Saturday, May 11, 2013

Current Events - May 11, 2013



Steyn: ‘How empty and dead’ were they to let Chris Stevens die for ‘Obama-Clinton fiction?’

On Hugh Hewitt’s Thursday night program, National Review columnist Mark Steyn explained why the Obama administration’s response to last September’s terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was so appalling.

“They let him die, and then told lies over his coffin,” he told fill-in host Guy Benson.

Steyn said that the late U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was a true believer of President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s view of the Arab Spring, that it was a positive movement and was trying to make the best of it. Clinton and senior State Department officials, he said, let Stevens die, meaning that he was “sacrificed for the Obama-Clinton fiction of the Arab Spring.”

“All the players involved in this are Democrats,” Steyn said. “Chris Stevens is in fact the poster boy for the Obama-Clinton view of the Arab Spring. He’s one of their guys. I mean, as chaps like me look on it, he was in large part deluded about the nature of the Arab Spring, but he was a personally courageous and brave man who was on the front line of the Obama-Clinton narrative about the Arab Spring.”

“And Democrats, liberals should ask themselves about that — if they are willing to, that’s, no right-wingers, no Republicans, no conservatives are involved in this. They did that to one of their own. And as you say, the three elements of this story all got moved slightly further on in the course of the testimony yesterday. … He was there in Benghazi on a symbolic day at the personal request of Sen. Clinton. In a sense, he not only died for the Obama-Clinton fiction, he was sacrificed for the Obama-Clinton fiction of the Arab Spring.”

“This is absolutely disgraceful. I cannot conceive of how empty and dead you have to be inside to put Ambassador Stevens through that, then leave him to die, and all the nonsense we heard about, ‘Oh, they couldn’t have got there in time?’ Oh, really? You had, it’s like a football match, is it? It’s like a football game, you’ve got an end time, you know they’re all going to pack up and go home at 5 in the morning or whatever? They didn’t know how long it was going to last. They left him to die. They decided to let their guy die in the confusion of the stuff happening in Egypt and Tunisia over the stupid no-account video.”

The author of “After America: Get Ready for Armageddon,” continued by pointing out how both Clinton and Obama maintained that they had a personal relationship with Stevens, despite telling a story that was somewhat contradicted by the former number two diplomat in Libya, Gregory Hicks’ testimony before the House oversight committee on Wednesday.

“I understand there is partisan politics,” Steyn added. “I accept that. You want your side to win. You put your side’s interests at heart. But I personally could not do that knowing the truth. She called him ‘Chris.’ Obama called him ‘Chris.’ ‘Chris’ this — no Ambassador Stevens, no Mr. Ambassador, none of that — ‘Chris, Chris, Chris,’ like he’s — they’re best buddies. They’ve known each other all their life. And then she tells the families of the dead that they’re going to get this video-maker, and they’re going to put him in jail. And all the time she’s doing that, she knows that is false.”

“And as you say, she got the phone call,” he continued. “The very compelling testimony from Mr. Hicks, the number two guy in Libya, he calls her, he has this conversation with her. Then later, he calls back to leave a message that ‘Chris, Chris,’ as Hillary Clinton calls him, ‘Chris, Chris, Chris,’ is dead. He’s the first ambassador, first American ambassador to die in the line of duty in a quarter century. She doesn’t call back poor old Hicks on the front line trying to hold down what’s left of the American presence in Libya? She doesn’t call him back that night. She doesn’t call him back the following day. This is a failure of leadership at the top. And honor demands, she’s gone, she’s out of it. But if she were still in her job, honor would demand that she resign over this. I think there’s compelling evidence she actually perjured herself when she testified on this.”

