Alan Caruba; It's a Matter of Distrust

Warning Signs  It's a Matter of Distrust
“ 'If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost.” – Barack Obama, August 28, 2006"

....
"While the revelations about government scandals continue, there will be a continuing erosion of trust. At some point it will reach critical mass and one can only hope the forthcoming 2014 midterm elections will set in motion a reversal and permit power in both the Senate and House to be returned to true conservatives.

"We can survive a President who has foisted Obamacare on us, who has weakened our nation’s position in the world, and who has failed to put our economy on a path to renewed prosperity."

 

Related post: Mounting controversies are all about trust  ...."Obama has waning opportunities to turn it around. He's halfway through his fifth year, and with midterm elections next fall, there's no time to waste.
If he can't convince the American people that they can trust him, he could end up damaging the legacy he has worked so hard to control and shape - and be remembered, even by those who once supported him, as the very opposite of the different type of leader he promised to be."

White House and the press, blood kin

Hat tip to Nan Thompson

On the IRS

Remember when they used to be called "Bureau of Internal Revenue"? They changed the name to "service" to make it less, well, intimidating.

Five IRS Scandal Myths " “Rogue agents,” apolitical targeting, and a limited time frame? Not so fast."
"The Obama administration and its defenders have done their best to downplay the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, and to distance the president from the scandal. But in doing so they have made numerous claims that have that turned out to be grossly misleading — at best."

 Were a pro-marriage group and its donors targeted by IRS employees?
"What makes NOM’s case unusual is this: The National Organization for Marriage has been operating as a nonprofit since 2008, so, as Eastman points out, it is not like the dozens or hundreds of conservative groups whose applications for tax-exempt status after Obama became president have led to invasive questioning, home visits, and audits. Rather, when it comes to IRS abuse, NOM is in a league of its own: As-yet-unknown IRS personnel may have dug into the records of NOM specifically and leaked confidential tax documents to its principal political opponent."
...."Phillips was able to isolate the layers and expose beneath the white box a hidden document identification number, 100560209."

 -- A self-described conservative Republican who is a manager in the Internal Revenue Service office that targeted tea party groups told investigators that he, not the White House, set the review in motion  According to a Democrat source, Rep. Elijah Cummings, who stated, "He is a conservative Republican working for the IRS. I think this interview and these statements go a long way to what's showing that the White House was not involved in this,".
And General Rommel committed suicide to save his family from Hitler's revenge.

Cummings Claims IRS Scandal Has Been ‘Solved’   It's all over and finished, folks. Move on now, nothing more to see here. This investigation needs to end.

Arguing that the congressional investigation into the IRS should be concluded, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings said Sunday that closed-door interviews with the agency’s staff show neither the White House nor officials in Washington had a hand in targeting conservative groups for added scrutiny.

...."Besides, even if the White House was not directly involved, how does that mean the case is solved? What this shows is that Cummings is solely concerned with protecting Obama."

10 Incredible, Modern Day Photos Of Where Your Favorite Movies And TV Shows Were Filmed

Buzzfeed  "Christopher Moloney is a photographer who visits the real world locations of memorable films and shows. More of his stunning re-creations of those scenes can be found on his blog; these are republished with his permission. "

6. The Dark Knight Rises

More here.

 

City of San Francisco funds religious place of worship

Thomas Lifson  "Perhaps you, like me, assumed that the City of San Francisco, California would avoid any governmental sponsorship of a particular religion, and would never house a place of worship of a specific religion on its own property. And if such government sponsorship ever came to light, you would be certain that the ACLU and the atheist activists would raise their voices in protest.

"But not when it comes to Islam.

"The San Francisco Chronicle's investigative duo Matier and Ross tell us:"....

San Francisco Airport uses public money to construct prayer space for Muslims 
"The top comment (as of this writing) on this SFGate sums up the main problem with this: "So we have to remove any reference to god from the pledge of allegiance, federal court houses, federal buildings, and who knows where or what else? Yet we can build Muslims a place to bathe in a federal airport so they can also pray on federal airport property? What the $&@? are we doing? The same group of people who are telling us that the Koran tells some of them to kill innocent people, even their own women and children?" " 

So this is what " fundamentally transforming the United States of America” looks like

 

From 2008: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America”  "Remember, Senator Obama himself told us that words matter in his “Just Words” speech on February 19, 2008 (see the YouTube of this speech here).  So are they just words Senator Obama?  Fundamentally transforming?  Just words? or words we should investigate and understand their meaning.  Seems like you told us words matter, so we’ll go ahead and investigate these words."

