Also as a columnist.

On the Me Frong, I don't want to whine to you guys but I'm So Sick Serious You Guys and it's damn heroic that I'm able to soldier on.

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (146)
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Directors of the IRS are apparently "low level employees."

This article is full of important stuff but I'll just quote two parts. But read it all.

The director of the Internal Revenue Service division under fire for singling out conservative groups sent a 2012 letter under her name to one such group, POLITICO has learned. The March 2012 letter was sent to the Ohio-based American Patriots Against Government Excess (American PAGE) under the name of Lois Lerner, the director of the Exempt Organizations Division...at the time of the letter, the group was in the midst of the application process for tax-exempt nonprofit status — a process that would stretch for nearly three years and involve queries for detailed information on its social media activity, its organizational set-up, bylaws, membership and interactions with political officials. The letter threatened to close American PAGE’s case file unless additional information was received within 60 days.

And:

In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked. That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn't be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months. In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows. As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like "Progress" or "Progressive," the liberal groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.

As @benk84's action-packed headline thread already noted, Obama's very own 501(c)4 -- Organizing for America, and yes, that's a 501(c)4 -- got approved in record time, as did a "charity" run by his half brother.

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the presidentÂ’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.

Labor groups were also granted their status without a hitch.

And note that seven Democratic Senators wrote a letter to the IRS demanding just this treatment of conservative 501(c)4's.

Which is all the more an intriguing clue when one considers this: An important event in this process, the inciting event, actually, is deleted from the IG Report's timeline.

This event is not the Democratic Senators' letter; that happened much later, in 2012. This event seems to have occurred on February 25, 2010. But we do know this sort of an idea is apparently attractive to Democrats, the idea that we have to use the IRS to deny the applications of conservative groups, because they're "abusing" the law. (Unlike OFA, MMFA, labor groups, etc.)

What happened on this day to set this witchhunt into motion?

Did someone in the White House or Justice give an order? The event is labeled as being an email sent.

We can't know because the IG report is blacking the event out.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (591)
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Late last night I wrote about the White House's new claim -- that the Benghazi emails quoted by the media were "doctored." From Brad Woodhouse, Democrat Party Communications Director.

Want to know the real story?

I warned people off this spin today, reminding them of the fact that investigators were not permitted to make copies of the emails. They were only permitted to view them.

So of course there are going to be differences -- the White House is refusing to allow people to have the actual verbatim copies! All of these quotes come from a limited reading period and note-taking.

White House conclusion? They're doctoring emails!

Note the game they're playing -- they release one email, refusing to release the rest, just to quibble over phrasing in a quote of the email. And yet they themselves have it within their power to guarantee accurate quotes, by simply releasing the emails publicly. But they refuse to, citing, I imagine, "national security."

Which suddenly isn't such a very big concern when they have the opportunity to make a "doctored email" claim.

Well, it turns out that not even the media is stupid enough to fall for this tactic, and is now telling the White House to release all the emails.

Jake Tapper, who got a little burned and I would guess a little embarrassed by the White House's dishonest use of him, is similarly calling for the full emails to be released, and not just select snippets where the White House contrives a scandal out of a typo.

Posted by: Ace at 10:00 AM | Comments (239)
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Live stream here. I'm coming to it late; I think it may have begun at 1.

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (184)
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Hoax: Ah, I'm not even embarrassed. I kind of doubted it was true. But how I can I not link it?

...

What were the odds.

Hasse" which was known in Ystad tavern circles, had a total of 146 wasp sting on the body including 54 on the genitals, including the scrotum. He was so bloated that a neighbor thought it was a whale carcasses lying on the lawn.

- What's that? Yeah right ..! Thought at first that it was a kind of choice, so I called "Hasse" to ask what the hell he was doing, but he did not so I was a little worried. I walked up to the body and then I recognized his tattoo on his neck, representing a little angel who is rocking. I have never in my life seen such a swollen pelvic bone. It hid the whole package on him, yes it hung over and, despite the scrotum was enlarged. Right now it feels heavy and unreal. We did not talk very often, but he was still my neighbor, says Bertil Ståhfrääs before limping off and blows his nose in an old handkerchief.

"To attempt to have intercourse with a hornet's nest is a very bad idea"

So's climbing Mount Everest, but there's a little matter of The Glory.

Via @comradearthur and @dloesch.

Oh, and speaking of grotesquely large testicles:

David Axelrod, after having fought for five years to blow up the size of government to Leviathan scale, now uses the size of government to excuse Obama's scandals-- No man could run a "government so vast."

