One of the biggest jokes in politics is when a corrupt administration starts talking exclusively about reforming policy.

When Al Gore took money from Chinese nuns who were pass-throughs for illegal donations from the Chinese government, what spin did he and his media allies employ? That The System needs to be reformed.

And what of Al Gore? Does Al Gore himself need to be held accountable?

Nay. Just The System.

From the Washington Post, note how Dan Pfeiffer strains to push the investigation away from anything resembling personal consequences for law-breakers:

“I can’t speak to the law here. The law is irrelevant,” Pfefiffer said on ABC News’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed to ensure it never happens again.”

Stephanopoulos replied: “You don’t really mean the law is irrelevant, do you?”

Pfeiffer responded: “What I mean is, whether it’s legal or illegal is not important to the fact that the conduct doesn’t matter. The Department of Justice has said that they’re looking into the legality of this. The president is not going to wait for that. We have to make sure it does not happen again, regardless of how that turns out.”

The law is "irrelevant." We do not need to talk about who broke what law, or who should be charged with what crime. All we need to do is change some policies and call it a day.

Is that the way an Administration which is alleged "outraged" speaks? Is this the language of an Administration which is determined to find out who's at fault?

No. It's the language of an Administration which doesn't want anyone prosecuted.

And why should that be? Why does Obama care about the legal jeopardy faced by a "low level employee"? He's got the YouTube filmmaker in jail; this is obviously not a man much concerned with the welfare of useful political scapegoats.

You can either throw a "policy" under the bus or you can throw a person under the bus.

There is one huge advantage to throwing a policy under the bus: Policies do not begin leaking to the media and then turn on their higher-ups when they're thrown under the bus.

People do. People will keep quiet... so long as you protect them from legal consequences. But when faced with such consequences, they tend to talk.

Policies do not.

Policies are the most useful scapegoat at all.

Obama's spokesman Dan Pfeiffer only wishes to discuss Severe Consequences which will befall a Policy. He only wants to talk about the future, not about punishing past misdeeds.

Why?

I know one thing: He's pursuing the Perfect Strategy if he wants people to stay shut-up and wants to keep people from sharing all they know.

I don't think this is an accident.

I think it's the plan.

And if it is the plan -- which it is -- why would Obama want to keep the investigation as small and limited as possible, if he really has no fear of what people might say were they to be charged with a crime?

Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (381)
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She's a little tentative about stating, as a fact, that her computer was breached; I think she's saying she suspects it, and has people looking into it, but isn't quite sure yet.

I sure hope she hasn't jumped the gun on this allegation, because she's one of the only "mainstream" media reporters who doesn't take Obama's word as the Gold Standard, and actually bothers checking up on whether he's telling the truth.

All other "mainstream" reporters take it as a fact that Obama cannot like -- being Jesus-like -- and so if he says "I've looked into and cleared myself," that's the end of the inquiry.

This would be the End of Things if true.

Incidentally, the DoJ says it doesn't "anticipate" filing charges against James Rosen for espionage.

Of course not. That was just a fraud perpetrated on the court to get access to his emails.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:53 AM | Comments (334)
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Livestream.

The Democrats only want to discuss whether the 501(c)4 rules should be tightened, that is, they don't want to talk about politically targeting at all. They are coming very, very close to flat-out justifying Obama's IRS' actions.

Some small news: Steve Miller now admits the question asked of Lori Lerner was planted, walking back his previous ambiguity.

The author of the IG Report notes that the IRS staffers who denied a political motivation in their targeting did so not under oath.

Not under oath? There's almost no point in asking questions, then.

Posted by: Ace at 07:30 AM | Comments (207)
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And, now that it's been in the news, President Obama might even know it. (Sorry to canibalize twitter content, but it's this or a music video.)

And to cap it off, 50% say President Obama deserves at least a little blame for the IRS targeting of conservatives.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:50 AM | Comments (186)
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Meet Raymond Maxwell, the man who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs at the time of the Benghazi attack.

