Saturday, May 18, 2013
Pakistani doctor who helped get Bin Laden was denied asylum in U.S.
But the Tsarnaev brothers were A-OK. "Pakistani doctor who helped get Bin Laden was denied asylum in U.S., report reveals," by Sib Kaifee for FoxNews.com, May 17:
Labels: jihad, Law, Obama, Pakistan
Richard Fernandez: The Poisoned Chalice
What do you do when a man lies to your face, daring you to call him a liar. It's a question that Conservatives are going to have to face. Fernandez:
Like a man in a saloon card game who’s caught someone cheating at cards either they call him out and take what comes or pretend the game is still honest. It’s either ignore the cheating or get ready to clear leather.
We may be faced with the possibility that Team Obama feels it no longer has to dissemble.
What the scandals have done to Washington is taken the former process of horse-trading perilously close to a zero-sum game. Each new revelation bolsters the belief that the administration has already done precisely what the Republicans don’t want to do: gone for for big brass ring. Gone for world domination. There are a lot of suggestive indicators. They’ve politicized the IRS, Treasury, Justice — maybe even the defense department. Maybe they’ve already opted for the zero sum game — with themselves as the winners.The sheer apocalyptic implication of that possibility gives stories which offer an excuse for inaction a curious attractiveness: “We made mistakes, but without malice”. How one hopes that’s true. These stories allow everyone to hope, permit everyone to delay the irreparable breach. It permits one to plausibly think it is all a misunderstanding, like the man finding someone in bed with his wife or discovering a murder in progress. Because if it is real then all ways run ill.
If the scandals, and make no mistake these are serious scandals, can be placed at Obama's door we may actually be better off than if there is another explanation: that the Federal bureaucracy itself is under the control of rogue political operatives. James Taranto says it well in the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web:
Suppose the IRS's abuses were not ordered or explicitly encouraged by the White House. That would mean, as Commentary's Jonathan Tobin puts it, that the agency "has so thoroughly absorbed the views of its political masters that it doesn't even recognize when it has crossed the line into illegal activity."In other words, if this is the case, the left's hateful and slanderous campaign against its political foes, especially the Tea Party--the demagoguery of Obama, his fellow Democrats and their supporters in the media, led by the New York Times editorial page--was sufficient to prompt the IRS agents to cast aside their professional obligations and embark on a campaign of political abuse whose effect was to ease Obama's re-election.In his testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee--whose hearings opened 40 years ago today--John Dean famously called that scandal "a cancer on the presidency." If Obama, his campaign or his White House aides are directly implicated in the IRS's abuses, this will be another cancer on the presidency, remediable by resignation or impeachment.But if the IRS acted without direction from above--if it "went rogue" against the Constitution and in support of the party in power--then we are dealing with a cancer on the federal government. That, it seems to us, is a far direr diagnosis, one whose treatment is likely to be radical and risky.
I am not naturally a pessimist, but for the first time I am beginning to wonder if this government is out of control and if anything can be done about it. Seerious poeple are asking this question in a serious vein.
Labels: culture of corruption, Fascism, government control, Obama, Scandals
On a positive note ...
On a more positive note, no one wants to talk about whatever it is that the president wants them to talk about. Things have gotten so bad that even The New York Times reports that “Onset of Woes Casts Pall Over Obama’s Policy Aspirations.” The Gray Lady seems to regard this as an unfortunate development, but it might be best that can be said of a bad situation.
IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office
The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.
Labels: corruption, IRS, Obama, Tea Party
Patterico: Compare and contrast.
Obama:
Bush:
UPDATE: DRJ in comments reminds us of the moment Obama may have decided he had held his last umbrella on his own.
Bush:
UPDATE: DRJ in comments reminds us of the moment Obama may have decided he had held his last umbrella on his own.
IRS asking about content of your prayers.
And the man who is still the IRS Commissioner doesn't know if that question is appropriate.
They told me if I voted for Romney there would be religious opression, and they were right!
They told me if I voted for Romney there would be religious opression, and they were right!
Labels: culture of corruption, IRS, Religion, Scandals
Don't tell me Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a Muslim!? It doesn't fit the narrative.
Howie Carr via Glenn Reynolds:
And here I was under the impression he was just a typical Americanized teen.
