CHILD#1: In regards to Benghazi, what did you know and when did you know it?
CHILD#2: Mitch McConnell says you govern my intimidation. Is that true?
CHILD#3: Isn’t it unconstitutional to secretly obtain phone records of AP reporters?
CHILD#4: Are Eric Holder’s days numbered?
CHILD#5: Who inside hatched the plan to target conservatives?
And Krauthammer sings “Not Fade Away”:
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On television we are watching round the clock coverage of the tornado disaster in Oklahoma. We wish Oklahoma and its wonderful Obama-rejecting citizens well in these hours of post-disaster search and rescue.
We wish Oklahoma well and we do not begrudge the attention provided to the natural, weather induced, disaster. Still, for those of us happy at last to see some scrutiny of the Barack Obama Mud House there is some concern. The concern is that this natural disaster will cover-up the unnatural disaster which is Barack Obama and his tenure in national office.
Some might wonder, “Are the Barack Obama scandals already fading?”
In our previous article we stated that our test for Big Media is how clear Big Media sees and how clearly Big Media communicates to the American public that “All the scandals erupting now have one common theme and that is the reelection of Barack Obama. Every recent crime, “lapse of judgment”, “ethically questionable action” committed has been done to reelect Barack Obama.”
Some reporters such as Lisa Myers have inched perilously close, like a ballerina on a high wire, to passing our test. But that was before the winds of Oklahoma blew away Barack Obama scandal coverage from the front pages of Big Media. What has happened in Big Media since Oklahoma’s disaster? Is it already over? Is flim-flam man Barack Obama once again one step ahead of the sheriff?
Consider the latest column from one of the ugliest and persistent Barack Obama defender priests - Eugene Robinson:
“Obama administration mistakes journalism for espionage
The Obama administration has no business rummaging through journalists’ phone records, perusing their e-mails and tracking their movements in an attempt to keep them from gathering news. This heavy-handed business isn’t chilling, it’s just plain cold.
It also may well be unconstitutional. In my reading, the First Amendment prohibition against “abridging the freedom . . . of the press” should rule out secretly obtaining two months’ worth of the personal and professional phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors, including calls to and from the main AP phone number at the House press gallery in the Capitol. Yet this is what the Justice Department did.
The unwarranted snooping, which was revealed last week, would be troubling enough if it were an isolated incident. But it is part of a pattern that threatens to redefine investigative reporting as criminal behavior.
The Post reported Monday that the Justice Department secretly obtained phone and e-mail records for Fox News reporter James Rosen, and that the FBI even tracked his movements in and out of the main State Department building. Rosen’s only apparent transgression? Doing what reporters are supposed to do, which is to dig out the news.
In both instances, prosecutors were trying to build criminal cases under the 1917 Espionage Act against federal employees suspected of leaking classified information. Before President Obama took office, the Espionage Act had been used to prosecute leakers a grand total of three times, including the 1971 case of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Obama’s Justice Department has used the act six times. And counting.”
Obama lovin’ Robinson recognizes that the real aim of these acts is intimidation. “Every investigative reporter, however, has been put on notice.” Eugene Robinson is loathe to write even a teeny-weeney bad word about his darling Barack, but even Eugene is chillin’ on B.O.
“Hey, remember when Steve Miller insisted there’s nothing illegal about the IRS targeting a particular political faction for extra scrutiny? He was wrong, potentially: There are civil-rights laws in play as well as the Hatch Act, plus some of the IRS’s own regulations for employee conduct. Lois Lerner and her lawyer know the score:
“Carney said Ruemmler was informed by the Treasury Department’s General Counsel’s office April 24 that the Inspector General for Tax Administration was completing a report that found that IRS employees improperly scrutinized political organizations seeking tax exempt status by searching their applications for words including “Tea Party” and “patriot.”
The previous week, on April 16, Ruemmler had learned more generally that there were a number of Inspector General reports being finalized and an IRS investigation was among those investigations, Carney said.
Carney’s comments today are at odds with what he told reporters last week, when he said the White House counsel “only found out about the review being conducted and coming to conclusion by the inspector general.”
“The White House on Monday once again added to the list of people who knew about the IRS investigation into its targeting of conservative groups — saying White House chief of staff Denis McDonough had been informed about a month ago.
Press secretary Jay Carney said again that no one had told President Barack Obama ahead of the first news reports: not his top aide McDonough, nor his chief counsel Kathy Ruemmler, nor anyone from the Treasury Department.
Monday’s revelation amounts to the fifth iteration of the Obama administration’s account of events, after initially saying that the White House had first learned of the controversy from the press.
Republicans said they were on the lookout for the next installment in the White House’s ever-shifting narrative.“
“It’s been only a week since the president told the world that he had learned about the “outrageous” actions of the IRS’ Cincinnati office from “news reports” on May 10. We now know that those reports stemmed from a disclosure the administration had planned and that, in fact, “senior officials” in the White House knew the essence of a damning inspector general’s report on the matter as early as April 24. [snip]
Last Tuesday, I asked White House press secretary Jay Carney about a passing reference he had made the day before in his briefing: that the White House Counsel’s Office had been informed about the impending report “several weeks ago.”
How did that square, I wanted to know, with the president’s own statement that he hadn’t learned about the matter until May 10? And what did the counsel’s office learn in April? Weren’t those explosive matters worth being passed on to higher-ups? [snip]
With two winning presidential campaigns built on successful grassroots fundraising, with a former White House counsel (in 2010-11) who is one of the Democrats’ leading experts on campaign law (Bob Bauer), with former top campaign officials having been ensconced as staffers in the White House (David Axelrod, who left for the reelection campaign in early 2011, and Dan Pfeiffer among others), it’s hard to imagine that the Obama inner circle was oblivious to the issue of what the IRS was doing in Cincinnati.
That may well be true. Maybe they didn’t care one whit what the IG was going to say. But they sure haven’t been behaving that way in the last week.“
“You know, a White House that just got exposed for spying on journalists probably should be doing some bridge-rebuilding, especially for an administration who needs a friendly media as much as this one does. What’s the worst possible way to get back in the media’s good graces? Accusing them of being conspiracy nuts for asking about Kathleen Sebelius’ fundraising for ObamaCare, starting with CBS’ Major Garrett, who just got done fronting the Benghazi e-mail defense demolished by Glenn Kessler today.”
Yeah, that’s the ticket. That’s how not to draw attention from the Oklahoma disaster.
It’s a Senate hearing, not a Republican House hearing, which will be chaired by Max Baucus. Read the letter sent by the Finance Committee to the IRS (pdf format) and you will see what amounts to an proctologist’s exam:
“1. Provide a copy of any and all questions, questionnaires and information requests used by the IRS to attempt to elicit additional information from 501(c)(3)-(6) applicants from February 1, 2010 to the present regarding their donor lists, volunteer lists, financial support for, and relationships with, political candidates, and any and all other similar information. [snip]
4. How many applications for each tax-exempt status, 501(c) (3)-(6), were filed and processed each year from FY 2005 through the present? In addition, provide the number of people in the Determinations Unit tasked with handling these applications during each fiscal year. [snip]
29. Provide copies of all documents, between any IRS employee and anyone else, including, but not limited to, individuals outside of the IRS, that were generated as a consequence of, or relate to, the letters sent by members of the Congress to the IRS since 2012 regarding the issue of inappropriately targeting organizations seeking 501 (c) (4) status for heightened scrutiny. [snip]
39. Provide documents relating to communications between any and all IRS employees and any and all White House employees including, but not limited to, the President, regarding the targeting of organizations seeking 501 (c)(3), (4), (5), or (6) tax-exempt status for full development or heightened scrutiny based on the existence of certain words or phrases in their applications, from February 2010 to the present. This includes any documents relating to communications received by any IRS employee from the White House or Treasury, whether or not the IRS employee was simply the recipient of such a communication from either the White House or Treasury.”
“The story itself would be huge — making a connection earlier than the IG report’s first leak, which came from Lois Lerner herself at the IRS. Don’t forget that Obama yesterday parsed his response very carefully when it came to knowing about the targeting at the IRS. He would only say that he first became aware of the IG report last Friday; he left open the question of when he first knew about the targeting.
If Ruemmler knew about it earlier than that, it becomes a much bigger problem for Obama. First, just as with the IRS chief counsel’s briefing on the matter in August 2011, it’s almost impossible to believe that the lawyers wouldn’t immediately tell their bosses what was going on, unless they had good reason to believe their bosses already knew about it. If Obama found out a few weeks before the IG report came out, why didn’t he act then to clean house at the IRS? And it then also prompts the Watergate-ish question: What did the President know, and when did he know it?“
“I’ve been told today by several reporters that President Obama’s White House counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, knew for several days — perhaps weeks —that some Internal Revenue Service officials were engaging in political targeting of conservative groups, and that she did not tell the president as soon as she knew even partial reports about the story.
With all due respect to someone who has impeccable legal credentials, if she did have such foreknowledge and didn’t inform the president immediately, I respectfully suggest Ms. Ruemmler is in the wrong job and that she should resign. [snip]
If Ms. Ruemmler did know about this IRS story and didn’t inform the president immediately, then, respectfully, that must mean she didn’t appreciate fully the mammoth legal and political implications for the U.S. government as well as the American people of a story involving IRS officials abusing power and possibly violating criminal laws.
