Thursday, June 26, 2014

IRS scandal evolving too fast for reporters to ignore

Political Cartoons by Michael Ramirez
Hot Air    "A handful of former IRS executive Lois Lerner’s emails released by the House Ways and Means Committee seem to be serving as a Rorschach test for political actors and members of the press alike. For some, the early reaction to those emails revealed more about an individual’s thinking about the IRS scandal, and the Republican-led House committees, than it did about the alleged misconduct of one of the country’s most powerful law enforcement agencies.

"On Wednesday, the House Ways and Means Committee released emails sent by Lois Lerner to a colleague reveal that she received information about Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) which led her to inquire about referring him and an unnamed organization soliciting him for a paid speech for an audit. After somehow receiving an event invitation meant for Grassley in which the event planners offered to pay for the senator’s wife to attend, Lerner asked her colleague if she could take action on the apparent infraction. "   How might these people be discussing you and me?
...
“Makes it hard for the White House to say ‘This is Republicans trying to make a big partisan issue out of a mistake,’”[CNN's John] King noted.
Political Cartoons by Steve Kelley
IRS: A Series of Unfortunate Events? ..."The alternative and much more likely — undeniable, to my mind — explanation is that the Internal Revenue Service is engaged in an active and ongoing criminal conspiracy to misappropriate federal resources for political purposes, to use its investigatory powers, including the threat of criminal prosecution, for purposes of political repression, and to actively mislead Congress and the public about the issue;  that the Justice Department is turning a blind eye to these very serious crimes for political purposes and is therefore complicit in the cover-up; that these crimes were encouraged if not outright suborned by Senate Democrats; and that the White House is at the very least passively complicit, refusing to lift so much as a presidential pinkie as the IRS runs amok.

"And, apparently, there’s nobody in Washington with the power and the inclination to do anything about it.
Political Cartoons by Dana Summers

The Supreme Court rules against Obama's recess appointments.

Supreme Court Narrows Recess Appointment Authority   "In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court "limited a president's power to make recess appointments when the White House and the Senate are controlled by opposite parties, scaling back a presidential authority as old as the republic," NBC News reports.

" 'The case arose from a political dispute between President Obama and Senate Republicans, who claimed he had no authority to put three people on the National Labor Relations Board in January 2012 when the Senate was out of town' ."
Supreme Court limits president's recess appointment power  "On a separate track, House Speaker John Boehner said a day earlier he plans to proceed with a lawsuit against the president over his alleged abuse of executive power.

"The issue of recess appointments receded in importance after the Senate's Democratic majority changed the rules to make it harder for Republicans to block confirmation of most Obama appointees. "

The Washington Post has this:   "Breyer and Kennedy were joined in that part of the opinion by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
"Justice Antonin Scalia disagreed strongly, signaling his displeasure by reading from the bench a statement accusing his colleagues of “judicial adventurism.' ”

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Boehner’s Feckless Plan to Sue Obama

Andrew C. McCarthy   "So we finally have the Beltway GOP plan to confront Obama administration lawlessness. Make that, to have someone else confront Obama administration lawlessness. Is there a contest to name the Republican strategy? I’d call it: “Please Don’t Make Me Use My Powers … The Obamedia Might Say Mean Things About Me.”

"Mr. Obama’s sweeping lawlessness, a comprehensive assault on the separation of powers, is the subject of my new book, Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment. The administration’s goal is to centralize governmental power in the executive branch. That is exactly what the separation of powers is designed to avoid, the Framers having grasped that the accumulation of all power in one set of hands had always been, and will always be, the road to tyranny.
 
"Roll Call reports that House Speaker John Boehner (R., OH) will respond to this challenge to our constitutional framework by … wait for it … filing a lawsuit. The apparent aim of this theater is to persuade a judge to pronounce what is already patent: the president is flouting congressional statutes."