Do you how much media effort has been devoted to unearthing what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev apparently thought was his last will and testament? But somehow, the cops held it tight until yesterday. . . . No big surprises in the note in the boat. The Joker said his brother Speedbump was a “martyr in paradise,” and that the victims in Boston were “collateral damage” for Muslim civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. He praised Allah and said, “When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims.” Tell that to the Syrians, EBT boy.The big question is, Why the monthlong blackout on the note in the boat? Why didn’t the feds release it immediately?And the answer is obvious. It didn’t fit the Politically Correct narrative, that the reasons for this shocking atrocity remained a mystery, a riddle, an enigma, wink wink nudge nudge.
And here I was under the impression he was just a typical Americanized teen.
Labels: Boston Marathon bombing, Islamofascism, jihad
IRA Scandal Grows
'Twisted heads off fetus' necks with bare hands'...
Another abortion 'house of horrors' in TX?
Doctor accused of illegal late-term procedures...
'Twisted heads off fetus' necks with bare hands'...
DRUDGE on IRS Scandal
IRS HID PROBE UNTIL AFTER ELECTION...
Agency stalled conservative groups, but gave speedy approval to Obama foundation...
Used 'planted' question to reveal scandal...
'Absolutely Not Illegal'...
'IS THIS STILL AMERICA?'
Congressman Receives Standing Ovation After He Rips IRS Commissioner...
<! MAIN HEADLINE>IRS ASKED GROUP ABOUT 'CONTENT OF THEIR PRAYERS'
Agency stalled conservative groups, but gave speedy approval to Obama foundation...
Used 'planted' question to reveal scandal...
'Absolutely Not Illegal'...
'IS THIS STILL AMERICA?'
Congressman Receives Standing Ovation After He Rips IRS Commissioner...
<! MAIN HEADLINE>IRS ASKED GROUP ABOUT 'CONTENT OF THEIR PRAYERS'
Labels: Drudge, Obama, Scandals
Four Pinocchios: A Cute Way of Saying Obama Lied
Austin Bay :
Read more:
In a column published on Sept. 18, 2012, I argued that verified tactical military details of the engagement, the iconic date itself, and subsequent, very explicit statements by Libyan government authorities, left no doubt that on 9-11-2012 the U.S. consulate in Benghazi suffered a planned attack by an organized anti-American militant Islamist militia. A terrorist force had hit us with another 9-11 terror attack, and Americans had died, among them our ambassador to Libya.
Given the facts, the Obama administration's bizarre claim that a sacrilegious Internet video had inflamed peaceful Libyan demonstrators -- and in an outburst spurred by overwhelming theological pain, this moody crowd murdered our unfortunate ambassador -- just didn't wash.As for passing major media smell tests before the 2012 presidential election? Of course the blarney passed 'em! But eight months after the attack and six months after the election, even President Barack Obama's chief media enablers have begun to acknowledge the video-did-it propaganda tizzy the administration orchestrated was stench itself.And orchestrated propaganda it was, with the video-did-it narrative hedged by presidential statements calculated to slyly finesse terrorist complicity in the attack.Glenn Kessler, who writes the Washington Post's fact-checker column, now informs his readers that the president's claim he called the Benghazi attack an "attack of terrorism" rates four Pinocchios. That's Kessler's cute way of calling our president a complete and thorough liar.
Read more:
Labels: Libya, Lies, Obama, The Press
Friday, May 17, 2013
Can the Press Redeem Itself?
Question: Can the Press Redeem Itself?
Answer: Maybe, but we doubt it.
Thomas Lifson has an intriguing article in the American Thinker in which he gives his thoughts about the reason the MSM became Obama’s biggest fan and major supporter. Obama was their picture of perfection, the one they had been dreaming about. He thrilled their legs and they were going to do everything they could to smooth his path so that he could fulfill their fantasies.
With his Ivy League pedigree and ability to deliver a speech, Obama charmed the liberal media folk into believing that he was the one they had been waiting for, an inspiring black man on a white horse who could heal our lingering racial wounds, if only given the chance. They hoped he could change an America their progressive belief system held to be flawed by racism, history, and greedy businessmen, and by helping him do so, they too could nudge history along in a positive direction. Perhaps in their own minds making up for whatever personal flaws or unfair advantages they might have possessed along their way to the top of the media food chain. Everyone wants to believe he or she is a good person, doing good things in the overall scheme of things, after all.
