Sorry, I've posted this late; I've missed Carter Hall's testimony. @LauraWalkerKC said he was "naming names, like a boss."

Here's a preview.

The star of today’s show will almost certainly be Carter Hull. When his name first popped up, it seemed that Hull might have been at the BOLO nexus, and possibly the key to the scandal. His testimony in depositions didn’t disappoint, either. Instead of being a driver of the effort, Hull told investigators that he had been placed in the “demeaning” position of having his approval authority stripped on Tea Party cases, which went to Washington and the IRS chief counsel’s office rather than concluded positively for the applicants, as he would have determined.

Expect Issa and Republicans to spend a lot of time with Hull, drawing him out on those points, and with Elizabeth Hofacre as well. She has been a gold mine of information on the lower-level operations, and will likely serve to rebut DemocratsÂ’ attempts to show equivalence between treatment of conservatives and progressives in the tax-exempt unit.

I mentioned Hull's testimony earlier; he claims that he was told to put Tea Party cases through Lerner and her Obama-appointee lawyer Wilkins. Hofacre, meanwhile, complained of interference from on-high in the course of her regular duties.

Hofacre said that she integrated questions from Hull into her follow-ups with Tea Party groups, and that Hull had to approve the letters seeking more information that she sent out to those organizations. That process, she said, was both unusual and “demeaning.”

...

“I thought it was over the top,” she added, in interviews held by investigators in both parties from the House Oversight and Ways and Means committees. “I am not sure where it came from, but it was a bit unusual.”

So, Hofacre said that Carter Hull had interfered with her regular job duties, instructing her to ask the Tea Party all sorts of improper questions; and Hull, in turn, says his directives actually came from Lerner and Wilkins.

Here's what the Democrats are saying: 1, "rush to judgment," 2, "politicized," 3, Darryl Issa called Jay Carney a "paid liar," boo hoo hoo, 4, "this isn't much of a scandal," 5, progressives were targeted too.

They're not seeking any information, just flacking and attempting to divert.

Posted by: Ace at 07:50 AM | Comments (291)
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This is what goon lawyers do after a disaster -- they seek out the victims and try to pressure them into agreements that limit the liability of their employer.

Wolf doesn't have proof of this. But he says "trusted sources" tell him this. Let's find out the truth of it.

"According to trusted sources that have contacted my office, many if not all of the survivors of the Benghazi attacks along with others at the Department of Defense, the CIA have been asked or directed to sign additional non-disclosure agreements about their involvement in the Benghazi attacks. Some of these new NDAs, as they call them, I have been told were signed as recently as this summer."

Wolf continued: "It is worth nothing that the Marine Corps Times yesterday reported that the Marine colonel whose task force was responsible for special operations in northern and western Africa at the time of the attack is still on active duty despite claims that he retired. And therefore could not be forced to testify before Congress.

"If these reports are accurate, this would be a stunning revelation to any member of Congress, any member of Congress that finds this out and also more importantly to the American people. It also raises serious concerns about the priority of the administration's efforts to silence those with knowledge of the Benghazi attack in response.

Here's that Marine Corps Times article noting that Colonel Bristol is apparently on an Administration-arranged half-retired/half-not plan.

Defense Department officials have told members of Congress that Bristol cannot be forced to testify because he retired after stepping down during a March change of command ceremony, according to several media reports. The Pentagon reinforced that point of view to Marine Corps Times on Tuesday.

...

That isnÂ’t the case, however. While Bristol is preparing for retirement, he is on active duty through the end of July, said Maj. Shawn Haney, a Marine spokeswoman, on Wednesday. He will be placed on the inactive list on Aug. 1, she said. That contradicts statements that Pentagon officials have issued to both Congress and the media.

I cannot say how wrong this is. These people, unlike the average victim of malfeasance, weren't even paid off. If they signed these NDAs, then they did so for the "compensation" of simply not having their refusal held against them; that is to say, their employer would have extracted the NDA based entirely on the implied threat that the employer would punish the employee if he didn't sign.

And this would be, once again, the Obama Administration pretending at "national security" as a pretext for simply hushing up negative information about him and his minions.

Posted by: Ace at 07:23 AM | Comments (161)
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• Virginia's Most Prolific Abortion Clinic Closes
  
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• Christine O'Donnell's Tax Records Were Leaked By The IRS On The Day She Announced Her Candidacy
  
• Republicans, White House In Talks Toward Big Fiscal Deal
  
• Hagel: Cut Top Brass By 20%
  
• Due To Increased Regulations, Millions Of Americans Abroad Force To Reconsider Citizenship
  
• WH Press Corps Pissed That The Daily Caller Sent An Intern To Ask A Real Question
  
• Jimmy Carter: Zimmerman Jury Made Right Decision
  
• The Unpleasant Profession Of Nancy Grace
  
• If America Descends Into Chaos Or Civil War, Be Sure To Make Friends With An Engineer
  
• PBS Launches Hilarious Fake TV Ad Campaign Lampooning Reality Shows
  
• House Votes To Delay Obamacare Mandates
  
• Martin Family Attorney, Duty To Be A Social Engineer
  
• Mover Got A Pretty Cool Tip
  

Follow me on twitter. You know, if it isn't too much trouble or anything.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:15 AM | Comments (246)
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Happy Thursday.

