies, and ex-employees are chiming in for an investigation. And over at Legal Insurrection, we are reminded that the IRS is to be the muscle that will enforce ObamaCare's insurance provisions -- just imagine what they will be able to do once they expand their scope into every aspect of our medical records!
People need to go to jail for a very long time over this one. And who knows -- we may even find that this matter, not Fast & Furious, Benghazi, and the many other failures and atrocities of this administration may be the thing that compromises the Democrats and brings down Obama. After all, I'm old enough to remember a much more popular president going down very quickly over a third-rate second-story job.
Others writing include Sister Toldjah, NewsBusters, RWN, GayPatriot, Malkin, Hot Air, RedState
For all the Left is trying to claim that the testimony from yesterday's Benghazi hearings has been "distorted" and shift blame elsewhere, it is quite clear that the Obama Administration spun, distorted, and lied about the tragic events in Libya last September.
Three State Department officials on Wednesday provided a riveting, emotional account of last year’s fatal attack on U.S. installations in eastern Libya as they accused senior government officials of withholding embarrassing facts and failing to take enough responsibility for security lapses.* * * But in expanding the narrative of the intensely politicized episode, the witnesses raised fresh questions about whether then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her deputies were sufficiently engaged in assessing the security posture of diplomatic posts last year.
Speaking before the panel, they also reiterated criticism of the administration’s initial reluctance to describe the attacks as premeditated terrorist acts. The Libyan government had labeled the attacks a terrorist assault, and the absence of similar descriptions from the United States made it more difficult for Libyan officials to assist the FBI’s investigation of the incident, according to the former deputy chief of the U.S. mission in Libya.
“It negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi,” Foreign Service officer Gregory Hicks said. President Mohamed Yusuf al-Magariaf was “insulted in front of his own people. His credibility was reduced. His ability to lead his country was damaged,” Hicks said.
Not only that, the Obama Administration made a scapegoat of a guy who posted a video on YouTube even though they knew within hours that this was a pre-planned terrorist attack. And while I'll concede that the guy was guilty of misconduct that objectively should have gotten his probation revoked (he violated the terms of his probation), the fact that he was looked at only because the Obama Administration took umbrage at his speech means that his current imprisonment happened because of speech that he objectively had a First Amendment right to engage in.
Is this likely to lead to impeachment? I don't know, especially with a Democrat Senate. There would need to be a much more obvious "smoking gun" to get there, and I don't even know that it would be a desirable outcome. I don't even know that this derails a Hillary Clinton bid for the White House in 2016, though in a saner world it ought to. What matters, in my opinion, is that this opens up the door to more information -- more facts -- to become public about the events in Benghazi last fall, and why Americans died while our leaders did little or nothing.
![941103_10151501014427740_254787004_n[1].png](http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/941103_10151501014427740_254787004_n[1].png)
I'll take the advice of the Founding Fathers over the advice you gave the graduates at Ohio State, Mr. President.
Thomas Jefferson had this to say about government and tyranny.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Benjamin Franklin agreed.
Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.
Those who did so much to ensure our liberties warned us to be on the lookout for tyranny and to be prepared to fight it, It seems to me that those who warn us to ignore such warnings are seeking to erode those liberties.
And when the speaker is the Senate Majority Leader.
The two senators bickered as Cruz rose to object to Reid’s motion to appoint conferees to a House-Senate budget committee. …He said Cruz’s request to eliminate all taxes in a final House-Senate budget was absurd.
“The senator from Texas was on the losing side…now he wants us to adopt the losing side’s view or we cannot go to conference,” Reid said.
“My friend from Texas is like a schoolyard bully,” Reid added.
“He pushes everybody around and is losing and instead of playing the game according to the rules, he not only takes the ball home with him, but he changes the rules that way no one wins except the bully who tries to indicate to people that he has won.”
Cruz, a Tea Party darling whose rhetoric has sometimes raised eyebrows among Republicans, shot back that “I wasn’t aware we are in the schoolyard.”
Reid cut him off saying “enough.”
Interestingly enough, Reid was not ruled out of order for violating the Senate's Rule XIX, specifically the part reading as follows.
2. No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.
Apparently there was nobody honest enough to call Reid on this violation -- which is why he felt it acceptable to again attack and demean Senator Cruz today.
But you know what? I'm proud my Senator is under attack from the unprincipled and unethical leader of the Senate Democrats. After all, it is proof that Ted Cruz frightens the Democrats so that they will go to any length -- including violating the Senate Rules -- to tear him down.
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