Cavuto Explodes at Bachmann Over Lawsuit Against Obama ‘Rome’s Burning and Your(sic) Filing’
 

 
... "Cavuto was in the right going after Michele Bachmann telling her she is “being silly”, because she and many other republicans are delusional as this lawsuit is a massive waste of time. All the hearings over the countless scandals have gone nowhere. Holder was held in contempt and it doesn’t affect him. Rome aka the US, as Cavuto put it, is on fire where half the republicans keep playing these useless games while the other half is attacking and destroying conservatives and anyone who goes against the establishment GOP." ...

Senate Action Comes Down Pipe to Block ‘Onerous’ EPA Water Grab

"Even the electric industry is nervous about the federal government's new interest in ditches."
 
PJ Media   " Senate Republicans launched a legislative effort to try to block the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing final “onerous” regulations that would expand its jurisdiction in the Clean Water Act to even include ponds and ditches on private property.

"In March, the EPA began a “robust” 90-day “outreach effort” to gather input in shaping a final rule, maintaining that the directive isn’t groundbreaking but a clarification effort needed to clearly define streams and wetlands protection after Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006.
 
"Critics, though, charged that the administration embarked on an unprecedented breach of private property rights without scientific basis.

"The EPA wants to cover “most” seasonal and rain-dependent streams, which account for about 60 percent of stream miles in the country, arguing they have “a considerable impact on the downstream waters.' ”

America's Favorite National Pastime: Hating Soccer

This article is printed in its entirety simply because there was not a single sentence TW wanted to leave out.

Ann Coulter   "I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough. Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay.

"(1) Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer. In a real sport, players fumble passes, throw bricks and drop fly balls -- all in front of a crowd. When baseball players strike out, they're standing alone at the plate. But there's also individual glory in home runs, touchdowns and slam-dunks.
In soccer, the blame is dispersed and almost no one scores anyway. There are no heroes, no losers, no accountability, and no child's fragile self-esteem is bruised. There's a reason perpetually alarmed women are called "soccer moms," not "football moms."

"Do they even have MVPs in soccer? Everyone just runs up and down the field and, every once in a while, a ball accidentally goes in. That's when we're supposed to go wild. I'm already asleep.

"(2) Liberal moms like soccer because it's a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the kindergarten level.

"(3) No other "sport" ends in as many scoreless ties as soccer. This was an actual marquee sign by the freeway in Long Beach, California, about a World Cup game last week: "2nd period, 11 minutes left, score: 0:0." Two hours later, another World Cup game was on the same screen: "1st period, 8 minutes left, score: 0:0." If Michael Jackson had treated his chronic insomnia with a tape of Argentina vs. Brazil instead of Propofol, he'd still be alive, although bored.
  
"Even in football, by which I mean football, there are very few scoreless ties -- and it's a lot harder to score when a half-dozen 300-pound bruisers are trying to crush you.

"(4) The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport. Most sports are sublimated warfare. As Lady Thatcher reportedly said after Germany had beaten England in some major soccer game: Don't worry. After all, twice in this century we beat them at their national game.

"Baseball and basketball present a constant threat of personal disgrace. In hockey, there are three or four fights a game -- and it's not a stroll on beach to be on ice with a puck flying around at 100 miles per hour. After a football game, ambulances carry off the wounded. After a soccer game, every player gets a ribbon and a juice box.

"(5) You can't use your hands in soccer. (Thus eliminating the danger of having to catch a fly ball.) What sets man apart from the lesser beasts, besides a soul, is that we have opposable thumbs. Our hands can hold things. Here's a great idea: Let's create a game where you're not allowed to use them!

"(6) I resent the force-fed aspect of soccer. The same people trying to push soccer on Americans are the ones demanding that we love HBO's "Girls," light-rail, Beyonce and Hillary Clinton. The number of New York Times articles claiming soccer is "catching on" is exceeded only by the ones pretending women's basketball is fascinating.

"I note that we don't have to be endlessly told how exciting football is.

"(7) It's foreign. In fact, that's the precise reason the Times is constantly hectoring Americans to love soccer. One group of sports fans with whom soccer is not "catching on" at all is African-Americans. They remain distinctly unimpressed by the fact that the French like it.

