Friday night, Mary Katharine Ham traced Obama's "evolution" of mind vis-à-vis the IRS targeting scandal. (Note: A video autoplays when you hit the link, but it's still worth going over there.)

Using Obama's public statements, she tracks Obama going through his typical okey-doke:

First, he claims to be outraged, and filled with steely determination to get down to the facts of the matter.

Second, he began suggesting, without actually stating, that the IRS scandal was a phony scandal and a distraction:

For most of this year, we’ve seen an endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals and we keep on shifting our way — shifting our attention away from what we should be focused on, which is how do we strengthen the middle class and grow the economy for everybody?

Finally, during the Matthews interview, he made it explicit that he thought people who were "outraged" by this were rather silly creatures.

No word on whether he finds himself silly, for being "outraged" so many months (um, six months) ago.

OBAMA: That’s not — that’s not something that’s reported about. If, on the other hand, you’ve got an office in Cincinnati, in the IRS office that — I think, for bureaucratic reasons, is trying to streamline what is a difficult law to interpret about whether a nonprofit is actually a political organization, deserves a tax exempt agency. And they’ve got a list, and suddenly everybody’s outraged.

MATTHEWS: 501(c)(4) is tricky to begin with, how to define it.

OBAMA: To begin with.

The president even appeared annoyed that liberal commentators once dared to challenge him on the point:

OBAMA: And by the way, Chris, I’ll point out that there are some so-called progressives and, you know, perceived to be liberal commentators who during that week were just as outraged at the possibility that these folks, you know, had — had been, you know, at the direction of — the Democratic Party, in some way — discriminated against these folks.

Why the shift? As we keep noticing, Obama only cares about the next news cycle. He says what he has to say to get on the news for the next news cycle. He wants to be seen saying the right things for that news cycle. Then, when interest dies down a bit, he attempts a new tack.

But he never gets called on how his Early News Cycle Management Bullshit is wholly contradictory to his Slightly Later News Cycle Management Bullshit. The media never asks him What new information was presented to you to change your opinion on the IRS scandal from "outrageous" to "phony scandal"?

Was it high-ranking partisan IRS official Lois Lerner repeatedly invoking the Fifth Amendment to avoid confessing a criminal act in a Congressional hearing?

Was it learning that a White House lawyer, William Wilkins, coordinated directly with the self-avowedly-at-criminal-risk Lois Lerner, and then testified 80 times that he couldn't remember key details about communications with the Treasury Department about the scandal?

These facts would suggest any evolution should move in the opposite direction -- from outrage to even more outraged.

Instead, when Obama learns that his high-ranking ministers are invoking the Fifth Amendment and clamming up like mobsters, he becomes less outraged, and, apparently, begins to think this is all a "distraction."

The Washington Times' Joe Curl is noticing this odd evolution as well-- and Obama's bizarre claim that the entire scandal was invented by the media in order to punish a President they're hostile towards.

But President Obama, in an interview last week with sycophant Chris Matthews, now says the entire scandal was made up by the media.

“When we do things right, they don’t get a lot of attention,” the president said, no doubt sending a thrill up the MSNBC host’s leg. “If we do something that is perceived at least initially as a screw-up, it will be on the nightly news for a week.”
Like, say, deploying the nation’s tax watchdog to target political opponents? Just a “screw-up.”

You bet. Manufactured in the media.

In the Curious World of Barack Obama, a hostile media makes up lies about him to make him look bad.

Posted by: Ace at 08:32 AM | Comments (303)
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Shocker eh?

... A former senior intelligence official told me that the Obama administration had altered the available information – in terms of its timing and sequence – to enable the president and his advisers to make intelligence retrieved days after the attack look as if it had been picked up and analysed in real time, as the attack was happening...

...The same official said there was immense frustration inside the military and intelligence bureaucracy: ‘The guys are throwing their hands in the air and saying, “How can we help this guy” – Obama – “when he and his cronies in the White House make up the intelligence as they go along?”’...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:08 PM | Comments (80)
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Surely you're not surprised that the GOP really isn't committed to cutting spending are your? If so, I've got a bridge to sell you so leave your email address in the comments.

With lawmakers due back in town Tuesday, aides said [House Budget Committee Chairman Paul] Ryan and [Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman] Murray are likely to bypass the committee and take the deal, if finalized, straight to the full House and Senate. Congressional leaders hope to finish work quickly and leave town for the holidays as soon as Friday.

Senior aides familiar with the talks say the emerging agreement aims to partially repeal the sequester and raise agency spending to roughly $1.015 trillion in fiscal 2014 and 2015. That would bring agency budgets up to the target already in place for fiscal 2016. To cover the cost, Ryan and Murray are haggling over roughly $65 billion in alternative policies, including cuts to federal worker pensions and higher security fees for the nationÂ’s airline passengers.