It is also hard to understand why some people in the media who apparently knew about this foreknowledge by the White House counsel and her failure to tell the president missed this story and its significance.“
Lanny Davis is lighting the path, with blazing torches, for investigators – right into the Oval Office. Lanny knows exactly what he is doing. No one believes that a White House counsel would know about criminal activity in the IRS and not tell the president. As to Big Media knowing about criminal activity and keeping quiet in order to protect Barack Obama?
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Update II: Would you eat from a kitchen run by Jeffrey Dahmer? Think about ObamaCare run by the woman who targeted Tea Party groups – will you willingly provide her with information as to your health so that information can be used against you to suppress your free speech rights or even economic rights? For her malevolent efforts to target “Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harassment” this tainted bureaucrat received over $100,000 in bonuses from 2009 through 2012.” That Barack Obama bonus was for a job well done – it got Obama reelected and neutralized the Tea Party.
Today is step one in cleansing the IRS from the clutches of Barack Obama. Today is step one in breaking the dirty hands of the IRS from control of the health care of Americans. Today there are public live hearings by the prestigious House Ways and Means Committee. The eyes of Americans who respect the rule of law will be on the House Ways and Means Committee today. Open thread: IRS hearings open on Capitol Hill – with Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller (the guy Obama supposedly forced to resign but then it turns out his job was ending anyway – score another Obama lie) and a “hero” in our constitutional drama, the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration, Russell George.
The Big Test today will not be about the IRS however. Today the test will be on Obama Dimocrats and whether they continue to distract and distort as they have been doing at any and all hearings that seek to get at the truth of Barack Obama’s time in the White House. As we write below – All the recent government scandals have been in the service of Barack Obama’s reelection.
Chairman Camp started the hearings on the right foot by taking the unusual step of putting the witnesses under oath. We are still going to need special prosecutors and select committees to wash the Mud House clean again and return it to a beautiful White House.
“IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office
The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.
Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.
Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.”
The questions will be about the growing cancer on the presidency. The questions will be what Barack Obama knows and when did he know it. For us that won’t be enough.
From here on out we will have one standard to determine whether Big Media is holding Barack Obama to account. There is one question, one “theory of the case” for us which Big Media must publicly recognize if we are to hold Barack Obama to account.
What Big Media must ask, the dots that need to be connected, are clear to those that want to see and are not willfully blind. All the scandals erupting now have one common theme and that is the reelection of Barack Obama. Every recent crime, “lapse of judgment”, “ethically questionable action” committed has been done to reelect Barack Obama.
Richard Nixon did not need to use dirty tricks or White House Horrors to destroy his political opponents but he could not help himself. It was in his nature. The boy that signed letters to his mother as “your faithful dog” had Richard III type insecurity humps which led to his downfall. Likewise Obama. We’ve discussed the Obama sperm donor dad that rejected little Barry and the trampy mother that wandered the world and dumped little Barry in Hawaii with what Barack describes as a “racist” grandmother although it is clear that she was a loving woman and Barack smeared her under a bus to get elected in 2008. Little Barry learned to get along by becoming a flim-flam man. His career was born in filth, smearing opponents.
Barack Obama has a history of dirty tricks and filth flinging to win elections. Richard Nixon had CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President) and Barack Obama has his OAFs (now Organizing For Action for which we employ a more accurate anagram). If Big Media wants even a hair’s-width of credibility it is necessary to tie Barack Obama’s most recent scandals to Barack Obama’s reelection.
Since 2007 we have noted that when caught either digging up the sex lives of opponents or assorted dirty tricks Barack Obama blames the staff. Barack, on matters large and small, always blames someone else. Barack’s autobiography was a load of crap and he was called out by those who had worked with him. But Big Media protected Barack. Hazel Johnson never got to tell her story in the Big Media spotlight because her testimony, like that of others, would have written a different story about Barack than the choom hallucinations in Obama’s false history autobiographies.
Update III: Obama should be asked about what we wrote in Update II at tomorrow’s Turkish PM presser. Obama’s lies today about firing the temp while the temp says he is leaving as scheduled should be an issue.
“…Why do the e-mails start on September 14? There’d been three days of government verbiage, some of it blaming the Mohammed video, before this. When do we get those e-mails?
Released emails may be read HERE. Special prosecutors needed, select committees needed. Sharpen the Guillotine!
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Update II: Holy cow! Did Obama also lie about firing the temp? The temp says he was leaving in June anyway and stays on the job until then:
“In a hastily called press conference in the East Room of the White House, Obama told reporters that he had asked Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew to find out who was responsible for a program that targeted tea party groups and other conservative organizations for a special level of intrusive questioning after they applied for tax-exempt charitable statuses.
‘Lew took the first step by requesting and accepting the resignation of the acting director of the IRS,’ Obama said.
‘It’s important,’ he added, ‘to institute new leadership that can help restore confidence going forward.’
But in an email to IRS employees, Miller claimed he would only be leaving next month because his assignment would be over.
‘It is with regret that I will be departing from the IRS as my acting assignment ends in early June,’ Miller wrote.”
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Update: Big News Breaking: Obama fires a temp at the IRS. But… One scrawny sacrificial lamb won’t be enough for the hungry lions. Anyone seen tax cheat Tim Geithner lately? Wasn’t he the one in charge of Treasury and IRS?
Tonight’s publicity stunt was an attempt to say “we have an investigation going so I can’t answer any more questions.” Most importantly this is to prevent something Obama fears – a special prosecutor. A special prosecutor means the Mud House, er, White House aides lawyering up and giving each other the skunk eye and squealing like pigs to prosecutors. Skunks and pigs can make a mess in a house.
Tonight’s big Obama publicity stunt is an attempt to shore up support by generating headlines in tomorrow’s papers and getting his say in the evening news shows. But it is not nearly enough. Tonight’s publicity stunt by Obama was just more Obambi Oblah-blah:
We’ll have updates. Earlier there was a Benghazi news dump of emails. It’s kinda sad that Obama is using Benghazi to change the conversation from the only topic Big Media is interested in. Big Media cares most about the snooping into Big Media phone records.
Update: The Treasury Inspector General Report is out proving to the DailyKooks that you’re not paranoid if you really are being followed. We wanted to weep as we read it but then we pictured Michelle Obama scowling angrily at her lunkhead husband and we laughed.
“For fear of stating the obvious,” Kuhnhenn began, “the White House right now is confronting a confluence of issues: Benghazi talking points, IRS reviews of political groups, Justice Department’s review of journalists’ phone records, and in every instance either the president or you have placed the burden of responsibility someplace else… But it is the president’s administration, so I wonder, doesn’t responsibility for setting tone, for setting direction ultimately rest with the president on these matters?”
and
“Before taking a few questions,” McConnell said, “let me just add one thing. As you continue to file your stories on this subject, ask yourself before you write, how would I be writing this story if this were a Republican administration?”
Now that it is their interests threatened, their colleagues investigated, their god that failed – some in Big Media are bitter and full of remorse –
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It’s sad to think of all those young people who so believed in HOPE and CHANGE now so disillusioned on the political system as they discover they cast, some for the very first time, their valuable vote for a cheap hustler from Chicago with less ethics and smarts than Richard M. Nixon. Many of these young voters, Barack Obama promised, would be so proud of their first vote for Barack Obama that they would become lifelong churchgoers in the cult of Obama Dimocratic worship. To think of the heartbreak of black voters who cast content of character aside in favor of the skin color of an Obama who has destroyed in so many ways the present and future of the black community. It’s sad to think of the older, mostly white liberal voters, who so foolishly sneered at common sense to vote for an inexperienced, cheap, Chicago hustler – they said reminded them ever so much of the young and dashing John F. Kennedy of their youth. Now these old fools discover they voted for worse than Richard M. Nixon.
How sad it is to… oh… well… who are we kidding? It’s not sad at all. We’re not hypocrites. It’s not sad at all. Truth be told we are, uncorked champagne bottles at hand, luxuuuuuuuuuuriating in the mud bath swamps imported from Chicago to the nation at large. After our mud bath we’re headed to Blacks Fifth Avenue so that Olga will give us a fresh coat of Jungle Red on our fingernails.
For now, in our Chicago imported buckets of mud, bath we reminisce sweetly of our Big Media friends. We recall with fondness an ABC anchor of their then prestigious evening news telecast who once literally saved our lives in a valley in Pennsylvania. We also remember, with a smirk, that top financial reporter who pleasured a much older woman friend of ours and after every liaison with the cougar he would break off the relationship. This dance heightened as this top reporter became engaged to another woman but still he visited our cougar friend. Even when he married, the nocturnal visits continued as did the early morning breakup farewells. We would see our friend regularly and it became a regular custom to ask her “how is Mr. hump and dump?” A wan, satisfied smile would cross her lips as she lit a Dunhill Blue. That reporter eventually did leave – his job – to work for one of the most powerful broadsheet publications.
We recall another reporter who was known to have many “toys” with which to pleasure himself and the strangely beautiful “boys” he frequently had dinner with. Another prominent reporter we knew, now on a national broadcast, had some lovely leather strap garments he regularly wore on his nightly club rounds. We can’t really count how many of the boys on the bus we knew had a Jeff Chandler style proclivity for lovely undergarments even though they were indisputably heterosexual. There was also that curly haired operatic beauty that works for the widest circulation newspaper who was so anal retentive and on bitter edge her stool regularly had blood in it. Ah, memories. There are many more but we don’t have too much time as Olga is usually fully booked and we shouldn’t be late for our manicure.