About That 2 a.m. (i.e. 8 p.m.) Hillary-Hicks Call . . .Before the 10 p.m. Hillary-Obama Call

Andrew rightly points out that, among the very interesting news that came out of the Benghazi hearing was the revelation that the State Department’s Gregory Hicks, then the No. 2 American official in Libya, spoke with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at 2 a.m. on the night of the attack. Just to flesh that out a bit, Hicks said he briefed Clinton and her senior staff on what was happening on the ground at the time. As Andrew notes, no one mentioned the Internet video — which Hicks testified was a “non-event” in Libya. More significant, Hicks and the other American officials in Tripoli knew that the government facility in Benghazi was under terrorist attack. Minutes after the siege started, Hicks spoke with Ambassador Stevens himself, who told him, “We are under attack.” From then on, Hicks and other State officials in Tripoli were furiously working their contacts in Benghazi to learn what was happening on the ground there, and Hicks was reporting these details, in real time, to the State Department in Washington.

Even more important, at the time that Hicks spoke directly with Clinton, the most urgent problem was that Ambassador Stevens was missing and, worse, Hicks was hearing that Stevens had fallen into the hands of Ansar al-Sharia — the local al-Qaeda affiliate which orchestrated the attack (and which Hicks referred to in his testimony as “the enemy”). When Hicks was directly briefing Clinton, the specific concern was the Stevens might be at a hospital in Benghazi that was under the terrorists’ control. In fact, at the time, Hicks was thinking that the reinforcements that were trying to get to Benghazi from Tripoli might have to function as a “hostage-rescue team” — i.e., go to the jihadists’ hospital and try to rescue the ambassador. It was not until an hour later, at 3 a.m., that Hicks learned Stevens had been killed (in a call from the Libyan prime minister).

To sum up: State’s main guy on the ground in Libya tells Clinton in Washington that State’s people in Benghazi are under attack by the local al-Qaeda franchise, Ansar al-Sharia, which might have captured the U.S. ambassador. Yet, over the next few days, with what we now know to be monumental input from the State Department, the Obama administration purges references to Ansar al-Sharia from the talking points that it uses to explain the attack to the American people. Instead, it concocts a story claiming the anti-Islamic Internet video was the culprit. 

Our friend Hugh Hewitt and the Daily Beast’s superb reporter Eli Lake have opined that it is likely a recording of the 2 a.m. phone call exists in the archives of the NSA or the State Department. Assuming this is so, if Secretary of State John Kerry, Clinton’s successor, does not think there was any real news in what we learned at Wednesday’s hearing, then surely he should have no objection to disclosing any recording to Darrell Issa’s committee and to the public, right? And if there is not a recording, it should be no problem to disclose any notes taken by Clinton or her senior staffers, right? 

By the way, what is being called “the 2 a.m. phone call” with Hicks was 2 a.m. Tripoli time. In Washington, where Clinton and her staffers were, it was only 8 p.m. We don’t know much about what President Obama was doing that night (PK'S NOTE: Yes, we do, he was on an hour-long call with Netanyahu - Obama's September 11 Phone Call), but it has been reported that he called Clinton at 10 p.m., two hours after she was briefed by Hicks, in order “to get an update on the situation.” Shortly after she spoke with Obama, press outlets began reporting that Clinton had put out a press statement on the Benghazi attack, which included the following:
Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation . . .
No news here, move along . . .

 http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/347981/about-2am-hillary-hicks-call-10pm-hillary-obama-call

Wow: CBS News President and WH Official Tied to Benghazi Scandal Are Brothers

One of the mainstream media journalists whose pursuit of the truth has been truly tenacious and nonpartisan is CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson.  Her tough reporting has made life difficult for everyone from Hillary Clinton to the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans.  She's also been relentless on the Obama administration's Fast & Furious gun-running scandal -- and, of course, Benghazi.  As we mentioned this week, Attkisson's tough investigative journalism is starting to bother unnamed CBS News executives.  Here's Politico's scoop, in case you missed it:

But from where Attkisson is sitting, there are actually two Goliaths, one of which is almost entirely absent from the Post profile. The second Goliath is CBS News, which has grown increasingly frustrated with Attkisson's Benghazi campaign. CBS News executives see Attkisson wading dangerously close to advocacy on the issue, network sources have told POLITICO. Attkisson can't get some of her stories on the air, and is thus left feeling marginalized and underutilized. That, in part, is why Attkisson is in talks to leave CBS ahead of contract, as POLITICO reported in April. Farhi mentions "internal conflicts" in the final paragraph, though he seems to dismiss them. The "internal conflicts" are indeed real -- Attkisson is still eyeing an exit, according to sources -- and provide important context for today's piece. 