So they invested themselves in making the dream come true, attaching their self-concept to his cause. This is why information that was dissonant tended to evoke a rather widespread hostile reaction. Only racists and birthers could doubt any of the official Obama narrative. The Tea Party became an object of hatred, slander, and even physical attacks when it first appeared and threatened the Great Obama Project. When the tea partiers inflicted a serious blow to the political standing of Obama and the Democrats in the 2010 election, taking over the House, they became an obstacle to be removed.
A few days ago they were shocked. They were perfectly willing to give him cover for abandoning the brave men who died in Benghazi. Candy Crowley went so far as to interject herself into a Presidential debate to come to the aid of her hero. The four dead Americans were collateral damage as the press protected their man. Their hatred of the Tea Party made them complicit with the Administration when various local Tea Party groups complained about outrageous demands made by the IRS. In fact, they probably thought it was a fine idea to use the IRS to harass the evil, racist, fascist “Teabaggers” as they called them. After all, remember that mobster Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion.
But then came the revelation that the government had seized the AP’s phone records. Wait; how could their Godlike “Big O” come after them? They were allies; compatriots in changing America to their vision of the anointed. Suddenly they were on the receiving end of Team Obama’s disdain for the law. That was too much. Jay Carney was being asked questions about his previous lies; lies that even the most gullible White House reporters had known were lies but which they transcribed and peddled to gullible low-information voters.
How will we know if the MSM has actually changed from Obama lovers to seekers of the truth?
We’ll know they still love him if they go the way of Dana Milbank who excuses him by telling us that he’s just detached; nobody tells “President Passerby” anything. In this version of the narrative, none of what happened happened because he wanted it. Like Sergeant Schultz, Obama exclaims “I see nothing, I know nothing.”
If they have actually seen the light, they will begin looking at
... all aspects of DOJ's activities, including Fast and Furious, the Minnesota scandal involving Tom Perez, Eric Holder's life history (including an armed take-over at Columbia during his college years), and everything else they can think of. That should even-up the scales the next time the DOJ or other government agencies think about overstepping their bounds.
And perhaps they can get a few reporters to do the same for Barack Hussein Obama, member of the Choom gang. Perhaps we can get to know him a little better based on his mother’s and grandparents’ radical past; just who he hung with in college and in Chicago. How close he actually was to Bill Ayers. Just why he admired Jeremiah Wright. His opposition to the born alive act in view of Kermit Gosnell’s conviction for murdering babies born alive. And all those votes of “present” in the Illinois legislature. There’s time for all that. After all, he’ll be in office for the next 3 ½ years.
Labels: cover-up, culture of corruption, Liberalism, media, Obama, Scandals, The Press
Thursday, May 16, 2013
The trouble with Dzhokhar
The Wall Street Journal reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was indistinguishable from any other young man in the Boston area.
After a month of intensive investigation, authorities, according to people involved in the case, have yet to find any actions by Mr. Tsarnaev before last month's attack that would have stood out as alarming—no frequent visits to jihadi websites, no violent rhetoric, no suspicious purchases.Friends described Dzhokhar as a jokey teenager who seemed to genuinely enjoy his life in America. At his college, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the worst that fellow students would say about him was that he was a lackluster student.Nabil Siddiqi, a recent UMass Dartmouth graduate who remains involved in the Muslim Student Association, recalled a time in January when Dzhokhar and several friends from Kazakhstan showed up at a weekly study circle, giggling and disturbing the discussion.His freshman-year roommate, Jason Rowe, said Dzhokhar wore jeans and hoodies, liked hip-hop music and late-night Taco Bell. He didn't talk much about his family and was excited when he became a U.S. citizen.Mr. Rowe saw no signs Dzhokhar held any extremist views. Mr. Rowe walked into the room once to find his roommate praying, but "other than that he didn't talk about religion." Added Mr. Rowe, 19: "He seemed very Americanized."
Dzhokhar was as American as any Occupy Wall Streeter.
The most disturbing thing about the facts brought out in this article is that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is perfectly normal for a young college student in the Boston Area. Authorities tell us that there’s nothing that would make him stand out. Perfectly willing to plant bombs and kill people if there are people around him who will take the initiative. Could it be that he’s a pretty good example of what the culture and educational system is producing? "He seemed very Americanized." That’s troubling.
Labels: Academia, Boston Marathon bombing, Culture, occupy wall street
Data Doesn't Support IRS Explanation for Scandal - Schumer implicated.