Republican leaders are also seeking additional savings to knock a small dent in deficits projected to exceed $6 trillion over the next decade. But the deal would do nothing to trim the debt, which is now larger, as a percentage of the economy, than at any point in U.S. history except during World War II.

It became clear months ago when the House only passed appropriation bills that increased spending and not the ones that actually cut spending that the fix was in.

And don't buy the nonsense about fees (aka "taxes") or higher pension contributions offsetting some of the spending. First, like almost all stopgap gimmicks they are...gimmicks. Second, in the case of higher pension contributions, that should happen even with the sequester in place to reduce costs, not to offset new ones.

The biggest problem with the "off-set" flimflam is that even if it helps offset hiking the budget and the debt, it does nothing to shrink the size and scope of government. I've said it before and I still mean it, I'd rather a federal budget that takes up 17-18% of GDP and was out of balanced than a budget that consumes 24% and is balanced. Size and scope of government matter more than perfectly balancing the books.

Oh and when Team GOP types say, "well, we told you this would happen because you pushed the shutdown" ask them what in the world prevented the House from passing a "clean CR" that kept the sequester intact? If they answer anything other than "Um, nothing", they are lying.

Keep this betrayal in mind (and it will be a betrayal because you can bet Boehner's going to need Democrats to make this work) when Team GOP says "stop primarying Republicans and focus on Democrats!".

Until Republicans stop kicking conservatives in the shins, I'm all for conservatives kicking Republicans in the balls.

But hey, cheer up! Sure the GOP is going to sell you out on spending but they'll give you amnesty later in the year as a makeup present.

Feel better?

Posted by: DrewM at 06:27 AM | Comments (389)
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Happy Monday.

The agency that should be abolished told Congress last year that the case of a field office using mentally disabled teens in a failed sting operation and then arresting them for their participation was "an isolated case of inadequate supervision." It wasn't.

Covered California, the state's Obamacare exchange, gave consumers' personal information to insurance agents even though the consumers opted out of such information sharing. It was for their own good, you see: "I can imagine some people may be upset. . . . But I can see a lot of people will be comforted and relieved at getting the help they need to navigate a confusing process."

Oh, and the Obama administration no longer wants you to use paper forms to try and sign up for Obamacare. There isn't time enough to process them before the deadline.

Yet another state Obamacare exchange confesses it's having the same problems as the federal exchange website.

[ RSS]

[iTunes]

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:48 AM | Comments (235)
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Even Obama Can't Violate Fundamental Laws of Politics

There is an ironclad law of redistributive politics at play in the ACA (ObamaCare) fiasco.

This law is that concentrated interests almost always conquer diffuse interests.  Milk producers are a concentrated interest.  Milk consumers are a diffuse interest.  Guess which group is favored by the long history of milk price supports?  Dairy farmers get fat checks.  School teachers and plumbers and accountants pay more for milk.

One corollary to this law is that legislators try to create concentrated benefits and diffuse costs by separating the funding mechanism (taxes on all) from the supply of benefits (a local interest). Perhaps your community benefits from a community center, educational program, or a resurfaced highway.  Those projects almost always fail a simple cost-benefit test because if they made sense for local communities to do, they would just do them.  If they don't, they seek assistance from their representatives in Congress.

...Vulnerable Democrats in Congress are starting to panic because they are seeing the consequences of violating the law of diffuse and concentrated interests.  Those insurance cancellation letters and the higher prices faced by a portion of those shopping on the exchange are a small portion of the population (probably less than one percent), but they are highly concentrated, not to mention vocal.

Yep signs like this are a sign of a major politics FAIL:

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:35 PM | Comments (618)
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:00 AM | Comments (262)
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Open thread for all your political and off-topic needs.

Posted by: CAC at 04:45 PM | Comments (55)
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"In order to win this game, Carolina is going to have to score more points."

--from Stuff Chris Collingsworth Likes To Say

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:09 PM | Comments (160)
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[We Politely Request That All Off-Topic or Political Comments Be Directed to the Thread Directly Below This One, Which Will Serve Officially as the Current "Active Conversation" Thread for All Discussions Not Related To This Topic]

Welcome again to the Spaced-Out Challenge. Whether you have a question about a scope, a new astronomical discovery you want to expand on, or just want to kick back and enjoy the cosmos above, come one come all on our weekly journey through space and time.

This week, we kick off our comprehensive guide to the Winter sky with arguably the greatest constellation, Orion the Hunter. His seven brightest stars are resistant to the worst light pollution imaginable, and he contains too many wonders to count, but we'll try. Let me show you.

WARNING: slight blowout of margins for detailed map below. more...

Posted by: CAC at 04:50 PM | Comments (37)
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And whatever other topics the fetid swamps of your minds can imagine.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:54 AM | Comments (90)
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