Raymond Maxwell was placed on forced “administrative leave” after the State Department’s own internal investigation, conducted by an Administrative Review Board (ARB) led by former State Department official Tom Pickering. Five months after he was told to clean out his desk and leave the building, Maxwell remains in professional and legal limbo, having been associated publicly with the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American for reasons that remain unclear.

...

The decision to place Maxwell on administrative leave was made by ClintonÂ’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills, according to three State Department officials with direct knowledge of the events. On the day after the unclassified version of the ARBÂ’s report was released in December, Mills called Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones and directed her to have Maxwell leave his job immediately.

"Cheryl Mills directed me to remove you immediately from the [deputy assistant secretary] position," Jones told Maxwell, according to Maxwell.

The decision to remove Maxwell and not Jones seems to conflict with the finding of the ARB that responsibility for the security failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi should fall on more senior officials.

“We fixed [the responsibility] at the assistant secretary level, which is in our view the appropriate place to look, where the decision-making in fact takes place, where, if you like, the rubber hits the road," Pickering said when releasing the ARB report.

So what happened to the Maxwell's superior (the above mentioned Assistant Secretary of State for Near Easter Affairs, the level at which the State Departments on review said was where responsibility should be fixed? Nothing. But her top deputy did get promoted to the number two spot in London. If that's punishment, then sign me up.

Maxwell and others at State say he had nothing to do with security decisions and that he's essentially taking the fall for Hillary. In a wonderfully Clintonian twist, the forced leave isn't considered a punishment so Maxwell can't avail himself of internal State Department disciplinary mechanisms to try and clear his name.

Lovely stuff, huh?

In related news, State released a statement on how they will implement the findings of the Accountability Review Board. Short version...more bureaucracy.

1. The Department must strengthen security for personnel and platforms beyond traditional reliance on host government security support in high risk, high threat posts.

The Department established a High Threat Board to review our presence at High Threat, High Risk posts; the Board will review these posts every 6 months.

We created a Deputy Assistant Secretary for High Threat Posts in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS), who is responsible for ensuring that such posts receive the focused attention they need.

2. The Board recommends that the Department re-examine DS organization and management, with a particular emphasis on span of control for security policy planning for all overseas U.S. diplomatic facilities.

The Department established a six-person panel to thoroughly review DSÂ’s organization and management structure; the panel has developed draft findings.

There are more items but all in the same line. They are acting as if the issue is the information on the situation either wasn't available or didn't get to the right people. This is simply not what happened.

People on the ground had an accurate read on the situation, they made repeated requests for additional security resources and the people in decision making positions simply said, "no".

All this "action" list does is give you a preview of the people who will be blamed the next time this happens. Unless this new Deputy Assistant Secretary has control of the security budget and the power to assign resources, whoever is dumb enough to take this gig will simply be the next Raymond Maxwell.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:16 AM | Comments (160)
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• OK Tornado Winds Went Up To 200mph
  
• Tornado Survivor Finds Her Dog Under Rubble During A TV Interview
  
• Pictures Of Tornado Aftermath
  
• At Least 91* Dead As Of Right Now
  
• Daily Show Creator Mocks Victims Of Tornadoes
  
• NARAL Opposes Ban On Elective Third Trimester Abortions
  
• Obama Scandals Bring MSNBC To Seven Year Low
  
• Has An Iron Curtain Descended On The Cincinnati IRS Office?
  
• How Hope And Change Gave Way To Spying On The Press
  
• Three Signs There Is A Cover-up
  
• Left Wastes Now Time Politicizing The OK Tragedy
  
• Texas Drops Anti-American Curriculum
  
• Conservatives Concerned About Immigration
  
• This Teen's Invention Could Allow You To Charge Your Phone In 30 Seconds Or Less
  
• Majority Believe Obama's IRS Targeting Of Tea Party Was Intentional And Illegal
  
• It's Never A Good Idea To Mess With Israel
  
• The President's Budget Numbers Don't Add Up
  
• Woman Tries To Get Rid Of Her Toddler On Craigslist
  
• When Fascism Comes To America..
  