My analysis of this report was highly critical of CBS News.  The network appears to be penalizing one of its best correspondents because she's doing her job too aggressively.  Conservatives quickly imputed a political motive to CBS News' internal drama, but the Daily Caller has uncovered a connection that suggests there's a striking personal angle to this controversy, as well:



The brother of a top Obama administration official is also the president of CBS News, and the network may be days away from dropping one of its top investigative reporters for covering the administration’s scandals too aggressively. CBS News executives have reportedly expressed frustration with their own reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, who has steadily covered the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack in Libya since late last year...On Friday, ABC News reported that the Benghazi talking points went through 12 revisions before they were used on the public. The White House was intimately involved in that process, ABC reported, and the talking points were scrubbed free of their original references to a terror attack. That reporting revealed that President Obama’s deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes — brother of CBS News president David Rhodes — was instrumental in changing the talking points in September 2012. ABC’s reporting revealed that Ben Rhodes, who has a masters in fiction from NYU, called a meeting to discuss the talking points at the White House on September 15, 2012.

Well then.  "CBS News executives" are wringing their hands that Sharyl Attkisson maybe "wading dangerously close" to advocacy on Benghazi.  It's now entirely reasonable to ask if the top executive at the network may be "wading dangerously close" to a massive conflict of interest.  Is David Rhodes trying to protect his brother -- who's just been revealed to be knee-deep in the Benghazi cover-up -- by muzzling and marginalizing a problematic journalist within his news division?  Kudos to the Caller for shining the spotlight on that relationship, but it's amazing that no one connected those dots sooner.  How many people in the elite MSM orbit are aware that Ben and David Rhodes are brothers?  And they definitely are brothers, by the way; The New York Times confirmed that fact in a glowing profile of the younger Rhodes in March:


The son of a conservative-leaning Episcopalian father from Texas and a more liberal Jewish mother from New York, Mr. Rhodes grew up in a home where even sports loyalties were divided: he and his mother are ardent Mets fans; his father and his older brother, David, root for the Yankees. “No one in that house agreed on anything,” said David Rhodes, who is now the president of CBS News.
If Sharyl Attkisson continues to be relegated to the sidelines, or is even shown the door, at CBS News over her Benghazi coverage, the public must demand full disclosure about David Rhodes' role in that decision-making process.  The Rhodes brothers' familial tie may be a bizarre, irrelevant coincidence.  It's possible.  But it's not a leap to suggest that this reeks of corruption and collusion.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/05/11/wow-cbs-news-president-and-wh-official-tied-to-benghazi-scandal-are-brothers-n1593081

White House Meets Privately with Press to Discuss Benghazi



In the White House’s latest efforts at transparency, the administration announced to reporters that it would brief reporters on the latest shocking developments about the Benghazi situation … behind closed doors. Politico reports that the meeting started at approximately 12:45 PM ET, and that it moved the normal press briefing to 1:45 PM ET. Jay Carney, White House press secretary, did not comment on whether the meeting took place.



The off-the-record session was announced to reporters in the wake of an ABC News report showing that White House and State Dept. officials were involved in revising the now-discredited CIA talking points about the attack on Benghazi.


The administration routinely exerts pressure on reporters it feels are not kind enough in their coverage.  Reporters like Cheryl Attkisson of CBS News have felt the hand of their bosses for “wading dangerously close to advocacy” with regard to Benghazi. No doubt this “off-the-record” meeting was designed to get all the president’s horses and all the president’s men to put the Benghazi humpty dumpty together again.


UPDATE: Reporters not invited to the off-the-record briefing are reportedly incredibly unhappy about it:




UPDATE II: Jake Tapper of CNN reports that the regularly scheduled press briefing has been delayed even further:



UPDATE III: Politico now reports that the meeting has been characterized as "deep background." The existence of the meeting itself is considered "off-the-record." White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, "Deep background means that the info presented by the briefers can be used in reporting but the briefers can't be quoted." So expect a fair number of "White House sources" to appear in reportage for the next few days.