"(8) Soccer is like the metric system, which liberals also adore because it's European. Naturally, the metric system emerged from the French Revolution, during the brief intervals when they weren't committing mass murder by guillotine.

"Despite being subjected to Chinese-style brainwashing in the public schools to use centimeters and Celsius, ask any American for the temperature, and he'll say something like "70 degrees." Ask how far Boston is from New York City, he'll say it's about 200 miles.

"Liberals get angry and tell us that the metric system is more "rational" than the measurements everyone understands. This is ridiculous. An inch is the width of a man's thumb, a foot the length of his foot, a yard the length of his belt. That's easy to visualize. How do you visualize 147.2 centimeters?

"(9) Soccer is not "catching on." Headlines this week proclaimed "Record U.S. ratings for World Cup," and we had to hear -- again -- about the "growing popularity of soccer in the United States."

"The USA-Portugal game was the blockbuster match, garnering 18.2 million viewers on ESPN. This beat the second-most watched soccer game ever: The 1999 Women's World Cup final (USA vs. China) on ABC. (In soccer, the women's games are as thrilling as the men's.)

"Run-of-the-mill, regular-season Sunday Night Football games average more than 20 million viewers; NFL playoff games get 30 to 40 million viewers; and this year's Super Bowl had 111.5 million viewers.

"Remember when the media tried to foist British soccer star David Beckham and his permanently camera-ready wife on us a few years ago? Their arrival in America was heralded with 24-7 news coverage. That lasted about two days. Ratings tanked. No one cared.

"If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time. "

Democrats help Cochran win in Mississippi

Cochran Wins, But McDaniel Camp Eying Legal Challenges 
... "A source close to McDaniel told Breitbart News that he is considering legal challenges over ballots. Democrats who voted for Cochran on Tuesday but voted three weeks ago in the Democratic primary in the state were not allowed to vote in Tuesday’s election.

"Election results indicate Cochran's late appeal to Democratic voters paid off, with the incumbent senator picking up sizable vote totals in precincts with heavily black populations. Partisanship in Mississippi is largely polarized on racial lines, and Cochran allies paid key Democratic operatives to help turn out the vote.

NY Times   "With an unusual assist from African-American voters and other Democrats who feared his opponent, Senator Thad Cochran on Tuesday beat back a spirited challenge from State Senator Chris McDaniel, triumphing in a Republican runoff and defeating the Tea Party in the state where the movement’s hopes were bright."
Via Drudge.

Here’s how the smear machine works

Volokh Conspiracy via the WaPo   "Just yesterday I was pointing out that many people were misled about the content of George Will’s column on sexual assault  by left-wing sites that manufactured outrage by putting a wholly inaccurate headline on a blog piece that proceeded to misrepresent what Will wrote."

"Now it’s my turn. Here’s the Gawker headline:  Law Professor: Only Prostitutes Would Directly Say “Yes” to Sex

"The law professor in question is me.  What I actually wrote, in the context of discussing why no jurisdiction in the U.S. has adopted an explicit consent standard like the one I was commenting on, because it’s absurdly overbroad and would make almost every adult American guilty of sexual assault, is that “the vast, vast majority of ‘sexual contact or behavior’ is initiated with only *implicit consent.*
...
So you can see how the headline is false on multiple levels* but it certainly provides clickbait for Gawker.  I hardly expect an apology from Gawker because that’s just what they do there.

I place this also under the heading of demagoguery. I saw Candidate Obama do it often with McCain and Romney's words.

It worked for Thad Cochran over Chris McDaniel
This is how those supporting voter ID will be portrayed by liberals:

Exposed: How the VA red-flags ‘disruptive’ vets

Human Events
Exposed: How the VA red-flags 'disruptive' vets
 
... "That last phrase is priceless. Untold numbers of vets are dead, and legions more have languished because of the VA’s failure to deliver “quality health care.” The Office of Special Counsel just confirmed to President Obama this week that vets across the country were exposed to contaminated drinking water, dirty surgical tools, untrained doctors and neglectful nurses — and that whistleblowers were retaliated against or ignored.