We recall these lovely stories of the ladies and gentlemen of the press because of the latest Barack Obama scandal to erupt. We’re talking the AP DOJ scandal.
How sad, that the ladies and gentlemen of the press who so whored themselves in service to Barack Obama now find themselves “humped and dumped“. Or are they battered wives who crave attention from their love even if it is a beating?
In the hierarchy of Barack Obama scandals the AP DOJ scandal is without doubt the most important to the ladies and gentlemen of the press. It’s NOT because these ladies and gentlemen are concerned about their “sources” as they so loftily proclaim – suddenly awake to the importance of the Constitution (though not the Second Amendment – that’s for those “bitter clingers”).
No, what has the ladies and gentlemen who hide behind constitutional protections when it affects them is neither the Constitution nor the plight of their sources. What the ladies and gentlemen of the press are scared about is the laughably named Department of Justice having possession of their personal phone records. The phone records which contain phone numbers of their dominatrix brothels, drug dealers (you can’t stay up all night without a little blow now can you?), boyfriends/girlfriends of the paid for variety (they are ever so busy so who has the time for romance when you can hump and sign?), doctor appointments for those anal warts and herpes, and who knows what other depredations. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.
There’s also that little matter of Finlandization. If the “Department of Justice” has their phone records maybe they should be a bit careful in what they write. There’s no need for a threat, the Soviet never had to actually threaten Finland, you just know they know that you know that they know and so you keep your mouth shut.
The strength of our republic is a system of checks and balances which has almost failed because of Big Media corruption. But there is still hope to rescue ourselves and our system of government.
We need special prosecutors. We need select committees from both houses of congress. For now, until after the 2014 elections, we’ll have to settle for select committees from the House of Representatives. We’re going to need a Judge Sirica. We’re going to need a Woodward/Bernstein and that entity won’t emerge from Big Media. The new Woodward/Bernstein will have to come from the internets.
We need investigations with subpoena power to follow up on what the new Woodward/Bernsteins write. The Investigations must be thorough. Don’t bother with a scapel – get a chain saw.
It’s time to savagely rip open the source of the corruption and remove the cancer on the presidency.
“i personally think benghazi and the irs story will change health care. they will change obamacare. why? because it’s one thing to have all your receipts and be called on the carpet to hassle, and prove you’re innocent. it’s not thing like seinfeld when you walk in line and you need that stint and they say, no stint for you because you back this group, you have these thoughts, you live in this area. this is going to change the involvement of government and the irs enforcement originally designed in obamacare.”
Our favorite joke from the Nixon era came from the best Nixon impressionist of the time – David Frye. The joke was that Richard Nixon is offered a joint, a marijuana cigarette. Nixon is told to “turn on”. Nixon asks “Turn on whom?” Big Media is about to realize Obama cannot be trusted by friend nor foe and now the choom king has turned on – them.
Update: Today we saw Barack Obama’s “I am not a crook” press conference. Obama says he won’t tolerate what he has thus far encouraged. Tax cheat Tim Geithner was in charge of the IRS when the IRS targeted the Obama enemies list. Obama nominated Geithner so how can Obama complain now that the minions are as corrupt as the capo? Obama then went on to blame Republicans for the Benghazi circus of lies Obama is responsible for.
ObamaCare just became more dangerous and deadly. A federal government which via the IRS can target political opponents utilizing their personal medical history is now no longer a paranoid’s delusion. It is all too real.
“And remember this is no longer about health care, it is about health insurance and how to bring in more Americans into a bad system. The bad system is not targeted for “reform”. American taxpayers will be forced by Frank Nitti the IRS to tithe to the temples of crime for little to no benefits.”
Frank Nitti, the Al Capone gang’s brutal Chicago enforcer is a benevolent angelic figure compared to the dangers inherent in a politically corrupt Chicago gangland White House. American taxpayers under the heel of Obama will have to “report personal health ID” information to the IRS.
It will not be difficult at all for federal government officials at the IRS to gain information about herpes, AIDS, psychological illnesses of political opponents. Armed with medical histories of political opponents the federal government will not hesitate to use it for pernicious political purposes.
“It contains a strong warning not in the earlier, 21-page draft: “I’m signing this application under penalty of perjury . . . I know that I may be subject to penalties under federal law if I provide false and or untrue information.” That threat may unsettle applicants already not sure they’re correctly answering complicated questions. If they don’t, the consequences could be costly. If an applicant understates his income and receives a larger health-insurance subsidy than he is eligible for, the money must be paid back. That may mean thousands of dollars.
Applicants may be further disturbed when they encounter, on the signature page, this message: “We’ll check your answers using information in our electronic databases and databases from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Social Security, the Department of Homeland Security, and/or a consumer reporting agency. If the information doesn’t match, we may ask you to send us proof.”
“The Internal Revenue Service’s scrutiny of conservative groups went beyond those with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names—as the agency admitted Friday—to also include ones worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and even ones that lobbied to “make America a better place to live,” according to new details of a government probe.”
There is a cancer growing. Both the cancer and the causes of the cancer must be removed from the body politic.
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The IRS does not yet have access to the medical records of American taxpayers or the growing ranks of its political opponents. But once such information is obtained the Chicago Obama White House will have a powerful weapon against its political opponents. The IRS already has been turned into a political weapon to protect Barack Obama in election year 2012.
Thus far we know very little about who ordered the IRS to attack. But attack Obama political opponents is exactly what the IRS has done:
“At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials targeted nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general. [snip]
But six months later, the IRS applied a new political test to groups that applied for tax-exempt status as “social welfare” groups, the document says. On Jan. 15, 2012 the agency decided to target “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement.,” according to the appendix in the IG report, which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be released.
The new revelations are likely to intensify criticism of the IRS, which has been under fire since agency officials acknowledged they had deliberately targeted groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their name for heightened scrutiny.”
This is a most dangerous development and threatens our very democracy. The revelations the IRS targeted conservatives as early as 2010: WSJ should make even Obama Hopium Guzzling liberals demand removal of this cancer. Presidents get impeached for this.
“WILL: But they said a) it was inadvertent, just some odd underlings out in Cincinnati and who did this. And there was no political motive whatever involved. Now the question is, how stupid do they think we are? Just imagine, Donna Brazile, if the George W. Bush administration had IRS underlings, out in Cincinnati of course, saying, we’re going to target groups with the word “progressive” in their title. We would have all hell breaking loose.
May I read you something from an ancient document?
RADDATZ: Yes you may. I would be surprised if you didn’t.
WILL: This is the 40th anniversary of the Watergate summer here in Washington. “He has through his subordinates and agents endeavored to cause in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.” Section 1, Article 2, the Impeachment Articles of Richard Nixon. (This Week, May 12, 2013)”
This IRS corruption threatens something cataclysmic we have sometimes thought was about to happen but we are always disappointed because it has yet to happen. What is this cataclysmic event we have awaited? A schism in Big Media.
Jonathan Karl of ABC News and other Big Media outlets remember Watergate and are providing appropriate coverage of this latest Obama threat to our democracy. Other Big Media outlets such as Nancy Cook at National Journal belittle the cancer:
“IRS Blunder Gives Republicans Ammunition in Effort to Defund the Agency
The admission that the IRS improperly investigated conservative political groups only means more trouble for the roll-out of the health care law.
The Internal Revenue Service’s admission that it inappropriately targeted conservative political groups for special scrutiny during the 2012 presidential election only gives congressional Republicans more ammunition as they try to defund and weaken the agency. [snip]
But, more importantly, the IRS is also one of the key agencies that will implement the Affordable Care Act. Much of the funding stream for the incoming health care law, arguably the president’s signature legislative achievement, comes from two tax increases: a 3.8 percent hike on investment income for wealthy individuals, estates, and trusts, as well as an additional Medicare tax.
By stripping the IRS of money, the Republicans are indirectly trying to attack the roll-out of the health care law that begins in 2014.
Now, the news that rogue, low-level IRS agents in Ohio investigated conservative groups improperly just adds fuel to the Republicans’ bashing. The agents investigated these organizations to see if they had miscast themselves as tax-exempt groups while actually doing political work. About 75 groups were targeted, according to the Associated Press.”
According to Nancy Cook this is all just a “blunder” of “rogue agents” investigating evil groups illegally doing “political work”. Nancy Cook is not alone.
And at least one purely religious Jewish organization, one not focused on Israel, was the recipient of bizarre and highly inappropriate questions about Israel. Those questions also came from the same non-profit division of the IRS at issue for inappropriately targeting politically conservative groups. The IRS required that Jewish organization to state “whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel,” and also demanded the organization “[d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel.”
As in Watergate a select committee’s work will have to be followed by a Judiciary Committee committee inquiry into the possibility of impeachment and removal of the cancer on the presidency.
We know, and have warned in the past of overreach. Republicans must be careful in their use of this type of “impeachment” language. As we wrote, Republicans must be about fact gathering. But those of us who stand by constitutional government, the rule of law, must be prepared to overturn the majority in the United States Senate in next year’s elections and demand a full vetting of Barack Obama and the corruptions in the White House and the federal government.
The cancer on the presidency must be removed. The doctor, if necessary, must be impeachment and removal.