Well, they will try any lie they think will fly. Unless someone looks at the numbers they can get away with it.
Applications for tax exemption from advocacy nonprofits had not yet spiked when the Internal Revenue Service began using what it admits was inappropriate scrutiny of conservative groups in 2010.In fact, applications were declining, data show.
From the Chronicle of Philanthropy
Applications for tax exemption from advocacy nonprofits had not yet spiked when the Internal Revenue Service began using what it admits was inappropriate scrutiny of conservative groups in 2010.In fact, applications were declining, data show.Top IRS officials have been saying that a “significant increase” in applications from advocacy groups seeking tax-exempt status spurred its Cincinnati office in 2010 to filter those requests by using such politically loaded phrases as “Tea Party,” “patriots,” and “9/12.”Both Steven Miller, the agency’s acting commissioner until he stepped down Wednesday, and Lois Lerner, director of the agency’s exempt-organization division, have said over the past week that IRS officials started the scrutiny after observing a surge in applications for status as 501(c)(4) “social welfare” groups. Both officials cited an increase from about 1,500 applications in 2010 and to nearly 3,500 in 2012. President Obama ask Mr. Miller to resign on Wednesday.The scrutiny began, however, in March 2010, before an uptick could have been observed, according to data contained in the audit released Tuesday from the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.The number of 501(c)(4) applications for all of 2010 was actually less than in 2009.“It doesn’t bear out the statement that there was a surge in 2010,” said Bruce Hopkins, a tax attorney specializing in nonprofits. “That’s inconsistent with what Lois said last week.”'Inappropriate Criteria’The audit says the IRS began to use “inappropriate criteria” to single out applications in March 2010. By April 2010, a “sensitive case report” was issued on “Tea Party cases,” indicating that managers in Cincinnati were aware of the sensitive nature of the reviews.According to the audit, 1,735 groups applied for 501(c)(4) exemption for the federal fiscal year that ended September 30, 2010—six months after the IRS began its scrutiny. That was down slightly from 1,751 the prior year.The number grew to 2,265 during the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2011, and to 3,357 in 2012. By then the criteria the IRS was using to flag groups had changed three times to include searches for groups with names that contained “Bill of Rights,” “educating on the constitution,” and “limiting/expanding government.”Mr. Miller wrote in USA Today on Monday that the IRS began to centralize those applications in 2010 because the division that supervises tax-exempt organizations observed a sharp increase in the number of applications from groups “potentially engaged in political campaign intervention” that were seeking either 501(c)(4) status or designation as a 501(c)(3) charity. He then cites the increase between 2010 and 2012
It's now apparent that part of the pattern of illegal discrimination was caused by people like Senator Chuck Schumer demanding that the IRS stop giving tax exempt status to groups that he didn't like.
The letter, written by Joseph Grant, acting commissioner for tax-exempt and government entities at the IRS, said the agency’s review was also motivated by “numerous referrals from the public, media, watchdog groups, and members of Congress alleging that specific section-501(c)(4) organizations were engaged in political campaign activity to an impermissible extent.”Paul Streckfus, publisher of EO Tax Journal and a former IRS employee who reviewed tax-exemption applications, said he believes that pressure from those referrals caused the IRS to start using the criteria that have gotten it in trouble.
Labels: crime, Democrats, IRS, Scandals
Breaking: Holder Justice Department Also Tapped House of Representatives Cloak Room
From the Hugh Hewitt show.
HH: The idea that this might be a Geithner-Axelrod plan, and by that, the sort of intimation, Henry II style, will no one rid me of this turbulent priest, will no one rid me of these turbulent Tea Parties, that might have just been a hint, a shift of an eyebrow, a change in the tone of voice. That’s going to take a long time to get to. I don’t trust the Department of Justice on this. Do you, Congressman Nunes?DN: No, I absolutely do not, especially after this wiretapping incident, essentially, of the House of Representative. I don’t think people are focusing on the right thing when they talk about going after the AP reporters. The big problem that I see is that they actually tapped right where I’m sitting right now, the Cloak Room.HH: Wait a minute, this is news to me.DN: The Cloak Room in the House of Representatives.HH: I have no idea what you’re talking about.DN: So when they went after the AP reporters, right? Went after all of their phone records, they went after the phone records, including right up here in the House Gallery, right up from where I’m sitting right now. So you have a real separation of powers issue that did this really rise to the level that you would have to get phone records that would, that would most likely include members of Congress, because as you know…HH: Wow.