UPDATE IV: Jay Carney began his on-the-record press briefing by announcing that 14 news organizations were invited to the closed door briefing, but that it was not a substitute for the on-the-record briefing. He then announced that it was "erroneous" to describe the briefing as "off-the-record," and instead suggested it was "deep background."



http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/05/10/White-House-Benghazi-off-the-record

Head-Slam Headlines:

Nancy Pelosi Slams GOP ‘Obsession’ With Benghazi: ‘Cannot Let It Soak Up All of the Congressional Attention’

Bill Maher on Benghazi: ‘I Still Don’t Know What the Scandal Is’

Carney Blames Romney for Politicizing Benghazi

Carney Blames Bush Admin For IRS Audit Scandal





Media Mocked Idea of Targeted IRS Audits

IRS today apologized for targeting Tea Party groups

The Internal Revenue Service has admitted that it explicitly targeted conservative groups for tax audits during the 2012 election season.

Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal reported during last year’s election that President Barack Obama had an “enemies list,” and those that found themselves on it could find themselves a target of the IRS.
The media discounted such charges and said the Obama administration was too clean to engage in such tactics.

David Weigel of Slate Magazine wrote that there was no evidence of this.

“There’s no evidence that Obama is using the tools of the government—as opposed to PR and speeches—to attack his enemies,” Weigel wrote.

Weigel criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute took issue with the fact that dozens of Tea Party groups had “received a lengthy questionnaire from the IRS demanding attendance lists, meeting transcripts, and donor information.”

Weigel, discounting the possibility that the IRS would target conservative groups, wrote that it was a good thing these groups were getting more attention.

“Maybe the IRS should demand data from new activist groups that want tax exemptions, but it’s irritating, a threat from the government,” Weigel said. “Taxpayer money was funding an inquest backed by the taxpayer-funded police force.”

The Huffington Post’s Dan Froomkin also praised the IRS for targeting Tea Party groups.

“In a sign that the agency may be waking from its slumber, the IRS has sent detailed questionnaires to several Tea Party organizations,” Froomkin wrote.

Froomkin added that the information requested by the IRS is perfectly normal and appropriate.

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship dismissed the idea conservatives should feel targeted

The two wrote that the complaints were nothing more than conservatives conjuring  “images of Nixonian wiretaps and punitive tax audits.”

The American Prospect’s Paul Waldman also belittled the idea that anybody was truly targeted with government action.

Waldman directly responded to charges that Frank Vandersloot, a Romney-supporting businessman who was later audited by the IRS, was targeted by the government after being placed on the “enemies list.”

“Harassment from government officials? IRS audits? Baseless prosecutions? National Park Police pulling him over, smashing one of his taillights, then giving him a ticket for having a broken taillight? Well, no. But it is true that he was mentioned on an Obama campaign web site as a major donor to a Romney Super PAC. 
That’s the ‘enemies list,’” Waldman wrote.

http://freebeacon.com/media-mocked-idea-of-targeted-irs-audits/  

PK'S NOTES: Oops, here comes another Obama administration scandal. This is my shocked face. The question is no one does this on their own. Someone higher up gave the order. Who? How many organizations were denied eexempt status? We know many stopped the application process because of the questions. 

Breaking: Senior IRS officials knew of targeting conservative groups in 2011;Update: IRS chief counsel knew in 2011

This changes the dynamic in two ways:

A federal watchdog’s upcoming report says senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups in 2011.
The disclosure contradicts public statements by former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who repeatedly assured Congress that conservative groups were not targeted. ….
That report says the head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups learned that groups were being targeted in June 2011. It does not say whether Shulman was notified.
Yesterday, the IRS claimed that this only happened in one office in just 2012, and that only lower-level officials were involved.  This report from the Associated Press refutes both of those claims — and adds yet another damning example to a growing list of misleading and false statements from the Obama administration.
Let’s go back to yesterday’s admission:

Lois G. Lerner, the IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, said the “absolutely inappropriate” actions by “front-line people” were not driven by partisan motives.
Rather, Lerner said, they were a misguided effort to come up with an efficient means of dealing with a flood of applications from organizations seeking ­tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012.
Lerner’s statement gave the clear impression that the IRS only just learned about this, and that the actions were by rogue agents without enough supervisory control.  The AP’s report on the upcoming Treasury IG’s report is that it will demonstrate that “senior officials” knew about this more than a year earlier — while Shulman was telling Congress that nothing of the sort was going on.