"Yet, the VA’s soulless paper-pushers seem more preoccupied with flagging and punishing “disruptive” vets who have dared to complain about their disgraceful treatment and abuse."  Michelle Malkin

 

Let's see; those emails must be around here somewhere.

 
"There is no gender gap; 74 percent of men and 75 percent of women agreed. There is no race gap; 76 percent of whites and 70 percent of blacks agree. Between 73 and 76 percent of every age group thinks someone should be held accountable for the targeting allegations. Even 67 percent of self-identified liberals want to see someone held responsible for this scandal."
 

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Reading list: Things aren't so great for Hillary right now

hillary shoe
... "This was supposed to be a great month with the launch of her new biography “Hard Choices.” The book tour had her featured on every major television news and entertainment program in the country. Hillary’s face was popping up across the fruited plains from Albuquerque to Zanesville. Things were looking good for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 preview.
 
'But then the wheels came off.
 
"Here are the five horrible stories that slowed down the Clinton Express in the last few weeks:"   Read more. Here is just one sample of what you will read:

The American people seem tired. Tired of Obamas, Bushes and yes, Clintons. President Obama hit record lows in public opinion polls over the last week. 

Hot Air    "In the two weeks of Hillary Clinton’s re-entry in pop and political culture with her book tour, she has demonstrated a remarkable inability to connect with people, to communicate effectively, and to even comprehend the damage she’s doing to herself. Any other politician with this kind of fortnight would find it fortunate to be called a mediocrity. To make this point, let’s start with the contrarian view. Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein wants to remind everyone of “Hillary’s Mad [Political] Skillz” today, but doesn’t exactly make a compelling case:" ...

 'Clinton: the Musical' comes to New York    “ 'It’s hard enough being president by yourself. Bill Clinton’s problem is that there are two of him. Literally,” the show’s description reads. “Clinton follows two Bill Clintons and Hillary on their quest to save their presidency, change America and prove that ‘politics is show business for ugly people.’” "
Political Cartoons by Nate Beeler

Did Hillary Lie to Congress?    From Ed Klein's book, Blood Feud, so consider the source. This could be accurate, but maybe not. TD
"She had no doubt that a terrorist attack had been launched against America on the anniversary of 9/11. However, when Hillary picked up the phone and heard Obama’s voice, she learned the president had other ideas in mind. With less than two months before Election Day, he was still boasting that he had al-Qaeda on the run.
If the truth about Benghazi became known, it would blow that argument out of the water.
“Hillary was stunned when she heard the president talk about the Benghazi attack,” one of her top legal advisers said in an interview. “Obama wanted her to say that the attack had been a spontaneous demonstration triggered by an obscure video on the Internet that demeaned the Prophet Mohammed.' ”

The Struggles of Hillary; The ordinary American just doesn’t know what it’s like
... "Most people can’t understand the nature of the hard work with which the Clintons are constantly building their fortune.
"They don’t know what it’s like to write a calculatedly tedious book for an almost $14 million advance."They don’t know what it’s like to get up every morning and take a private jet to an event where adoring fans line up for a book-signing (only one copy per person, and no posed photographs, please)." ...  Rich Lowry

Trey Gowdy goes for the throat in Capitol Hill showdown with IRS head honcho


"From the South Carolina's Upstate 4th Congressional District, Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy mercilessly hammered IRS Commissioner and fellow lawyer John Koskinen during a rare late night committee hearing. A graduate of Yale University School of Law, Koskinen was held to task for failing to take the time to "read the relevant criminal statutes," while almost simultaneously claiming he personally hasn't witnessed any evidence of criminal wrongdoing at the IRS targeting of conservative groups, such as the Tea Party
(seen in its entirety in the video)."