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:11 AM | Comments (254)
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Via TMI3rd, why, people would be nuts to worry about big government.

The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.

According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.

"This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents," the complaint reads. "No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records," it continued.

You know, maybe we need to put the whole ObamaCare thing on pause.

Meanwhile, I'm off to update my Scandal Scorecard. I think we have a new leader.

*I changed the headline from "released" to "accessed" to better reflect the story. Thanks to Comrade Arthur for the suggestion.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:26 AM | Comments (306)
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Cooke (follow him on Twitter) has been a revelation at National Review. (link added/fixed thanks to CBD)

On May 5, Barack Obama shamefully told graduating students at Ohio State University:
Unfortunately, youÂ’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity thatÂ’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. TheyÂ’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we canÂ’t be trusted.

This statement is telling. Contrary to the manner in which both Al Gore and President Obama customarily use the term, “self-rule” does not in fact describe a process by which the citizen submits himself to the state and, in return, is given occasion to cast a vote on how the government may run the more significant parts of his life. Instead, “self-rule” denotes a system in which a free man may maintain control over the lion’s share of his decisions while maintaining some say over the government’s conduct in those few areas where it is necessary for government to operate.

...

Why, you might ask, do I use “paranoia,” instead of the more palatable “skepticism”? Paranoia, after all, is an involuntary reaction — less of a tendency to “wait and see” than a recipe for constant fear. I will tell you why: because reflexive suspicion of government power is a magnificent and virtuous tendency, and one that should be the starting point of all political conversation in a free republic.

Go. Read it all.

Sad that it takes a young man (I think he's in his mid-20s) from the United Kingdom to remind, or more worryingly educate for the first time, so many Americans of their birthright of freedom.

In a better world, Cooke would be at the Washington Post and Ezra "The Constitution is old" Klein would be back at Pandagon (or whatever lefty swamp he emerged from).

By the way, you know who all this talk of tyranny and government overreach benefits? This guy.

Via Monty, Jonah Goldberg takes issue with Cooke's defense of the word "paranoia". I don't know. It's a polemic. A little license is allowed.

Via RD (blogging is a team effort) Cooke responds to Goldberg.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:26 AM | Comments (192)
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• So How Did Obama's Organizing for Action Get Its 501c4 Approval So Quickly
  
• Complete Copy Of Treasury Report On IRS Targeting Of Tea Party And Conservatives
  
• IRS Targeted More Conservative Groups Than Initially Thought
  
• Classy: Anonymous Officials Claim Chris Stevens Turned Down Enhanced Benghazi Security
  
• Two Bald Eagles In Air Battle Crash Land At Airport
  
• The Myth Of The Scientific Liberal
  
• Navy Launches Drone From Aircraft Carrier
  
• IRS Scandal Raises Fears About Enforcing Obamacare
  
• Seven Pakistanis And Saudis Caught Trespassing At Reservoir
  
• Networks Reluctant To Attach Obama's Name To AP Scandal
  
• A Small Business Owner Explains The Hard Facts Of Obamacare To His Employees
  
• Media Matters Posts Talking Points To Defend DOJ Spying
  
• A Brief History Of IRS Political Targeting
  
• Controversies Threaten President Obama's Second Term Agenda
  
• German Homeschooling Family's Request For Asylum Denied
  
• The NTSB Recommends Lowering The Blood Alcohol Limit to 0.05
  
• Argentina, Buy A Bond Or Go To Jail
  
• Columbia Professor Unleashed Anti-Jew Screed
  
• Ohio Kidnap Suspect To Plead Not Guilty
  
• Kentucky Man Has Feast In Grocery Store, Huffs Whipped Cream, Craps Pants, Hides In Ceiling
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:33 AM | Comments (270)
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Steven Den Beste sent some thoughts along about President Obama's collapsing second term, which I'm happy to share with ya'll.

So you and me, imagine that we're good little liberals, members of the press. All our friends are liberals, and all our co-workers, and the people we work for, and everyone whose opinions we respect, all liberals. Yeah, out there somewhere are those people, those damned conservatives, but they don't matter. They are an obstruction, buncha racists, stupid, venal, and the sooner they're sidelined and ignored, the better. In the mean time, good little liberals like us have to work to advance the program, right? Breitbart et al need not apply.

And after a long hard struggle we've managed to get a black man into the Presidency. Imagine that! We never thought we'd live to see it, did we? And yet, here we are and there he is. It's a tremendous achievement. We managed to convince the country to try it out with a president who isn't a white male, and we should all feel proud of ourselves!