If the IG report substantiates this, then the questions will really start flying for the Obama administration.  Why would senior IRS officials remain silent while their agents illegally targeted conservative non-profits with their knowledge? Was it because they were ordered to make it happen?  Most government bureaucrats don’t go that far out of their way to innovate, especially in a legal landmine area such as this.  And I’d suspect that “senior officials” wouldn’t climb out on that limb unless pressed on it, too.

Hey, maybe this is why there were no disciplinary actions, huh?

Anyone still buying that this wasn’t driven by partisan motives? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Update: More from the AP, including a huge problem for Lerner and Shulman:

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. …
On Jan, 25, 2012, the criteria for flagging suspect groups was changed to, “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement,” the report says.
While this was happening, several committees in Congress were writing IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman to express concern because tea party groups were complaining of IRS harassment.
In Shulman’s responses, he did not acknowledge targeting of tea party groups. At a congressional hearing March 22, 2012, Shulman was adamant in his denials.
“There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people” who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman said at the House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing.
Lerner’s going to look like a liar.  Shulman might end up facing charges of lying to Congress and perhaps obstruction as well.  It probably won’t end there, either.

Update: John Hinderaker notes the convenience of discovering this now rather than before the election:

So the harassment of conservative groups began much earlier than the IRS told us yesterday, when the agency’s spokesman said the improper conduct occurred “during the 2012 election.” As I wrote yesterday, I was skeptical about that since I had heard of the targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS well before the 2012 campaign season.
It now appears that this is one more scandal that the Obama administration managed to keep quiet until after November’s election. One wonders how many more skeletons will come tumbling out of the closet, now that Obama is safely re-elected.
It’s still going to be a massive political problem for Obama, with a Congressional probe now all but guaranteed as yet another set of false talking points collapses.

Update: How big of a deal is abusing the tax system to gain an advantage over the political opposition? Don’t forget that it was one of the charges in the Watergate articles of impeachment:

Article 2

Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies.
This conduct has included one or more of the following:

  1. He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.
That doesn’t make Obama guilty of the actions, but it does demonstrate the seriousness of the violation — and the fact that the Obama administration tried to shortstop the IG report with yesterday’s dog-and-pony show also demonstrates just how bad they know this will be.

Update: I missed this earlier, but the IG report will accuse the chief counsel of the IRS of knowing that the targeting was taking place, and saying nothing:

Among the other revelations, on Aug. 4, 2011, staffers in the IRS’ Rulings and Agreements office “held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue.”
On Jan, 25, 2012, the criteria for flagging suspect groups was changed to, “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement,” the report says.
Hmmm.  Why would a chief counsel remain silent on such a development?

Update: Another point: if the chief counsel knew about this in August 2011, how likely would it have been that IRS Commissioner Shulman would have been unaware of it when he testified before Congress in March 2012?  I think it’s time for Shulman to find a very good lawyer and start looking to make a deal.

Update: William Jacobson reminds us (along with Daniel Drezner) that the IRS is now also the enforcer for ObamaCare.  Nothing to worry about there, though … right?



http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/11/breaking-senior-irs-officials-knew-of-targeting-conservative-groups-in-2011/

PK'S NOTE: Here's a good explanation of what went down. I remember posting on this last year - conservative nonprofits were complaining about being harassed - and was pooh-pooh'ed by a liberal friend of mine.

The IRS’s Tea-Party Targeting

The IRS denies having conducted a partisan witch-hunt against tea-party groups in the run-up to the 2012 election, arguing that its improper targeting of conservative groups was the result of a series of procedural errors rather than a political attack with malice aforethought.