• Emily Miller: DC Mayor Was In On David Gregory Cover-up
  
• Nidal Hassan Has Received More Thant 278,000 In Salary Since The Fort Hood Terror Attack
  

*It looks like that number is being revised down due to accidental double counting.

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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:05 AM | Comments (255)
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Happy Tuesday.

On IRS scandal, 56 percent think it's a deliberate attempt to harass conservative organizations. (The other 44 percent are apparently dumber than dirt.) 45 percent suspect a cover-up, while 42 percent instead see full transparency.

The White House's claim that the GOP "doctored" the Benghazi emails gets three Pinocchios. Ain't nobody got time fo dat.

Labor unions are starting to freak out about Obamacare. Apparently, they thought they'd be getting more favorable treatment than they're getting.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (349)
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http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2011/tables/table-12

Table 12 - The FBI hate crime data Morris Dees has nightmares about.

Compare/contrast the "progressive" enlightened northern states with the redneck racist southern states.

NB. Mississippi, had a grand total of "1" (one, uno, ein) hate crime reported in 2011.

NY and FL ( both with ~18-19M population sizes reporting) had respectively 544 and 123. IOW - NY had ~5X more reported hate crimes per unit population reporting than FL did.

Perhaps the SPLC should relocate their base of operations to say NYC or Boston?

And WTF is up with CT? for a small progressive state, they really know how to bring the hate. CT is definitely "punching above their weight class".

Of course the FBI is like totally racist publishing such reichwing, planted KKK faked data poppycock. Dude overseeing that shit must be a freaking Grand Wizard or sumthin...I'm just saying.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:08 PM | Comments (76)
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Bookworm: The IRS Scandal is the Worst Political Scandal in American History

And she makes a good case that it is. I can't think of any other scandal where the government actually engaged in widespread extra-legal stifling of dissent on ideological grounds.

Ignore all that. The absolute worst scandal that's emerged lately, and the worst administration scandal in American history is the IRS scandal. Why? Because you, the People, became the targets of a comprehensive federal government effort to stifle dissent, one made using the government's overwhelming and disproportionate policing and taxing powers.

All of the other scandals, going back to Andrew Johnson's post-Civil War scandals, Warren G. Harding's 1920s Teapot Dome scandal, Nixon's Watergate, Reagan's Iran-Contra, and Clinton's Oval Office sexcapades have actually been narrowly focused acts of cronyism, garden-variety political chicanery, or personal failings. It's been insider stuff.

The IRS scandal, by contrast, is a direct attack on the American people. Right now, Progressives throughout America are pretending that this scandal doesn't matter: "Obama wasn't involved." "Tea Partiers had it coming because they're all corrupt." "Obama would have won the election anyway." "It was just a coincidence that the only groups that had their applications scrutinized, sometimes for years, were politically conservative. It means nothing that, when one group changed its name to sound Progressive, its application was approved in only three weeks." "This is just a bureaucratic snafu." "It's a few rogue agents in Ohio."

And whenever you see illegal thuggery, be sure and look for the union label. No doubt the NTEU's 94% donation rate to Democrats is completely irrelevant to how they would treat conservatives as IRS employees.

Or maybe not. And clearly they're not willing to go after these known tax scofflaws.

So if the president and the NTEU are colluding to punish their enemies, do we have any recourse at all?

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:03 PM | Comments (795)
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False flag.

When Alex Jones makes up absurd False Flag theories, we call it crazy.

What about MSNBC? Do they get a pass? Why? Just because they're feeding the appetite of unhinged leftists for political pornography?

Posted by: Ace at 03:17 PM | Comments (195)
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