“If there’s one thing you want to do when accusations are flying about an attempted cover up and a disinterested, collusive media, it’s holding an off-the-record briefing. [snip]
Were they discussing troop movements or something? What reason could there be to go off the record, and why would the press agree to it? If there’s classified material involved, just redact the bits that can’t be publicized. Or maybe I have this wrong; maybe the reason Carney wanted to huddle is because Ron Fournier was onto something this morning in sensing that the White House is trying to point a finger at Hillary and the State Department for redacting the first draft of the CIA’s talking points. For obvious reasons, if Carney wants to steer them in that direction, he wouldn’t want to do it on the record. Then again, there’s no reason to task the White House press secretary with that; if Team O wants to push Hillary under the bus, they’ll do it the old-fashioned way, through anonymous leaks. So again, why is this briefing off the record?
Why this briefing? Because old fashioned anonymous leaks just won’t do. Just wait until the subpoenas start flying. Can we please get a small select committee of former prosecutors with subpoena power and funding? Please!
In 2016 the greatest threat to Hillary Clinton is once again Barack Obama – and his legacy of weakness and profligacy. Tie Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama and she loses.
This week is the week that Big Media is reporting some of what our regular readers knew years ago. Ron Fournier at National Journal is warning HillaryLand to buy some metal plates for Hillary’s back:
“Throw Hillary under the bus? In a statement to ABC, Carney notably insulates the West Wing and not the State Department by saying “the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive.” And, with no apparent regard to hypocrisy, Carney criticized the GOP for attempting to “politicize the talking points.”
“Vice President Joe Biden is already staking out his own territory apart from the Obama White House, ground he will need to occupy if he wants to have a chance to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2016.
Biden, a longtime liberal firebrand, will almost certainly seek to portray himself as the candidate of the Party’s left-wing base, stigmatizing Hillary as the cautious standard bearer for husband Bill’s New Democrat moderates. [snip]
A couple of days ago, Biden told a local South Carolina Sierra Club activist that he opposes the Keystone pipeline, lamenting that he is in the “minority” at the White House.
And in a move that set him clearly apart from Obama and which could help cast him as a no-nonsense battler of terrorists, Biden went to Boston and declared that, yes, the marathon bombers were Islamist extremists and that we are indeed confronting a “doctrine of hate and oppression.”
Looks like there will be two political campaigns within the White House: One designed to take back the House in 2014, and another to elect Biden president in 2016.“
Joe Biden is not acting independently of Barack Obama. Joe Biden is being advised by the Obama thugs that smeared Hillary in 2007/2008 and has a ‘get out of jail free’ card from Obama’s thugs. Bumblin’ Joe Biden is preparing to run against Hillary as the Obama acolyte, heir apparent, and the chief warrior of the DailyKooks left. Biden will battle others (such as Martin O’Malley) for that title.
The DailyKooks left once despised Biden as the bankers best friend in the senate. But if Biden bows to the DailyKooks left they will support him if only to get rid of the bane of their existence – Hillary Clinton.
Well now it is clearly in the strategic and tactical interests of Republicans/conservatives to attack Hillary Clinton, pause for a few minutes, attack Obama, then attack Hillary Clinton, then back to Barack. HillaryLand better wake up to this new dynamic.
HillaryLand better do as we suggested and begin to separate Hillary Clinton from Barack Obama. Hear that Hillary Clinton supporters in the grassroots?
Big Media pretended to be on board the Hillary Clinton 2016 train but that support was contingent on Hillary Clinton being the third Barack Obama term. If Hillary Clinton 2016 was to be the vassal to Lord and liege Barack Obama then Big Media was all on board. But this week the Hillary hate in Big Media came out like acne on a dirty teen.
At Matthews O’Tingles Mudball show, the knife was given to Lisa Myers who declared Benghazi Hearing “Reopens” Case Against Hillary Clinton.
The dependably foolish Joe Scarborough muses “This has the DNA of a Clinton scandal more than it does an Obama scandal, does it not?” Somehow Joe does not realize that it was Barack Obama that was up for election in 2012 and needed to suppress the truth.
At the Washington Post a long time Hillary hater (see, Nexus of Nuts from 2007 to read about this Hillary hater. We wrote that article when we were dutiful Democrats.) by the name of Melinda Henneberger continues her work:
Back to the 90s with Hillary Clinton [snip]
But the longer I listened, the more I realized that the moment evoked by both the questions and the answers was quite a specific one — the 90s, by name. Once again, Republicans smelled blood. But also once again, we were hearing about a give-no-quarter response from Hillary Clinton that seemed to have created more problems than it solved.
In the 90s, it was First Lady Hillary Clinton, with the help of deputy White House counsel Cheryl Mills, who so steadfastly refused to cooperate with investigators looking into the legality of an Arkansas land deal that she looked like she was hiding much more than she actually was.
Even many Democrats came to feel that if only the first lady had been more forthcoming, there would never have been an independent prosecutor in the person of Ken Starr. But, both her legal training and her personal impulse was to give no grain of sand without bloodshed. And it was in that mode — aggrieved, certain, and right in one sense but mistaken in another — that she uttered her infamous remark about the “vast right-wing conspiracy“ against her husband. [snip]
Wednesday’s hearing, however, raised questions about whether she really has learned the management lessons of her time in the White House. Perfectly legitimate issues still on the table include why her State Department didn’t address known security problems despite repeated requests, and why a respected diplomat seems to have been made to pay for asking unwelcome questions. [snip]
Once again, we heard about how ferocious Cheryl Mills was in getting out ahead of any trouble for her boss, angrily phoning Hicks about why he’d met with a Congressional Republican without a State Department lawyer present. [snip]
I could actually see this helping Clinton politically if her critics, who in the past have overplayed their hand, don’t get a grip. But there is clear political danger here for her, too, which this week’s testimony suggests was evident to Team Hillary from Day One.
Her political adversaries are indeed ready to spring back into action as if the years they spent comparing her favorably to Barack Obama never happened. [snip]
And if there’s nothing to hide, then even some belated transparency would help Clinton put the less savory aspects of the 90s behind her for good.
As we repeatedly write, we think Hillary will come out smelling like a rose once the entire story is told. If not, we still want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – under oath.
But Republicans, conservatives, have to be careful as Henneberger writes. Already they are as confident as they usually get before Hillary or Bill El Kabongs them.
Because of a convergence of interests a temporary alliance exists. The temporary alliance between Republicans, conservatives, DailyKooks, Bumblin’ Joe Biden, O’Malley, Barack, and the White House henchmen will have a longer, more profitable, lifespan as long as HillaryLand holds its fire against Barack Obama and his Chicago gang.
For Republicans/conservatives it’s popcorn time. Open warfare erupting between the Clintons and the Obamas, not to mention Bumblin’ Joe regularly shooting himself in the feet, will bring many afternoons of delight. The dangers to Republicans are that certain of their members overplay their hands, again, and El Kabong appears – turning sure profit into loss. A select committee of smart former prosecutors to investigate Benghazi and assorted lies, given appropriate funding and subpoena power, would solve this problem before it sure as shootin’ happens.
In short, Republicans are in clover. They can sit back and ask “so, who changed the Benghazi talking points?” It’s all profit from there. If Republicans are smart and they authorize a well funded select committee of former prosecutors with subpoena power they can begin to force testimony and get answers not suspicions.
Imagine a bushel load of subpoenas to White House personnel who then have to lawyer up and become suspicious of other White House thugs. Soon Tarentino will be able to film a remake of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in the West Wing. Call it Benghazi Unchained.
Update II: There are many quotable quotes of the day about the coverup at Benghazi. We think the analysis in our article below is still correct: appoint a select committee with a few members (no more than seven) all with prosecutorial experience to get to the bottom of this Benghazi coverup. 41 hams do not an investigation make especially when they make false charges which undercut their investigation.
And today’s Benghazi hearing clears Hillary Clinton of several accusations made against her this weekend and after her January testimony, by hammy members of the committee. Yes we’re referring to the Mark Thompson accusations which he himself refuted today as well as the “signature” issue which was completely refuted as well.
We need a select committee with subpoena power and smarts to investigate the Benghazi coverup.
—————————————————————–
Update: We argue below that only a small select committee with experienced prosecutors has a chance to unravel the Benghazi knot. But John Boehner says “no” to a select committee and instead wants the 41 hams on the Oversight Committee to fight for the TV kleig lights.
Most of the testimony and witnesses have already been leaked by some of the hams on broadcasts so expect no bombshells from the place that the bombshells should’a taken place. Obama Dimocrats will do their best to distract and deny.
A clue as to whether these hearings will be step one on the road to a select committee or whether they will be successful in getting facts will be if the Republicans continue to give hammy speeches or do the smart thing which is give their time to one person (such as Trey Gowdy) with prosecutorial experience who knows how to interrogate and ask questions to elicit facts.
“Greg Gutfeld warns that regardless of the answers, the questions will become irrelevant if the media decides to ignore it
Big Media will do what it has to do to protect Barack Obama. The Oversight Committee today will focus on talking points and other after the fact cover-up lies. To us the central question of Benghazi is why on a September 11 anniversary there was no preparation against attack. It is indeed the central FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP.
As we wrote on January 23, 2013, “People died, Obama lied.” The witnesses today are credible and have standing to accuse and whistle-blow. But we’re gonna need a bigger boat to get to the lies and blow up the cover-up. We’re gonna need a small group of prosecutors in a select committee.
The Benghazi hearings slated for this Wednesday are already a flop. We’re sorry that is our conclusion. We think that getting to the bottom of the disaster of September 11, 2012 – the same day Tdouchbag Tsarnaev became an American citizen – is important and necessary.
Uncovering the truth about what happened in Benghazi on September 11 is important because even if Big Media and Obama Dimocrats don’t think it is important – the terrorist killers of Americans in Benghazi know the truth and they are emboldened when our political system denies the truth.