Retiring IRS officer will testify today that top IRS officials in Washinton, D.C. oversaw the conservative targeting program.

Bill Maher was booed on CBS' Late Show for his "jokes" about the Zimmerman verdict.

A good read by Allah and Mary Katherine Ham about D.C. journos getting fussed that they were upstaged by a 16 year-old intern.

Australia's two major parties both want to repeal a carbon tax created just last year. Turns out, that shit's not great for your economy.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (351)
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Why You're Not Going To Recall Marco Rubio

Here Moe Lane points out all the steps that would be necessary in order to recall Rubio over his push for amnesty (which apparently is a thing now).

1. Pass a Constitutional amendment in Congress that would permit states to recall federal legislators.  ANYBODY WHO IS TELLING YOU THAT THIS IS NOT A NECESSARY STEP IS EITHER WRONG, OR PERNICIOUS.  You will be able to tell which by whether or not that person is asking for your credit card number.
2. Have that Constitutional amendment get ratified by the states.
3. Pass legislation in Florida that would give the state the ability to recall federal legislators.
4. Start a recall on Marco Rubio.
5. Have it succeed.
6. Win the resulting recall election.

I'm a bit more optimistic than Lane is and think this could all be wrapped up by say late 2026.

Look we already have a process for getting rid of politicians that lie to us: elections. The next one is in 2016. Yeah it's a ways off but then generally a skilled politician is also capable of keeping the mask on most of the way through his first term.

And in case you missed it from Ace's earlier thread: Angela Corey is a Monster

The Thing Has Returned

To ESPN after 16 years. He's been given a fairly long leash there for now but is forbidden from talking about politics. Over/under is 9 months until his official quit-firing.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:53 PM | Comments (716)
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Movement progressives at the till of the IRS. This is what you get.

New testimony from IRS officials claims that Lois Lerner, the director of the IRS's Exempt Organizations division, instructed employees to send Tea Party group applications for tax-exempt status through a multi-layered review that included the IRS chief counsel's office, which is led by Obama appointee William Wilkins.

Lerner "sent me email saying ... when these cases need to go through multi-tier review and they will eventually have to [through her staff] and the chief counsel's office," said Michael Seto, the head of the IRS unit that was handling Tea Party applications.

This new testimony suggests that the decision to target Tea Party organizations came from Lerner herself, and that Wilkins' office was closely involved in some of the applications.

Tax law specialist Carter Hull, who works for Seto, testified that despite his 48 years of experience approving or denying tax-exempt status applications, he was told in the winter of 2010 that, at the direction of Lerner, the applications would need to be sent to the chief counsel's office for further review. Hull said never before in his nearly five-decade career had he been told to send applications up the pipeline.

And don't miss this from @benk84 -- Christine O'Donnell's tax records were leaked the day she announced her candidacy.

On March 9, 2010, the day she revealed her plan to run for the Senate in a press release, a tax lien was placed on a house purported to be hers and publicized. The problem was she no longer owned the house. The IRS eventually blamed the lien on a computer glitch and withdrew it.

Now Mr. Martel, a criminal investigator for the Treasury DepartmentÂ’s inspector general for tax administration, was telling her that an official in Delaware state government had improperly accessed her records on that very same day.

Posted by: Ace at 06:09 AM | Comments (390)
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You can hash this out.

Posted by: Ace at 03:42 PM | Comments (367)
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He asked a question -- basically, is Obama doing anything to help George Zimmerman stay safe?

Something that no one in the media did. Go figure.

This is a place where people sit in assigned seats, where there's a flag at the front of the room, and where a man sits at a podium and says things that people write down in their notebooks. Oh, and where you raise your hand to be called on to ask a question.

Obviously this is no place for a high schooler!

Posted by: Ace at 03:21 PM | Comments (183)
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I don't expect it to be a long interview. Here's the pre-match tale of the tape.

Oh, Rite Aid has now announced it's boycotting the Rolling Stone Jahar issue.

Wow, once one of these drug stores gets on board the rest follow suit, eh?

And now: K-Mart.

I kind of can't believe people were going to Rite Aid, CVS, and K-Mart and buying Rolling Stone. Is the magazine that prominent? I'd think you'd have to go to a magazine store or a guitar shop or something.

I wonder how many of these awful magazines it sells.

Oh: And Angela Corey is a monster.

More: Via @rdbrewer4, a parody of the Rolling Stone cover.

Posted by: Ace at 02:00 PM | Comments (483)
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I mean they're denouncing Rolling Stone. Some of these guys, like Kevin Sorbo, are known to be conservative leaning. Others, I have no idea. At the end of this post, there are a links to a bunch of people attacking Rolling Stone.

CVS tweeted it would not sell the magazine, out of respect for the victims. I assume they mean they won't display it; they already weren't selling it.

Who the hell buys this magazine?

Walgreen's later joined the boycott.

Rolling Stone defended their shameless bid for attention as well within the traditions of hucksterism, I mean journalism, as if that's an excuse.

I didn't think this story would go anywhere -- just a typical day for the media -- but now I think Rolling Stone is actually going to suffer for this.

Oh: here's Boston Mayor Menino's letter to Rolling Stone.

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (423)
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