 This crowd is what is meant by "useful idiots"

In 2011, Slate called these words nothing but political "boilerplate". Still think so?

Metacafe says, "You asked for, and now you have it, the transformation of your once great Republic into a country where the State is the all powerful force that controls almost every aspect of your life from cradle to grave. In fact with their new healthcare plan they'll even hasten your entry into your grave by denying you care if they deem you not worthy of it because of your age and your lack of usefulness to the collective."

Morning Bell: Do You Trust This Administration?

Heritage  "The Obama Administration has a few problems. From Benghazi to the IRS to the phone records of journalists and everyday Americans, it’s not difficult to call up a scandal with investigations pending in Washington.

"So immigration reform makes for a nice distraction.

"In his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama called immigration reform “an issue that the vast majority of Americans want addressed.” "

"This sounds like wishful thinking on his part, considering that unemployment is stuck at 7.6 percent and Americans consistently say that the economy is their No. 1 concern." (Emphases in the original)

(UPDATED) Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations/ Hero or Traitor?

UPDATE; Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor?  "The good folks at Legal Insurrection raised an interesting point this morning. Why didn’t the prior revelations raised by William Binney cause as much controversy? Mr. Binney is a 32 year veteran of the NSA, who appeared in a 2012 video shot by Laura Poitras for The New York Times, who ironically enough, also directed and produced the interview with Edward Snowden."

Guardian  "The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton."
....
 Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt to use all its weight to punish him. "I am not afraid," he said calmly, "because this is the choice I've made."
....
Strewn about the side of his bed are his suitcase, a plate with the remains of room-service breakfast, and a copy of Angler, the biography of former vice-president Dick Cheney.
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"Snowden said that he admires both Ellsberg and Manning, but argues that there is one important distinction between himself and the army private....
"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."
More here.

Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data

The color scheme ranges from green (least subjected to surveillance) through yellow and orange to red (most surveillance). Note the '2007' date in the image relates to the document from which the interactive map derives its top secret classification, not to the map itself.

VIDEO: The IRS Scandal In 5 Minutes

American Glob  "This is a pretty good wrap up of last week’s congressional testimony from On The Record with Greta Van Susteren.
Video by Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft."
 

The Obama IRS Targeting Scandal in Five Minutes – Unbelievable Abuse of Power
" Exposing the Obama Administration’s attack on conservative Americans
The IRS targeted hundreds of conservative groups since 2010. 500 conservative and Christian groups were illegally targeted by the Obama IRS starting in 2010.   For twenty-seven months the Obama IRS refused to approve any Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status. At the same time the Obama IRS approved dozens of progressive applications within weeks."

Benghazi Talking Points

McClatchy

The Scandal Dump is a Smokescreen  "At this point, the focus of the investigation was confined to the failure of the Obama regime to adequately protect the American consulate in a hostile country and its subsequent attempt to cover up that ignominy.  Nobody, except us conspiracy theorists, was asking about the real reason for the coordinated terrorist attack.  Hint: it was not a video mocking Islam.  Here are the questions that should have been asked, but were not:"....Read more:

Soldier Told Not to Read Levin, Limbaugh or Hannity in Uniform

Todd Starnes  "Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers, a 25-year Army veteran and conservative Christian based at Fort Myer in Washington, believes his outspoken opposition to gay marriage prompted higher-ups to take a closer look at his beliefs. ..
" “It seems like with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – that the Christians have been the ones who’ve had to go underground and in the closet – for fear of retaliation and reprisals,” Sommers told Fox News. “Christians feel like they can’t be forthright with their faith. They have to hide.”
"Ret. Navy Commander John Bennett Wells is representing the master sergeant...
" “There’s no question about it,“ Wells told Fox News. “Because he is religious, because he feels that homosexual conduct is wrong for religious reasons, he is basically being persecuted.”
....
An official spokesperson in Washington issued the following statement on this matter:
“Accordingly, the Soldier was not prohibited from displaying a political bumper sticker.  Instead, the Soldier’s supervisor discussed the appropriateness of the bumper stickers with him and potential perceptions of others in light of the regulatory guidance.”
“The Soldier is not, and never has been, “facing retribution and punishment from the military for having anti-Obama bumper stickers on his car, reading books written by conservative authors like Mark Levin and David Limbaugh, and serving Chick-fil-A sandwiches at his promotion party,” the spokesperson added. 

I do think, however that it is best that military personnel not exhibit political stickers as a matter of their own integrity. I certainly do not want to see leftist, anti-military stickers on a servicemember's car.

Let's call it Laughing WITH the IRS, not AT them