What contempt for the American way of government these terrorist killers must have as they witness the lies and corruption that our political system cannot uncover, or rather, works like sleepless rust to keep covered.
These terrorist killers must laugh at American power and American “justice” as they see the apparatus of the “government of the people, government by the people, government for the people” protect them and shift the blame for terrorist murders of American officials on an American who exercised his rights and produced a Youtube video Innocence of Muslims. That American is now in prison even as the friend of Boston terrorist killer Tdouchebag Tsarnaev is free on bail.
Our hope is that Prince Hamlet was correct when he declared “Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.”
We fear however that our hope is as misplaced as the fools who in 2008 thought Barack Obama was the herald of “hope and change”.
So why are we so pessimistic that the Benghazi truth will rise? Why do we think the Benghazi hearings on Wednesday will flop or have already flopped? It’s because we know the difference between a good investigation and a foolish investigation.
Consider a successful investigation: The Watergate Hearings. There are five reasons why the Watergate Hearings were successful:
(1) The Watergate Hearings held to investigate Richard M. Nixon were conducted under the auspices of a Senate resolution authorizing a Senate select committee comprised of only seven members which in one year issued a report;
(2) the Watergate select committee had subpoena power to acquire witnesses and materials needed for its investigation into the Watergate break-in as well as any other criminal activity – along with the authority to investigate “all other illegal, improper, or unethical conduct occurring during the Presidential campaign of 1972, including political espionage and campaign finance practices”;
(3) the Watergate hearings had a smart leader in a wily “country lawyer” that had in fact graduated from Harvard Law School (a respected institution at the time), was considered a constitutional law expert, served as a Supreme Court Justice in his native North Carolina, and was interested in getting to the bottom of what had happened at the Watergate and the “White House Horrors” as expeditiously as possible;
(4) the public hearings themselves featured an extensive period of time wherein the majority counsel was able to interrogate the witnesses without interruption or distraction;
(5) the Watergate select committee developed a smart media strategy which mostly prevented leaks to the media in favor of dropping “bombshells” from the mouths of witnesses which had the effect of riveting viewers to their televised investigation.
The Senate select committee on Watergate provided a final report on June 27, 1974. On July 24 the Supreme Court ruled that President Nixon had to surrender the tape recordings he fought to keep secret from the special prosecutor. The tapes proved President Nixon participated in a cover-up of White House links to the Watergate burglary. A House Judiciary Committee voted three articles of impeachment against President Nixon and sent them to the full House for a vote. Before the House of Representatives voted Richard Nixon on August 9, 1974 resigned.
Media at the time was not friendly to Richard Nixon, more like it hated him, but Richard Nixon was overwhelmingly reelected in 1972 and the media was not as corrosive a force as it is today. This meant that Watergate was at first mostly ignored. The Washington Post was alone in its reports until eventually the New York Times joined in. It was the Senate select committee that focused attention on Watergate and convinced the American people that the Watergate break-in was a serious enough issue to remove a twice elected president who had a remarkable set of skills and many successes yet to be matched.
The Watergate Senate select committee was a success. By comparison the Benghazi investigation is an embarrassment.
We can already hear the whelps of pain and screams of “idiots” at us for suggesting that the Benghazi investigation is “an embarrassment”. We are sure the defense against our “embarrassment” charge is that this past weekend has been a festival of revelations about what is to come this Wednesday at the Benghazi hearing before Darrell Issa’s House Oversight Committee.
But all those weekend revelations are exactly why we are concerned and believe that the Benghazi hearings will be or are already – a flop. Why did those leaks occur? Does anyone think those leaks are helpful? Really?
We’ve all heard the sensational charge that the military was politically blocked from helping the besieged in Benghazi. That charge is refuted and we get that information from the Republican/conservative website AceOfSpades:
“One note I’ve been wanting to make and it’s related…despite the stuff from Fox this week about how a military response was possible, it wasn’t.
Although responsible military officers and civilian officials within the Department of Defense reacted quickly to the attacks in Benghazi, the effectiveness of their response was hindered because U.S. military forces were not properly postured to address the growing threats in northern Africa or to respond to a brief, high-intensity attack on U.S. personnel or interests across much of Africa.
You can fault the DoD for not being properly set-up that night but given how they were deployed and their alert status, there was simply no way to get military assets to Benghazi in time that night.
There’s plenty to go after Obama on over this, making up stories about potential rescue missions doesn’t help.”
The incorrect speculations don’t help. Providing heads up leaks don’t help.Just get the facts first and let the conclusions conclude the investigation.
“A source with intimate information about the events that happened on the ground in Benghazi the night the U.S. Consulate and the CIA annex was attacked by terrorists told Breitbart News that, ultimately, only the President of the United States, or someone acting on his authority, could have prevented Special Forces either on the ground or nearby from helping those Americans who were under deadly assault.
That call may have been made early in the engagement. Both Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey testified in January that they had no further communication with President Barack Obama after an initial briefing in the early hours of the Benghazi crisis, which continued through the night.
But what about then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?
“I have a hard time thinking it was Hillary alone. Hillary may have tried to circumvent the counterterrorism board and deal with this. I think in order for her to tell General Ham, ‘No, you’re not going to get involved,’ she would have had to talk to the president. The president would have had to say, ‘No, take your commands from Hillary.’ He would have had said something, because Ham does not work for the Department of State; he works directly for the president,” the source explained.”
The Watergate hearings worked in large part because of the bombshell factor. On July 16, 1973 the world was stunned when Alexander Porter Butterfield testified as a witness before the Senate select committee that a White House taping system existed which recorded all of President Nixon’s conversations. That wasn’t leaked. The impact was akin to a massive meteor striking the Earth.
So why did we have so many revelations this past weekend about what is going to happen on Wednesday? We know who the “secret” whistle blower witnesses are going to be and what they are going to say. Why? Why were these bombshells not exploded together for maximum effect on Wednesday at the public hearing?
All the leaks do is help the White House prepare itself for a response at a time of its choosing. The leaks give away the tactical advantage to the Obama White House goons.
Unlike the Watergate select committee which was small and had smart leadership the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is not a select committee but is a sprawling mess with 41 members many of limited intelligence and to make matters worse its chairman is a bit of a show horse who makes promises he can’t seem to keep:
“After becoming Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Issa has become a vocal advocate for investigations into the Obama administration, including the Troubled Assets Relief Program, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, corruption in Afghanistan, WikiLeaks, and the Food and Drug Administration, among other issues.[41] In 2010 he told the press that he wanted the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to hold investigative hearings “seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks.“‘
We really don’t see much of a record of success. Is it the fault of Chairman Issa? Chairman Issa has unilateral subpoena power but somehow we don’t seem to see much action. We know that there are Benghazi survivors in Washington who have never been publicly heard from but somehow Chairman Issa has not seen fit to subpoena them.
Perhaps the problem is not Chairman Issa but the mess of a committee he heads. With 41 members we know that every Obama Dimocrat will take their turn at bat to subvert the job of investigating what happened in Benghazi. But the Republican members will take their turn to posture, preen, and pose, all the while ignoring the previous questions from their Republican colleagues. It would be best if Republicans on the committee gave up their time to one person with prosecutor conditionals, such as Trey Gowdy, to ask all the questions for the majority.
“Dear Republicans on the House Oversight Committee:
Please do not grandstand. Please do not take the time before the television cameras to tell us how outraged you are, even though what you are investigating is, indeed, outrageous. There will be plenty of time for that after the hearing. All day Wednesday, give us the facts, and then more facts, and then more facts.
Just ask the questions of the witnesses. Let them speak and don’t cut them off. Do not give the Obama administration any cover to claim that this is a partisan witch hunt from unhinged political opponents. Don’t waste time complaining about the media’s lack of interest or coverage so far. Just give them — and us — the facts to tell the story, a story that will leave all of us demanding accountability.
First: Leading up to September 11, why did the State Department keep reducing the amount of security protecting diplomatic staff in Libya, in light of the increasingly dire requests from those in country? [snip]
Second: Precisely what happened that night? Was there a time when a rescue could have been authorized, but wasn’t? Were any forces told to “stand down” and not attempt a rescue? [snip]
Third, what happened afterwards, and was there an effort to lie to the American people about what happened? [snip]
Finally, did the previous efforts to investigate this amount to a cover-up?“
Get the facts. Don’t give speeches. Get the facts with clear, simple questions. And as Geraghty warns:
“In short, what we don’t need is a bold, expectation-setting, agenda-hinting prediction like this:
Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said on his radio show Monday that President Obama “will not fill out his full term” because he was complicit in a “cover-up” surrounding the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya.
“I believe that before it’s all over, this president will not fill out his full term,” Huckabee said. “I know that puts me on a limb, but this is not minor.”
Just the facts Ma’am. Just the facts.
After Wednesday, may we please get a select committee of the House… please? Appoint members with prosecutorial experience such as Trey Gowdy to the committee and weed out the show boats and the squishes to finally pull out corruption by its grey haired roots.
As the Benghazi attack Big Media blackout continued we wrote:
“We want answers as to what happened in Benghazi. On this issue politics should be put aside and let the chips fall where they may. As we have repeatedly written we believe if the entire story is told Hillary will come out smelling like a rose. But we doubt the entire story will be told while Barack Obama is in office.”