Labels: congress, Holder, Scandals, wiretaps
Boston Herald
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Senator Schumer Pressures IRS to give Tea Party groups greater scrutiny.
Among the Democrat Party partisans who urged the IRS to interfere even more strongly with Tea Party groups to get 501(c)4 status from the IRS was Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer. Not content with the already illegal obstacles the Obama IRS was putting in the way of grass roots groups to organize, Schumer contributed to the Liberal conspiracy to deny Conservatives and middle Americans the same right to organize as Democrat groups like Media Matters, which has a 501(c)3 status, making even contributions to this partisan group tax deductible.
Schumer is a hard-edged partisan, but this puts him in the category of accessory to a crime.
Labels: corruption, Democrats, IRS
IRS approved liberal groups while Tea Party in limbo
From USA Today
WASHINGTON -- In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked.That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn't be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months.In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows.As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like "Progress" or "Progressive," the liberal groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.
Labels: crime, culture of corruption, IRS, Obama, Scandals, Tea Party
Nobody tells Obama anything
I swear that if Secret Service shot John Boehner, Jay Carney would tell the press that Obama just found out about it by reading it in the papers.
On all three matters, the White House yesterday tried to deflect blame. The disputed Benghazi talking points, advisers said, were chiefly the CIA’s work, while the IRS scandal was an internal agency problem. Obama spokesman Jay Carney referred questions about the AP scandal to DOJ. Asked why Obama can’t just ask Holder, Carney said, “A great deal prevents the president from doing that. It would be wholly inappropriate for the president to involve himself in a criminal investigation that ... involves leaks of information from the administration.”
Obama is so detached from the government that it may no longer be fair to call this the Obama administration. Proving the Limbaugh Theorem: He's got nothing to do with whatever's happening.
Kathy Shaidle put it this way:
Some call it the “Limbaugh Theorem:” That Obama’s popularity lies in his remaining in campaign mode, instead of getting down to the business of governance.
The Obama approach to any problem, scandal or disaster that occurs on his watch is that he's against it. He's outside of Washington campaigning against whatever's wrong. He has nothing to do with being in charge of the executive branch of the Federal Government. The buck never stops with him.
- The Obama IRS decides to harass Obama's opposition? Obama's against it IF it happened.
- Susan Rice acting as the Obama administration spokesman tells everyone that the Benghazi attack was really a boisterous movie review that got a little out of hand? Obama claims he called it a terrorist attack ... before he blamed the movie.
- The Obama Justice Department seizes the phone records of the AP? Obama didn't know and can't call Holder about it because ...(Jay Carney explains)?
I wonder if Dana has his tax records handy?Late Monday came the breathtaking news of a full-frontal assault on the First Amendment by his administration: word that the Justice Department had gone on a fishing expedition through months of phone records of Associated Press reporters.And yet President Obama reacted much as he did to the equally astonishing revelation on Friday that the IRS had targeted conservative groups based on their ideology: He responded as though he were just some bloke on a bar stool, getting his information from the evening news.In the phone-snooping case, Obama didn’t even stir from his stool. Instead, he had his press secretary, former Time magazine journalist Jay Carney, go before an incensed press corps Tuesday afternoon and explain why the president will not be involving himself in his Justice Department’s trampling of press freedoms.“Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the Associated Press,” Carney announced.The president “found out about the news reports yesterday on the road,” he added.And now that Obama has learned about this extraordinary abuse of power, he’s not doing a thing about it. “We are not involved at the White House in any decisions made in connection with ongoing criminal investigations,” Carney argued.
Labels: Limbaugh, Obama, Scandals, The Press
Scandal Roundup
Here are the latest takes on the three Obamagate scandals:
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on the Associated Press phone records scandal: “The president is a strong defender of the First Amendment ... (and a) firm believer” in freedom of the press. On the IRS scandal: no comment.
Attorney General Eric Holder on the leak to the AP on a CIA operation targeting al-Qaeda: “It put the American people at risk.” Holder insists he recused himself from the leak investigation “to make sure (it) was seen as independent.”
CNN: “Poor management and lax oversight at the Internal Revenue Service allowed for the targeting of ‘Tea Party’ and related groups, resulting in lengthy delays in the processing of their applications for federal tax exempt status, according to a report from the agency’s inspector general.”
Washington Post: “(IRS) officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed.”