But will it open doors, or slam them shut? Obama can't be president forever. (There's that damned 22nd Amendment, and there's no way we're going to get it repealed in time.) Once it's over, when the voting public looks back on it, will they think it was a success? The next time someone who isn't a white male runs for President, will people say, "Yes, maybe she'll be another Obama!" or will they say, "Hell no! She might be another Obama!"

The fact of him getting elected is only half the job. The other half is making sure his legacy is strong. Which is why we good little liberal press folk are doing our damndest to try to present him in the most positive light we can, loudly trumpeting his achievements (few though they've been -- hey, did you hear that he bagged Bin Laden?) and ignoring his failures, as common as they have been. (Fast and Furious? What's that? Trillion dollar deficits? Never heard of them.)

Remember Bob Woodward? He has Nixon's head hanging on his wall. And until just recently Bob Woodward was something of a living saint among good little liberal press folk for that achievement. Spoken of in whispers, respected and idolized, he's one of the Gods of liberal pressdom. It's been the dream of other liberal press folk to do the same thing, ever since, and have they ever tried. It was obvious during Reagan's presidency and it approached a fevered pitch during the Presidency of George W. Bush.

But no one wants to hang Obama's head on their wall. Any good little liberal press person who does that will be scorned for the rest of their lives by all the people they know whose opinions they value. You! You're the one who ruined it all! It'll be a hundred years until we can get another non-white-male elected, and it's all your fault!

No one wants to be the one who breaks the spell, even though the Emperor truly does not have any clothes. Everyone is thinking the same thing: You know, Obama really isn't a very good president. Truth to tell, he's been terrible. People voted for him because he was black. He's the first Affirmative Action President.

They're all thinking that, but it's, you know, racist and if anyone says it, they could start the process of ruining everything. Whichever good little liberal press person comes out and says that, and starts the preference cascade, will probably be fired, and won't be able to find another job with anyone more reputable than The National Enquirer. And they'll spend their lives knowing that instead of the Obama Presidency being a solid step in the right liberal direction, that instead it was a huge leap backwards because it convinced the American public to not trust anyone like Obama ever again!

So even though we're increasingly uncomfortable acting as a shill for the government instead of as an opposing force, the way we always thought the press was supposed to be, we'll keep doing it because the consequences for ourselves (and the country) if we tell the truth would be unconscionable.

Now if Breitbart was still alive, he'd gleefully be revealing everything and screaming about it. And the people carrying on for him are trying their best. Obviously none of the above applies to them. But despite their best efforts they are still marginalized and few hear them. It is still the mainstream, where good little liberals dominate, where all this is happening. Their power to control the national agenda has been declining for the last fifteen years but it isn't yet gone, and I think this is the main reason why they continue to protect Obama.

This week's dam burst of negative news may make an end to it. It's just too big. They can't ignore it, and despite their best attempts they can't tamp it down. Will this be the end of the protective press?

Probably not, but it may be too big for them to fight, even though I expect they still will try. Obama's legacy is now toast, and when Obamacare implementation gets botched it's only going to get worse.

Steven Den Beste can be found these days at chizumatic.mee.nu, where he's talking anime and other things that pass his fancy.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:05 AM | Comments (144)
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Happy Wednesday.

We're starting to see some polling for 2016. Marquette Law School asked GOP voters in Wisconsin who they'd like to see run. 27% said Rep. Ryan. 21% said Sen. Rubio. 16% said Gov. Walker, 11% said Christie, 7% said Sen. Paul, Gov. Bush got 5% and Gov. Jindal squeaked in as the choice of 1%. Wisconsinite Democrats were more solid, with 62% choosing Sec. Clinton. Biden was named by 13%.

Sentences like this tickle me: "Democrats are privately befuddled by the White HouseÂ’s flat-footed handling of this P.R. and legal mess, blaming a combination of bad timing, hubris and communications ineptitude." "Privately," huh, which is why we're reading about it in the papers?

Someone noted on Twitter yesterday that being criticized by John Stewart will probably bother the President more than all kvetching by the White House journalists.

Yesterday, Minnesota became the 12th state (plus DC) to legalize gay marriage. It's the third state to do so this month.

Europe continues to circle the drain; France just joined the rest of the eurozone (except Germany) in recession.

Update: Forgot to mention that JohnE. and I will be on Bruce Carroll's Match Game tonight at the 405 Radio, along with Steven Crowder, Michael Graham, Kellie Maher, and Kristina Ribali. 7pm.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (371)
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