We wrote that as Hillary Clinton was preparing to testify before the House and Senate committees on January 23, 2013. We did not expect much before that hearing and we did not get much from that hearing:
“As we wrote below Republicans have caved on Benghazi like they have on the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling. Perhaps this afternoon the House Republicans will ask some pertinent questions.
Most ridiculous “question” came from Durbin of Illinois who spent his time remembering Bush era “weapons of mass destruction” stories which at the time even Al Gore thought were true. Somehow Durbin forgot Hillary voted for the authorization on that Iraq issue. Even if Durbin has a point on the weapons of mass destruction issue, shouldn’t everyone of every political stripe be against misinformation and lies in situations such as Benghazi? People died, Obama lied.“
We know that many will assume we are insincere when we state we want the truth and that we do believe that at the end of the Benghazi investigation Hillary Clinton will come out smelling like a rose. Some will get their hopes up and call us “shills” for “Shillary” the crook, criminal, lesbian, liar, killer, rape enabler, thief… all the insults that bring temporary emotional gratification but not much else.
Consider, if Hillary Clinton is the horrible criminal and evil mastermind some allege, then how has she gotten away with it for so long and do you really think that Darrell Issa and his committee are the ones that can do what hasn’t been done?
Unlike Barack Obama whose sole defense is to have his goons race-bait in order to protect him, Hillary Clinton cannot race-bait – but she does have decades of experience surviving attacks and profiting politically from them. Today Jonah Goldberg writes “Hillary is no Barack” as if that is a bad thing.
Goldberg whose mom did everything she could do to destroy Bill Clinton failed in her task as Bill Clinton left the White House with 65% approval from the American public. Of course, after Barack Obama’s election it is tough for us to argue about the wisdom of the American electorate. But we certainly can argue that Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton will survive Benghazi and much more.
“In 2016 the greatest threat to Hillary Clinton is once again Barack Obama – and his legacy of weakness and profligacy. Tie Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama and she loses.”
With Benghazi many Republicans/conservatives and assorted Hillary haters or just plain ol’ political opponents who honestly and fairly disagree with her on many issues believe that they can “get her” before she runs for president in 2016. In other words Benghazi 2013 stops Hillary Clinton 2016. We don’t believe it is going to be so easy and many Republicans/conservatives who don’t want Hillary Clinton 2016 wisely agree with us.
“Give Glenn Kessler credit; he was almost alone among the mainstream media in immediately calling Susan Rice’s explanation of the attack on the Benghazi consulate fishy, awarding her two Pinocchios at the time. (Perhaps not too much credit, says Ann Althouse, via Instapundit.) Should that get bumped up now that whistleblowers are prepared to blow the Obama administration’s fairy tale on Benghazi out of the water? Kessler argues, correctly, that the better question is who crafted the four-Pinocchio lie, and to what purpose: [snip]
Kessler’s right, but his scope is too narrow. The rewrite has always appeared to be a cover-up from the White House and/or State Department — and make no mistake, the CIA wouldn’t be carrying water for Hillary Clinton and State. The big question is: what were they trying to cover? In my column for The Week, I argue that the context is much broader, and it’s perhaps even more relevant today than ever: [snip]
The point of the cover-up wasn’t just to preserve the argument that Barack Obama had fatally weakened al-Qaeda, which few really believed anyway. It was to preserve the foreign-policy expertise argument in the 2012 presidential election, and to keep American voters from seeing the true scope of the disaster of Obama’s intervention in Libya. And that matters even more now, with the same administration considering another 30,00o-foot intervention that would end up once again benefiting al-Qaeda affiliates on the ground.”
[emphasis added]
Our operating theory is that Benghazi was a CIA operation in a State Department compound for who knows what. Possibly an Iran/contra type operation to get munitions and supplies to Syrian “rebels” is what was going on. Maybe it was about Chad, who knows? That’s what we need an thorough investigation for.
Let’s hope we’re wrong and that this Wednesday we finally unravel the Benghazi knot of lies. Investigate, investigate, investigate.
In the coming months, as in the past few weeks, some opponents of ObamaCare will be tempted for various reasons to attempt repairs on the Frankenstein monster that is ObamaCare. But, like a gangrenous limb that must be amputated in order to save the body, Barack ObamaCare must be removed from the body politic.
No attempt should be made to “repair” the irreparable. No lure should be accepted to “fix” what must be nixed.
The contours of the fight to come are clear from recent events: Obama Dimocrats who rammed the Obama health scam through congress even as the public opposed Obamacare see the coming train wreck and want to redistribute blame to include Republicans who unanimously opposed Obama’s health scam legislation; foolish Republicans who think their party needs to once again be rebranded as “compassionate conservatives” are looking for tactical refinements to ObamaCare.
Thus far those foolish Republican “leaders” have been rebuffed. The ranks of Obama Dimocrats desperate to share the blame for the coming life killing train wreck grow in numbers. Today we hear from Obama Dimocrat Harry Reid: We’re gonna need a lot more ObamaCare money to stop the train wreck. You’re gonna need a bigger boat.
To repeal or dismantle? That is the internal debate roiling House Republicans as they plot their strategy on the landmark 2010 health care law, as its implementation accelerates.
Recognizing that neither President Barack Obama nor the Democratic Senate will entertain legislation that fully repeals the Affordable Care Act, House GOP leaders are pushing their conference to embrace a series of messaging bills altering or dismantling pieces of the law to publicize for voters what Republicans argue are the statute’s many failed and damaging policies. Their goal is to turn the law into an issue they can use against Democrats in the 2014 midterms.
But rank-and-file Republicans, particularly freshmen and sophomore members, worry that any legislation to repeal a portion of the law could be interpreted by their constituents as strengthening it. Or worse, many Republicans fear that repealing broadly unpopular parts of the Affordable Care Act, such as the medical-device tax, might strengthen voters’ opinion of the law, decreasing the possibility that political pressure for full repeal will mount as a predicted messy implementation progresses.
Cantor was rebuffed by his own party caucus but not before Big Media had a chance to continue to attack Republicans on ObamaCare:
“In February, Cantor proposed a variety of initiatives to move the party “beyond the fiscal debate” and toward the “millions of Americans who just want their life to work again.” His proposals included changing comp and flex time, revising worker training, and helping people with preexisting medical conditions.
But Wednesday’s rebellion shows a flaw in the plan. In this case, Democrats opposed the bill because it proposed changes to Obamacare, which they considered an attempt to undermine the program. That meant the measure would pass only with near-unanimous Republican support, which seemed unlikely because conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and the Heritage Foundation spinoff Heritage Action opposed it, arguing that it wouldn’t repeal Obamacare.
At the conservatives’ luncheon, the nine lawmakers dutifully parroted these arguments. “We’re shifting money from one part of Obamacare we don’t support to another part of Obamacare we don’t support. That’s a non-starter for me,” Amash said.”
From ObamaCare supporters the argument is that “implementation” is the problem and that it might be a political problem because ObamaCare will be implemented in an election year.
It was always going to be difficult to implement Obamacare, but even fervent supporters of the law admit that things are going worse than expected.
Implementation got off to a bad start because the Obama administration didn’t want to release unpopular rules before the election. Regulators have been working hard but are clearly overwhelmed, trying to write rules that influence the entire health care sector — an economic unit roughly the size of France. Republicans in Congress have made things much more difficult by refusing to provide enough money for implementation.
By now, everybody involved seems to be in a state of anxiety. Insurance companies are trying to put out new products, but they don’t know what federal parameters they have to meet. Small businesses are angry because the provisions that benefited them have been put on the back burner. Health care systems are highly frustrated. They can’t plan without a road map. Senator Max Baucus, one of the authors of the law, says he sees a “huge train wreck” coming.
I’ve been talking with a bipartisan bunch of health care experts, trying to get a sense of exactly how bad things are. In my conversations with this extremely well-informed group of providers, academics and former government officials, I’d say there is a minority, including some supporters of the law, who think the whole situation is a complete disaster. They predict Obamacare will collapse and do serious damage to the underlying health system.
Obama protector and endorser David Brooks thinks in the end things will be “shambolic messiness” but then we will be in a “new normal”. What is the “new normal”? For Brooks this means that “The law’s biggest defenders will then become insurance companies and health care corporations. Having spent billions of dollars adapting to the new system, they are not going to want to see it repealed or replaced.” But first come the problems:
“The experts talk about the problems that lie ahead in cascades. First, there is what you might call the structural cascade. Everything is turning out to be more complicated than originally envisioned. The Supreme Court decision made the Medicaid piece more complicated. The decision by many states not to set up exchanges made the exchange piece more complicated. The lines of accountability between, for example, state and federally run exchanges have grown byzantine and unclear.
A law that was very confusing has become mind-boggling. That could lead people to freeze up. Insurance companies will hesitate before venturing into state exchanges, thereby limiting competition and choice. Americans are just going to be overwhelmed and befuddled. Many are just going to stay away, even if they are eligible for benefits.
Then there is the technical cascade. At some point, people are going to sit at computers and enroll. If the data process looks like some 1990s glitchmonster, if information doesn’t flow freely, then the public opinion hit will be catastrophic.
Then there is the cost cascade. Nearly everybody not in the employ of the administration agrees this law does not solve the cost problem, and many of the recent regulatory decisions will send costs higher. [snip]
Then there is the adverse selection cascade. Under the law, young healthy people subsidize poorer, sicker and older people. But the young may decide en masse that it is completely irrational for them to get health insurance that subsidizes others while they are healthy. They’ll be better off paying the fines, if those are even enforced, and opting out. Without premiums from the young, everybody else’s costs go up even higher.