Breitbart.com: “The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica says the (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups.”
Washington Post’s Fact Checker: Obama’s claim that he called the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans an “act of terrorism” gets “four Pinocchios.”
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on the Associated Press phone records scandal: “The president is a strong defender of the First Amendment ... (and a) firm believer” in freedom of the press. On the IRS scandal: no comment.
Attorney General Eric Holder on the leak to the AP on a CIA operation targeting al-Qaeda: “It put the American people at risk.” Holder insists he recused himself from the leak investigation “to make sure (it) was seen as independent.”
CNN: “Poor management and lax oversight at the Internal Revenue Service allowed for the targeting of ‘Tea Party’ and related groups, resulting in lengthy delays in the processing of their applications for federal tax exempt status, according to a report from the agency’s inspector general.”
Washington Post: “(IRS) officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed.”
Breitbart.com: “The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica says the (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups.”
Washington Post’s Fact Checker: Obama’s claim that he called the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans an “act of terrorism” gets “four Pinocchios.”
IT’S PRESIDENT SCHULTZ AT THE BOSTON HERALD:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Team Obama Is Sentenced
Actual NYT headline: “IRS Focus on Conservatives Gives GOP an Issue to Seize On”
To follow up on the previous post, "There is something fundamentally, really, really wrong with our media"
You know this routine by now: If it’s a scandal involving Republicans, the story is the scandal. If it’s a scandal involving Democrats, the story — or at least a significant part of it — is whether and how Republicans will “politicize” the scandal for their advantage. (Aren’t Democrats interested in “seizing on” this malfeasance to root out IRS corruption too?) That LA Times headline that I screencapped last week is a textbook example of the genre: “Partisan politics dominates House Benghazi hearing,” as if the big takeaway from Greg Hicks’s testimony was nothing-to-see-here politics-as-usual squabbling between Republicans and Democrats.
Labels: culture of corruption, IRS, TimesLies
"There is something fundamentally, really, really wrong with our media"
Monday, May 13, 2013
Personnel is policy
The people you appoint are apt to give you the policies you want. Put Kermit Gosnell in charge of delivering babies and you can be sure that no baby survives the experience. Barack Obama has been in office long enough to seed his acolytes throughout the federal government. Removing 9/11 Truther and avowed communist Van Jones was a speed bump on the path to an Obama bureaucracy. How else to explain all those “low level” IRS personnel deciding that Conservative public interest groups were not entitled to the same tax exempt status as Obama’s election campaign Organizing for Action?
There really is no reason for Obama to give marching orders to the people he has appointed or to his ideological supporters at the NY Times, they are in perfect harmony. If you want to know where they can recruit the people to give members of the Tea Party or supporters of Israel a hard time, all you need to do is go through the rolls of the Times subscribers. There you will find hundreds of people who strongly agree that the IRS should single out Tea party members, prominent conservatives, right-wing media figures and even Clarence Thomas for "special treatment." People who share these beliefs are not just found on the NY Times subscriber list but are occupy most of the seats in the faculty lounge.
Leaders understand that it's not possible to give direct orders to every minion in their organization. Their job is to set the tone and the direction and appoint people who are committed to their objectives. Remember that Nixon didn't order the break-in at Watergate. He set the paranoid tone and people farther down decided that bugging the DNC was a good idea. Obama, despite his "joking" protestations is a committed socialist, a believer in the supremacy of the State, and the people he has appointed, like Van Jones, are simply clones of his ideology. It would not be necessary for Obama to tell them to harass Tea Party or patriot groups; it's part of their purpose in life. Obama's acolytes view them as the enemy, not as a legitimate political organization. They are to be silenced, marginalized and erased using all the powers that a government agent has to accomplish that.
I think it would be a mistake for the people investigating the IRS scandal and the Benghazi scandal, even Fast & Furious, to try to find a direct order from Obama. Obama appointed people who knew what he wanted and what needed to be done. Barack's not a "detail" person, he doesn't need to be. His people know what he wants.
One person who knows exactly what Barack Obama wants is Eric Holder. He is the top law enforcement official in this country. He has Obama’s back; as long as Holder is in office no one in government will be prosecuted for doing what Obama wants done.