But the IRS is keeping the relevant evidence secret, so you will just have to take the agency’s word for it.
Lois Lerner, the IRS official in charge of handling tax-exempt organizations, made what appeared to be an impromptu confession Friday during a tax conference hosted by the American Bar Association, saying that groups with the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their names were improperly targeted for additional levels of tax-status review by the agency. Those actions, she said, were “wrong” and “inappropriate,” but she denied that they were the result of political bias against tea-party groups. When asked how the IRS determined that the actions were not the result of political bias, Ms. Lerner could only say, “That is not how we do things.”

The problem originated in a Cincinnati IRS office — Ms. Lerner would not say which one — that handles applications from 501(c)(4) organizations, groups that under law may engage in political advocacy so long as electioneering accounts for less than half of their spending. The same branch of the IRS, dealing with such applications, also came under criticism last year when confidential tax documents filed by American Crossroads, the nonprofit organization associated with Karl Rove, were illegally leaked to the media and published by ProPublica, the nonprofit project funded in part by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. No one has been charged in that crime.  

Ms. Lerner’s version of the story is that three things happened independently of one another:

First, “line people” — that’s IRS-speak for grunts — decided, on their own and with no direction from above, to create a special category of organizations applying for tax-exempt status: “Tea Party and Patriot” organizations. Ms. Lerner says that other organizations may have been specifically named, but when challenged could not think of one, and then added: “I only said that because I don’t like to say ‘absolutely not.’ But I don’t know.”

Second, that batch of applicants was delayed for an unusual period of time. Ms. Lerner said that this was the result of an unusually large number of applications coming in, but applications for tax-exempt status have been growing quickly since 2008 — making 2012’s bumper crop something less than an unforeseeable circumstance.

Third, and perhaps most troubling, those tea-party organizations were sent letters of inquiry demanding information that would seldom if ever be demanded of any other applicant in the process. The IRS demanded lists of donors, names of spouses and family members, detailed information about political views and associations — all of that “under penalties of perjury.” Many applicants dropped out of the process. The questions were remarkably invasive: For example, the IRS demanded to know not only whether political candidates participated in public forums conducted by the groups, but which issues were discussed, along with copies of any literature distributed at the forum and material published on websites. (The IRS has been less forthcoming with its own materials related to this investigation.) If the organizations collected dues, the IRS demanded to know how much they were. It demanded everything down to the résumés of employees. The inquiry was not limited to members of the organization, its executives, or its directors, but included even their family members: The IRS demanded to know — again, under penalty of perjury — whether any of their family members might be thinking about running for office. Its demand for the names of all donors — and all recipients of grants — is in violation of IRS policy.

Ms. Lerner says that this is nothing more than a string of unfortunate bureaucratic events.

But Ms. Lerner is not always clear on what it is she wants to say. Asked directly whether any IRS employee had faced disciplinary action as a result of this incident, she replied, emphatically, “No.” A short while later she said she wishes to retract that, saying instead, “I’m not talking about that.”

Ms. Lerner also says that she did not inform her superiors about the problem, which must be a question of key interest to IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, who during testimony before Congress last year denied that tea-party groups or other conservative organizations were being targeted by the IRS. That had been the IRS’s last word on the subject until today.

Why now? “Somebody asked me a question,” Ms. Lerner said. Apparently, if you want answers from our public officials, go to the American Bar Association’s tax conference, not a congressional hearing. 

Other groups were included in this additional review, but while the office handles applications from all sorts of organizations, a full 25 percent of those targeted for additional review were “Tea Party” or “Patriot” groups.

“Obviously, you don’t get dozens of inquiries asking unconstitutional questions, with zero corresponding inquiries into liberal groups, unless there is something going on,” says David French, senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, which is representing 27 groups from 18 states in the IRS matter. “It’s not just the numbers, it’s the questions themselves. They were designed to dissect the operations of the organizations.” Mr. French believes that the IRS’s actions were intended as political intimidation.