Then there is the provider concentration cascade.”
We won’t quote further from Brooks regarding the problems of ObamaCare. The point that Brooks and others are loathe to admit is that the problems with ObamaCare are not just “implementation”. The problem is that ObamaCare is a Chicago scam that loots the economy to pay for worse health care.
Some ObamaCare gurus think the problem is not even implementation. Can you guess what they think the problem is? It’s that old standby: messaging. But even Obama protecting Politico writes that ObamaCare 2.0 is “shaky like 1.0″.
“Democratic Senators Tell White House of Concerns About Health Care Law Rollout
WASHINGTON — Democratic senators, at a caucus meeting with White House officials, expressed concerns on Thursday about how the Obama administration was carrying out the health care law they adopted three years ago.
Democrats in both houses of Congress said some members of their party were getting nervous that they could pay a political price if the rollout of the law was messy or if premiums went up significantly. [snip]
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, who is up for re-election next year, said, “We are hearing from a lot of small businesses in New Hampshire that do not know how to comply with the law.”
In addition, Mrs. Shaheen said, “restaurants that employ people for about 30 hours a week are trying to figure out whether it would be in their interest to reduce the hours” of those workers, so the restaurants could avoid the law’s requirement to offer health coverage to full-time employees. [snip]
Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the appropriations subcommittee on health care, said he was extremely upset with Mr. Obama’s decision to take money from public health prevention programs and use it to publicize the new law, which creates insurance marketplaces in every state.
“I am greatly disappointed — beyond upset — that the administration chose to help pay for the Affordable Care Act in fiscal year 2013 by raiding the Public Health and Prevention Fund,” Mr. Harkin said.
The administration said it had transferred $332 million from the prevention fund to pay for “education and outreach” activities publicizing the new insurance markets, or exchanges.
To express his displeasure, Mr. Harkin has blocked Senate action on Mr. Obama’s nominee to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Marilyn B. Tavenner. [snip]
Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, said he told White House officials on Thursday that he was concerned about big rate increases being sought by the largest health insurer in his state. [snip] The company said the higher premiums reflected costs of complying with the new law. [snip]
Congressional leaders wrestled at the same time with a more parochial concern, health insurance for members of Congress and their aides.
A provision of the 2010 law, sought by a Republican senator, says members of Congress and many of their aides must get their health benefits through the new insurance exchanges. Some lawmakers and their aides are worried that the government may not continue to pay its share of the premiums.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for Speaker John A. Boehner, said this was the “Democrats’ problem to solve.”
The problems with the ObamaCare health scam are not merely a matter of implementation or messaging. John A. Boehner might be learning, if reports are to be believed:
“The fact that Democratic leaders want to opt themselves out of the Obamacare exchanges shows that Sen. Baucus isn’t the only one who realizes the president’s health care law is a ‘train wreck,’” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.
“The speaker would like to see resolution of this problem, along with the other nightmares created by Washington Democrats’ health law, which is why he supports full repeal,” Steel added. “In the meantime, it is Democrats’ problem to solve. He will not sneak any language into bills to solve it for them — and the Democratic leadership knows that.”
“McConnell spokesman Brian McGuire told Breitbart News, “Senator McConnell does not support, and is not involved in drafting, legislation that would do special favors for Congress when his constituents are still facing the increased premiums and taxes, the mountains of red tape, the loss of health care plans they like and want to keep and fewer jobs under Obamacare.”
“It’s no surprise that Democrats would want to exempt themselves from the train wreck they created in Obamacare,” McGuire continued, “but Sen. McConnell believes the entire country should be exempt from this historic mistake. The law is a disaster and needs to be repealed.”
That must be the answer. Repeal. Ram it right down Barack Obama’s throat in 2014. Kill ObamaCare before it kills you.
“Imagine for a moment, as the most fevered Obama dimwits – including according to David Axelrod what Barack Obama himself imagines – that a right wing tax protesting gun rights teabaggin’ party Sarah Palin lovin’ birther Mitt Romney voter exploded those bombs at the Boston Marathon yesterday. Imagine that and ask yourself what would have happened immediately after the culprit was exposed.
We have no doubt that immediately every Tea Party organization and activist along with every tax protestor, Sarah Palin herself and her active supporters, Second Amendment NRA type, along with all of the above would immediately issue a heartfelt, sincere, unvarnished, and absolute repudiation of the Boston Marathon bombing.”
We’re still waiting for that type of repudiation from Muslims, especially American Muslim individuals, organizations, and mosques. We’re waiting for mass demonstrations of American Muslims changing the old Kate Smith standard into “Allah Bless America”.
Nihad Awad, the Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations or CAIR has his own nefarious aims. Sounding as if he’s condemning the Boston bombing Awad actually echoes Terrorist Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev who lamented, we kid you not – this is according to the New York Times‘ latest sympathetic portrait of the killer – that Tamerlan the Islamic Terrorist killer, “… was angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion.” Ya think?
On his Tuesday program, “The O’Reilly Factor” host Bill O’Reilly took on Nihad Awad, the founder and executive director of the controversial pro-Muslim group the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
O’Reilly asked Awad to explain why it was incorrect to take aim at extremist elements in Islam in aftermath of last week’s Boston bombing, particularly since there are indications that Islam was the inspiration for the suspects’ actions. Awad denied that sentiment was representative of Muslims. [snip]
O’REILLY: You just said, you just said that radical Islam is not the driving force of terrorism in the world, when that’s an absurd statement. It’s absurd.
AWAD: I think your statement is absurd because you are trying to redefine religion for me. You are trying to define my faith to me.
O’REILLY: No I’m not. I’m telling you that radical Islamists, under the banner of jihad, are causing the most intense terrorism the earth has ever seen and you are denying it. So either you are naïve or I mean, you are just way out of touch. Do you not have a television set?
AWAD: Bill, I think you are just making up some stuff.
O’REILLY: Making it up?
AWAD: I’m telling you Islam is a peaceful religion. Islam is my faith.
O’REILLY: Yeah, what about these jihadists then?
AWAD: Well, also you do not the know the word jihad, what it means. I’m telling you jihad is a legitimate struggle. Those terrorists who are using the word are trying to legitimize their attacks on innocent people.”
Of course with a shop lifting Muslim mom like the boys had, it’s a wonder they had enough sense to breathe. Here’s the lovely shoplifting Muslim mom – the one who came with her family to seek refuge in the United States but now somehow cannot remember why she came to this horrible place that gave her shelter and food and welfare and stores to steal from:
Does anyone really think that national security and our entire immigration policy should not be influenced by the Boston Muslim Terror Bombing? Does anyone doubt that immigration reform is dead once the full effect of the Boston Muslim Terror Bombing sinks into the public consciousness?
Let there be no doubt - immigration reform is the new, even more horrible ObamaCAIR.
“Remember O’s big election-year immigration pander, declaring that he was going to exercise his “discretion” as chief executive not to deport young illegals who would have qualified for amnesty under the DREAM Act that’s never passed Congress? That was his way of trying to consolidate the Latino vote before November. More importantly, it was a precedent for what he might do if the Gang of Eight bill collapses and immigration reform falls apart in the Senate this summer. If he could grant de facto unilateral amnesty to DREAMers by simply choosing not to deport them, couldn’t he do the same with broader classes of illegals? If he can, it’s major leverage over Republicans who oppose immigration reform but tremble at the thought of Obama trying to mobilize Latinos next year with some grand pander.
The court’s verdict: Nope, Obama and DHS can’t choose not to deport people if federal law says deportation is required.“
We’ll say it again: Immigration reform is dead. Immigration reform is as dead as Tamerlan’s rotting corpse.
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Update III: The joke that started on Big Pink is no longer a joke. On the Monday of the Boston Bombing we highlighted a comment by Valleyboy: “Has this been blamed on the sequester yet? You know, the one Republicans are to blame for.” The early blame-the-sequester-for-the-attacks attack failed. But fear not comedians. Today the lawyers for the Boston killer say they cannot proceed with their defense because of – sequester cuts. No sequester cuts for ObamaCare though.
In other news from the ridiculous MSNBC is suggesting that rap music is to blame, not the previous excuse which was boxing. It certainly does not occur to MSNBC and the DailyKooks that perhaps the answer lies closer to home. It can’t possibly be a religion problem can it? Can it? Of course, as USAToday reports, the Mosque attended by Tsarnaevs has radical ties. Hey, we’re still waiting (as we wrote last Tuesday) for Muslims around the world and particularly American Muslim individuals and organizations along with mosques to denounce radical Islam and the Boston Terror Bombing killers. Waiting… waiting… waiting…. Qui tecat consentere. Well, at least Joe Biden said “Islamists” at the funeral of a murder victim of the Boston Terror Attack Bombing Brothers.
Speaking of radical ties, Bill Ayres admits that Obama’s career started in Ayres’ very own living room fundraiser. That’s a fact Obama and Robert Gibbs had denied. And lantern jawed Michelle Obama worked with terrorist Bernadine Dohrn, Ayres’ wife at the law firm. That’s the law firm where Michelle met Barack.
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Update II: Love the immigration bill or hate the immigration bill, it’s dead. At some point the opposition will begin the search and destroy mission. That point might have come today:
“They’re acting out of desperation, and what we’ve gotten from that is a disaster of a bill. Well it’s got to stop. Republicans need to snap out of it, wake up, and kill this bill. Circumstances have changed. Obama lost on the sequester and lost on gun control. The left is tearing itself apart on energy issues and making a fool of itself on terrorism. There’s no need for conservatives to go along with nonsense like this bill. It’s time to stop the surrender. This spirit of capitulation ends here, ends now.”