Leaders understand that it's not possible to give direct orders to every minion in their organization. Their job is to set the tone and the direction and appoint people who are committed to their objectives. Remember that Nixon didn't order the break-in at Watergate. He set the paranoid tone and people farther down decided that bugging the DNC was a good idea. Obama, despite his "joking" protestations is a committed socialist, a believer in the supremacy of the State, and the people he has appointed, like Van Jones, are simply clones of his ideology. It would not be necessary for Obama to tell them to harass Tea Party or patriot groups; it's part of their purpose in life. Obama's acolytes view them as the enemy, not as a legitimate political organization. They are to be silenced, marginalized and erased using all the powers that a government agent has to accomplish that.
I think it would be a mistake for the people investigating the IRS scandal and the Benghazi scandal, even Fast & Furious, to try to find a direct order from Obama. Obama appointed people who knew what he wanted and what needed to be done. Barack's not a "detail" person, he doesn't need to be. His people know what he wants.
One person who knows exactly what Barack Obama wants is Eric Holder. He is the top law enforcement official in this country. He has Obama’s back; as long as Holder is in office no one in government will be prosecuted for doing what Obama wants done.
Labels: Liberalism, Obama
Sunday, May 12, 2013
The Totalitarian Mailing List?
Ross Douthat has an op-ed in the NY Times The Taxman vs. the Tea Party which is unexceptional as the sort of thing you would find written by one of the “conservatives” on the Times payroll. It seems that even some who write for the Times thinks that using the IRS to harass your political enemies is a little over the line. Keep in mind Richard Nixon’s articles of impeachment included the accusation that he used the IRS to go after his opponents. There is some doubt that the IRS under Nixon actually followed through. They seem to have been more accommodating under to Obama.
What’s most revealing about the Douthat article is not the article but the comments that follow from NY Times readers. This comment, from reader sdavidc9 Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut is quite typical:
Our present brown scare is thoroughly justified by the behavior of the browns, who tend to fervently believe things that are wrong. For example, a convinced birther could well decide that Second Amendment remedies were in order, and work on planning an assassination. We have a long tradition of presidential assassinations, so it is something that must be worried about.
Texan with a heart Texas received 77 thumbs up for:
Go IRS go! Those Tea Party groups are trying to game the system. Make sure they are entitled to the tax status they are seeking. And make sure sure the Kochs and Roves are paying the taxes they owe and not parking money in the Caymans or Switzerland
Pkbrando Mankato received 132 thumbs up
Or maybe the IRS was just doing its job: looking closely at organizations that have a high probability of filing inaccurate returns. It's called efficient management.
Karen Garcia New Paltz, NY received 159 thumbs up
As reprehensible as the singling out of Tea Party groups for audits is, the rationale behind it is understandable, given the right wing's strident aversion to paying any taxes at all. I would much rather the IRS team up with the lackadaisical Dept. of Justice for some joint investigations into the personal finances of the astroturf honchos themselves. Hmmm.... how about Ginny & Clarence Thomas, the Kochs, Glen "Gold Bug" Beck, followed quickly by probes of Wall Street bankers, carried-interest bonus CEOs and all the members of Congress who just cravenly reneged on their own insider-trading law.
tom mcmahon millis ma received only 82 thumbs up
Elephant tears are streaming from my eyes. As someone who was self employed for 25 years as a manufactures representitive I was called in on more than two occasions to explain myself, my returns, deductions to the IRS. Even if the IRS targeted Tea Party members, one must recognize from the view of the IRS they are the enemy, for they wish nothing more or less than than a decrease in revenue. Oh, I'm so surprised. IRS is there to maintain revenue, period. Assess, apply and collect what is owed, and if you don't owe it, you don't pay it.The IRS has been a political weapon since its inception, Nixon loved using it.So now the shoe is on the other foot, and crybabies scream Wah wah..
I won’t bore you with any more as more NY Times subscribers chime in. Click on Douthat’s article and check the comments for yourself. What’s disturbing about this is that it seems that the overwhelming majority of the readers the NY Times appear to see nothing really wrong with using the IRS to harass their political enemies. I'm fairly confident that they would have the same reaction to the use of other government agencies, read FBI, CIA or any of the regulatory agencies, to silence their critics.
Which leads me to wonder: if I wanted to create a group willing to subvert the rights of the American people in the interests of a Left wing Fascist state, would it be reasonable to start with the subscriber list of the NY Times?
Labels: CIA, Culture, Fascism, FBI, IRS, Liberalism, socialism, Tea Party, TimesLies