He also is skeptical that the problem is limited to the Cincinnati office: “We dealt with offices from California to D.C. on this,” he says. With regard to the congressional testimony denying such targeting, he concludes: “Either they lied or they didn’t do the most basic due diligence.”

Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, said he expects Congress to look into the IRS’s “thuggery.” “In the same breath they say they specifically targeted conservative groups, they say there was no political bias,” he says. “Those two statements cannot both be true. As Cookie Monster says, one of these things is not like the other.”

The misuse of government resources is subject to civil, misdemeanor, and felony charges under federal and Ohio law. The abuse of IRS resources, including the collection of “confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law, and [causing], in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner,” were cited in the second article of impeachment against Richard Nixon.

 http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347987/irs%E2%80%99s-tea-party-targeting

Shocking Hot-Mic Gun Comments From New Jersey Senate: ‘Confiscate, Confiscate, Confiscate’

Audio captured after a New Jersey Senate session on Thursday possibly features several Democrats mocking gun owners and talking about gun “confiscation,” Frank Jack Fiamingo, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, told TheBlaze on Friday.


The hot-mic recording opens with what seems to be a female senator or staff member saying, “We need a bill that is going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.” Because of the low-quality of the audio, there is a possibility that she is saying something slightly different, however, the words “confiscate” are very clear.


“They want to keep guns out of the hands of bad guys but they don’t have any regulations…to do it,” another woman says, identified possibly as Democrat state Sen. Loretta Weinberg by the Star-Ledger.


“They don’t care about the bad guys,” yet another female voice chimes in. “All they want to do is to have their little guns and do whatever they want with them.” The Star-Ledger reports that those comments sound like they came from another Democrat, Sandra Cunningham.


“That’s the line they’ve developed,” a woman who sounds like Democrat state Sen. Linda Greenstein says, according to the Star-Ledger.


Fiamingo said he is nearly positive that one of the voices heard in the audio is that of Greenstein.


“She has a very discernible accent,” he told TheBlaze. However, he did admit that without video it’s still difficult to prove it beyond any doubt.


“It is disturbing audio regardless,” Fiamingo added.

The New Jersey Second Amendment Society pulled the audio directly from the New Jersey Legislature’s website, which archives past Senate sessions for the public to review. You can review the audio yourself here. The relevant comments come at the very end of the audio from the May 9 Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee meeting.


TheBlaze has reviewed the audio from the New Jersey Legislature’s website and can verify that the transcript appears to be accurate. However, we can not independently verify the identities of the women in the audio.


During TheBlaze’s investigation, we discovered that Weinberg (D-Bergen) told the Star-Ledger that she doesn’t know who used the word “confiscate” during the exchange, seemingly admitting that one of the voices in the audio is hers.


“Cunningham (D-Hudson) and Greenstein (D-Middlesex) could not be reached for comment today,” the report adds.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/10/anti-gun-dems-shocking-hot-mic-comments-confiscate-confiscate-confiscate/ 

Cultural Warfare

Imagine a closed, regressive, sometimes violent culture. Freedom of thought brings punishment. One is not encouraged to consider alternative views. One's place in the culture is determined by circumstances of birth, and he can never be otherwise defined than by such things as race, gender, and social status. Strict adherence to the code is enforced at the risk of severe repercussions. Only carefully cultivated and proscribed beliefs are acceptable, and others are strongly, even violently discouraged. The beliefs are not grounded in truth, and often are the product of bigotry and overt prejudice. Intolerance and self-righteousness are hallmarks of the culture. Only dogmas approved by the hierarchy are permitted to be repeated. Those who chant and believe them, while punishing those who do not, are faithful. They are rewarded with acceptance, financial benefits, and even fame. They are held up as examples of virtue. They are deemed heroic. 

Opponents of the closed culture, however, are portrayed as dim-witted and slow-thinking, motivated by malice rather than wisdom or experience. Those who presume to profess a different faith have earned the privilege of being slandered and defamed by the culture. In this culture, religion and law are hopelessly blurred, so that the tenets of the culture's religion become policy. There are core beliefs which cannot be challenged or limited. Nonbelievers are infidels, and those who convert to conflicting beliefs are apostates.
The dishonest beliefs of the culture are forced into the minds of its children from the earliest age. 