Victor Davis Hanson: Federal agencies now exist not for the public good but for their employees’ benefit and Obama’s agenda.  ... "In other words, we are witnessing a new federal government that is a sort of rogue organism that exists for its own enhancement and is willing to do anything necessary to help those who help it.
"This is not America. It is like most failed states abroad, which also are not America."
This is a good stand-alone post that we will post separately tomorrow .
 Political Cartoons by Glenn McCoy
Rush Limbaugh: Koskinen Typifies the Arrogance of the Regime   "Now, fine, Obama can put in there whoever he wants, but we have the responsibility of knowing what that means.  The IRS is supposed to be an objective, blinded-by-politics agency.  None of that is supposed to matter, and we know that it does matter totally with this Regime.  So that's who this guy is.  He's an arrogant, condescending know-it-all who doesn't know nearly what he thinks he knows.  Who doesn't know who told him about Lois Lerner's e-mails.  He has no idea. " 

 ... "But, as good citizens, we are supposed to believe the unbelievable:
  1. The IRS just happened to cancel the services of an e-mail backup company two months after receiving a letter from congress referring to targeting of conservative groups.
  2. Lois Lerner’s hard drive just happened to crash in June 2011, just 10 days after receiving the letter from Congress.
  3. Another person at the IRS whose e-mails could be of interest in the investigation had her hard drive crash in December 2011.
  4. These crashed hard drives were the only source of these people’s e-mails.
  5. The company Sanasoft, which was doing data backup during the period of 2009 to 2011 – the period where Lois Lerner’s e-mails were of interest – does not have any of the backed up data for that period.
  6. The IRS did not set up any other method for backing up and archiving e-mails once the contract was canceled with Sonasoft.
  7. There is no other way to recover these e-mails – they are simply lost.
"I know the administration believes the average citizen is incredibly gullible or stupid – or both – but do these people really expect us to swallow all of these events, and their timing?  Please!"

Chik-Fil-A Not Alone: Here Are 10 Restaurants That Liberals Hate And a Few Other Companies You May Know of.

UNIVERSAL FREE PRESS   "When a company takes a stand against the backwards policies put forth by the current administration, they are immediately labeled a “right-wing” company, which liberals demand to be boycotted. It’s not always the company’s stance, however, but the founder’s beliefs that have progressives screaming “fire and brimstone,” as if business owners are somehow not entitled to a political or social opinion. So, in the spirit of free enterprise, if liberals want to fight with withdrawal, conservatives can surely fight back with patronage. Here are a few of our favorite restaurants who have been accused of having a conservative, nut job agenda, which we stand behind 100 percent."
Hat tip to Reece Coble at TEA Party Conservatives for America

Besides restaurants, here are other businesses with a Christian point of view.
Longhorn Steakhouse
 Lefties got the horn when they messed with Longhorn Steakhouse  over the
 Obamacare mandate. As soon as the ACA was implemented,  the restaurant chain
 announced they would be cutting staff hours to  compensate for the pricey healthcare.
 
... "Forever 21 prints “John 3:16” on the bottom of its shopping bags. Covenant Transport, founded in 1985 by David A. Parker, an evangelical, wears its Christianity on the side of its trucks: in its name, which refers to the many covenants made with God in the Bible, and in its logo, a scroll that recalls the parchment on which biblical texts would first have been written." ...
 
 ... "Philip J. Clements, the founder of the Center for Christian Business Ethics Today, tells a story to illustrate how Judeo-Christian principles make business run smoothly. He once met with a group of businessmen in Africa, most of them Muslim, who complained of the corruption in their countries. So he shared with them Jesus’ parable of the talents, from the Book of Matthew, in which a master offers his servants some money for their use. When the master returns much later, two of the servants have made a profit and pay him back. They could have simply absconded with it." ...
...
"Mr. Hicks did not object to burger-wrapper or shopping-bag evangelism. But he cautioned that the businesses that behave in the most Christian manner may not have visible marketing plans. “It’s the actions,” he said, not the branding."