Of the many immigration reform quotes of the day 1355 the most important is the Rubio statement that much of the problem is the lack of trust in Obama (at 3:49). Marco, haven’t you heard?:
“Obama simply cannot be trusted. Obama cannot be trusted on any issue. Obama cannot be trusted by his friends. Obama cannot be trusted by his enemies. Obama cannot be trusted.”
As for immigration, it’s hard to believe that under the present circumstances there will be great public clamor to support the Gang of Eight bill to legalize and regularize. Something tells me it’s going to be back to the drawing board for immigration reform.
A major problem for those who want an immigration bill is lack of faith in government to do all the jobs it’s set itself well. People don’t trust it to be able to execute—to do, adequately, the thing it’s set itself to do in its big new laws. We always look at the motives and politics behind a big bill, and talk about that. But simple noncrisis execution—the ability to track and deal with a Tamerlan Tsarnaeu, or to patrol and control a huge border—is a big reason why which people lack faith. Because, you know, they read the papers.
Support it or not, the immigration reform bill is dying and will soon enough be dead.
Barack Obama 2012: “Bin Laden dead.” But if Bin Laden had two non-Arab children they sure would look like the Brothers Tsarnaev. According to two U.S. officials: preliminary evidence suggests bombers motivated by religion, acted alone. “Acted alone?” Tamerlan was red flagged by Russian officials years ago but we’re supposed to believe those red flags are irrelevant??? Our “officials” are either idiots or ass-covering because they don’t want the Boston Terror Bombing to be a terror bombing because then they and Barack Obama would be exposed either as incompetent boobs or terrorist enabling liars.
There is a reason why red flags from the former reds are being downplayed. Obama and his henchmen don’t want the rest of Obama’s agenda to go the way of gun control. The Boston Terror Bombers have already blown up the immigration reform efforts 2013. Immigration reformers: “Ignore that elephant sized bomb you see.”
Desperate Republicans over-eager to get the Latino vote are trying to convince themselves that it really is the Boston-immigration reform non-sequitur. Obama Dimocrats with equal fervor delude themselves that the Boston Bombings have nothing to do with immigration reform and their access to, as Jay Leno joked, “undocumented Democratic voters”. Both are wrong. Immigration reform is dead and the Boston Bombers killed it.
Our first update on the Monday of the Boston Terror Attack got it right:
“Immigration reform will also be impacted as questions of border jumping terrorists will now come to the fore no matter how much Big Media steers the conversation to sympathetic portraits of families divided by immigration laws and flaws.”
Opponents of the current immigration reform effort needed time, that most valued commodity, to defeat immigration reform. The Boston Terror Bombers gave it to them. And the fact that the Boston Terror Bombing Brothers are Caucasian is an added bonus because the race-baiting of Obama Dimocrats can be countered with a simple “but they’re white”.
While there are some very good things in the current immigration reform bill, it is too big to pass. We still don’t know what is in all the nooks and crannies of the immigration reform bill.
As we learned during the ObamaCare fear and smear campaign something so big cannot be examined too much or it will fail – unless it is rammed through. Immigration reform was on the fast track to being rammed through. But the Boston Terror Bombing Brothers blew the fast track up.
One unsavory reason he gave for slowing down the bill: “While we don’t yet know the immigration status of people who have terrorized the communities in Massachusetts, when we find out, it will help shed light on the weaknesses of our system.” [snip]
The other advantage of slowing the bill down is that it creates an opening to oppose the law — or at least its progress — without opposing the law itself. It could even allow some senators to have it both ways. [snip]
Even if the law passes the Senate, it will be mired in the House. “The bill will be immediately sent to the committees, and then either sent back to the Senate with changes, or rewritten in a bicameral conference committee,” reports Robert Costa. “That tweaking process could take months, which is just fine with many Republicans, who’d like the public to have as much time as possible to chew over the controversial elements of Obama’s prized bills. The caucus consensus is: The more time Congress takes to consider a bill, the more time the public has to sour on its components.”
Politico’s article yesterday Immigration reform could be bonanza for Democrats sufficiently explains to Republicans the political aims of the current immigration reform bill. This could prompt reform of immigration reform sufficient to kill reform of the reform and the original reform itself.
I believe that any real comprehensive immigration reform must implement strong national security protections. The facts emerging in the Boston Marathon bombing have exposed a weakness in our current system. If we don’t use this debate as an opportunity to fix flaws in our current system, flaws made even more evident last week, then we will not be doing our jobs.
We should not proceed until we understand the specific failures of our immigration system. Why did the current system allow two individuals to immigrate to the United States from the Chechen Republic in Russia, an area known as a hotbed of Islamic extremism, who then committed acts of terrorism? Were there any safeguards? Could this have been prevented? Does the immigration reform before us address this?
There should be hearings in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee that study the national security aspects of this situation, making sure that our current immigration system gives individuals from high-risk areas of the world heightened scrutiny. [snip]
Media reports indicate that both the bombing suspects were legal permanent residents and one is reported to be a naturalized citizen. We need to make sure that we have safeguards against this type of situation happening again.
In 2002, Congress set up the National Security Registration System (NSEERS), yet it was suspended in 2011 by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. That system had problems, yet was still based on the practical idea that extra screening is necessary from nations that have a higher population of extremists. Congress might need a similar system updated for current circumstances to be rolled into comprehensive immigration reform. [snip]
Our refugee programs have proven to be a problem. On, January 29, 2013, two Iraqi citizens living in Bowling Green, in my home state of Kentucky, were sentenced to long prison terms for participating in terrorism and providing material support to terrorists while living in the United States. How did this happen? Does the current immigration reform address how this might have happened? We may need more scrutiny when accepting refugees from high-risk nations.
I want to make sure that any new bill addresses the visa entry and exit programs, in addition to refugee programs that have proven problematic in Bowling Green and possibly, if media reports are correct, in Boston.
Finally, do we need to take a hard look at student visas? Should we suspend student visas, or at least those from high-risk areas, pending an investigation into the national security implications of this program?
Hey, has anybody mentioned Boston dwellers and illegal immigrants Uncle Obama and Aunt Obama? They should be called to testify on how they have managed to flout immigration laws for decades.
Gun control once was a sure win for Barack Obama. Immigration reform is the next sure win – NOT.
Born into slavery as one of the youngest of thirteen children of James and Elizabeth in Ulster County, New York, in 1797, Sojourner Truth’s given name was Isabella Baumfree. As almost all of her brothers and sisters had been sold to other slave owners, some of her earliest memories were of her parents’ stories of the cruel loss of their other children. [snip]
In 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth – her name for a traveling preacher, one who speaks the truth – and left New York. She traveled throughout New England, where she met and worked with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, and Frederick Douglass. Her life story, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, written with the help of friend Olive Gilbert, was published in 1850.
While traveling and speaking in states across the country, Sojourner Truth met many women abolitionists and noticed that although women could be part of the leadership in the abolitionist movement, they could neither vote nor hold public office. It was this realization that led Sojourner to become an outspoken supporter of women’s rights.
In 1851, she addressed the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, delivering her famous speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” The applause she received that day has been described as “deafening.” From that time on, she became known as a leading advocate for the rights of women. She became one of the nineteenth century’s most eloquent voices for the cause of anti-slavery and women’s rights.
Because we want to share our ideas and experiences, our common goals, and nonpartisan solutions to the challenges that we face - and there are no limits to what we can achieve when we do.
And because we want to keep working for a better future for every child, from every family – a world in which no limits is not just our goal, but a reality!
NoLimits.org will "keep you up to date with news about issues on which Hillary took a lead and we know you care so much about," group President Ann Lewis said in an e-mail to as many as 2 million people culled from the Clinton campaign database.
Because No Limits is a registered nonprofit, "it cannot do anything political. It has to be nonpartisan," said Lewis, a longtime senior adviser to Clinton.
In Clinton's job as secretary of state for President Obama, her political dealings are highly restricted.
For example, she shut down her political action committee.
Some, like Democratic consultant and former Bill Clinton aide Chris Lehane, dismiss talk that the group could be a springboard for Clinton to try again for the White House in, say, 2016.
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," Lehane said. "I think this is just [a] group of folks who developed relationships in an intense [electoral] environment and want to stay together."
But the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato countered: "Whenever a group like this says it's not a political organization, you just know it is."
"Maybe [this] is Hillary's answer to Obama's new 'change' group that controls his golden mailing list. Maybe it's a way for Secretary of State Clinton to mobilize backing for her objectives at the State Department," he said. "And maybe [it's] a standby committee of supporters in case Hillary decides to get back into elective politics."
Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf said NoLimits.org is "one way to make sure that she - and/or the former President - still have political leverage."
Hillary World-Wide January 26, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton Meets Afghan Women Lawyers. Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton met today at the State Department with fourteen prominent Afghan women judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. These jurists were in Washington to participate in a training program arranged by the Department’s Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan. Secretary Clinton told them: "Your American friends greatly admire your bravery and courage. It is your work in the tough environment of Afghanistan for women lawyers that will bring real reform and the rule of law to the Afghan people. As President Obama made clear yesterday in his first foreign policy announcement, we are committed to supporting your efforts to bring security and stability to your country."