Indoctrination motivates the educational system as well, which encourages prejudice against those who think differently while encouraging self-congratulation for one's own prejudices and false beliefs. The culture has decided it owns the children and will form them as they should be.

Those who do not adapt themselves to the closed culture are shunned, ostracized, publicly humiliated. They are treated as unworthy of existence alongside the virtuous practitioners of the closed culture. They are labeled the cult's "enemy".

Perhaps, by now, you have concluded I was referring to an intolerant religious culture generating news by making its presence felt, and I was, but not the one you might have thought. I was speaking of the culture and religion of Liberalism, sometimes also called Progressivism. It has sacraments, such as abortion, socialized medicine, gay rights, green energy, wealth redistribution, gun prohibition, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, among others. Its high priests are treated as infallible. The religion actively seeks to reduce and replace all other religions with which it competes. It is enmeshed with the state, so that the religion and government have become virtually indistinguishable.

The practitioners reveal themselves whenever they must defend the faith from any risk of exposure as a fraud. They wage their own form of jihad upon the nonbelievers and apostates.


We saw them advance the faith when they fabricated and then railed against an imaginary war on women, smearing and destroying as they crusaded. We watched them attempt and sometimes succeed in falsely criminalizing guns and gun ownership, at the expense of citizens who had done no wrongs. We have seen them willfully tell lies on the Senate floor, in White House press conferences, or on television news shows, regarding matters about which we already knew the truth. We saw them consciously conceal examples of their ideology fully realized, as with the Gosnell trial. We have seen them coldly attack and smear blacks and Hispanics who dared speak against their own repression and exploitation by the scions of the cult. We have seen them sprint from the muck whenever there is a tragedy they can falsely pin on their enemy, and slither back when it is revealed that one of their own, or one they enabled, was the perpetrator.

However, we see them at their most dishonest, and their most vicious, when the high priests of their culture are in danger, as exemplified presently by the Benghazi hearings. Terms like "witch hunt" and "politicize" and "liars" are deployed to damage those who would expose cult leaders who have engaged in evil or criminal actions. Bomb-throwers limber up, eager to lob verbal incendiaries for the faith. Lies must be told loudly and in unison to drown out or erase truth. The followers who accidentally learn of the proceedings must be reminded of their duty to the cult. To stray is to invite damnation. They must blind themselves to evidence and facts. Logic is an enemy. Believe only what the cult approves.

Those who saw the cult's malice practiced first-hand in Benghazi and at home, and who have the courage to risk their names and their life's work, are marked by a liberal fatwa. The integrity of truth-tellers must be publicly attacked. Their honor must be murdered. Defenders of the faith chant as one, and none can speak out against the lies and damage done to their own country unless they too wish to be afforded the 'apostate' treatment. Ideology trumps country. It trumps truth, integrity and honor. Ideology trumps God. The infidels must be destroyed. The cult comes first.

So it will be for the next several weeks or months, as those who were repressed by the hierarchy of the culture escape their bonds and, in the light, tell the truth about what happened in Libya. Their names and reputations have been sentenced to death by the cult. Nonbelievers must be fundamentally transformed into failures and malcontents for their sins, as must we all. There can be no accountability, no truth and no consequences to the cult from this process. The cult must be protected, even at the expense of the collective soul of a virtuous nation.

When truth is punished, and honesty is condemned, all members of a society are obliged to look clear-eyed at those whom the cult protects, and question why any of us would permit such people to rule us. It is long past time to protect our honorable nation from the soulless culture that seeks its destruction from within. God bless those whose courage is on display in these hearings, both the elected representatives and the witnesses who understand the evil that has been done, and which will be done to them for telling the truth. The dishonesty and vitriol of their detractors could not more clearly illustrate the differences between the cult and the rest of us.

Those who have testified, and who will endure the gauntlet to come, remind us that we can defeat the cult, and that at our core, we are still a nation in which integrity and virtue matter.
 

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