House Republicans last week proposed legislation that would suspend the ability of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to conduct audits until the IRS itself is audited by Congress.
The bill, from Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), is the latest in a string of measures that have been offered in the wake of the IRS’s admission it applied extra scrutiny to conservative groups over the last few years.
Republicans have said those activities were politically motivated and went unreported by senior Obama administration officials in the run-up to the 2012 election.
In a nation of over 300 million people, it is amazing how often there are multiple connections to this White House, isn’t it?
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official who apologized for targeting conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny is married to an attorney whose firm hosted a voter registration organizing event for the Obama presidential campaign, praised President Obama’s policy work, and had one of its partners appointed by Obama to a key ambassadorship.
IRS Exempt Organizations Division director Lois G. Lerner, who has been described as “apolitical” in mainstream press coverage of the IRS scandal, is married to tax attorney Michael R. Miles, a partner at the law firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. The firm is based in Atlanta but has a number of offices including in Washington, D.C., where Miles works.
I know many of you have seen footage from the tornado. If there are any who have not here is a sample. The residents are pitching in before the state, county, city, or the feds are able to mobilize. That’s the way it always is.
A monstrous tornado at least a half-mile wide roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods with winds up to 200 mph, setting buildings on fire and landing a direct blow on an elementary school. At least 37 people were reported killed.
KFOR-TV reports that up to 24 children are believed dead at the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore and that it has turned into a search and recovery effort. The storm tore off the roof, knocked down walls and turned the playground into a mass of twisted plastic and metal. Several children were pulled alive from the rubble, however. Rescue workers passed the survivors down a human chain to a triage center in the parking lot.
Every winter since 1917, people in Nenana, a village 55 miles southwest of Fairbanks, have wagered on the exact moment that the ice breaks up on the nearby Tanana River.
The Ice Classic has given them a rare, reliable climate history that has documented to the minute the onset of the annual thaw as it shifted across 91 years. By this measure, spring comes to central Alaska 10 days earlier than in 1960, said geophysicist Martin Jeffries at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks — and that trend is accelerating. “The Nenana Ice Classic is a pretty good proxy for climate change in the 20th century,” Dr. Jeffries said.
Right now the ice is still in which makes this year a tie for the latest break-up ever. If the ice is in after midnight, it will be the latest breakup ever.
The story of Kermit Gosnell killing live babies is not uncommon. On a tip from reader Z here is the story of another abortion hellhole. It is sickening:
The similarities between convicted abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell and Houston-based abortion practitioner Douglas Karpen are striking.
Not only does Karpen kill babies born alive following abortions in a similar procedure that more closely resembles infanticide than abortion, but Karpen also killed a patient in a botched abortion. Gosnell was convicted of murder for severing the necks of just-born babies but he also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of patient Karnamaya Mongar, who died after a botched abortion.
Douglas Karpen
LifeNews exposed Douglas Karpen — who, like the Philadelphia-based abortion practitioner, is also killing babies born alive after botched abortions. Unlike Gosnell, who killed babies by jamming medical scissors into their necks, at his Houston abortion clinic former employees of Karpen testify he goes one shocking step further, he kills the babies with his bare hands by twisting their necks execution style.”
And there is a very disturbing video here that has three of Karpen’s assistants telling about what they saw. What they saw was babies born alive daily.
For those of you who live in Arizona. John McCain may be about to change parties.
RINO McCain
President Barack Obama has an important new ally as emboldened Republicans work to derail his agenda: John McCain.
The shift is striking: The 2008 rivals never got along throughout Obama’s first term in office. McCain has been Obama’s chief tormentor on issues ranging from the budget to Benghazi, tartly saying in late 2010 that the two men had “no relationship.”
Yet during one of Obama’s toughest times as president, there was McCain, sitting down last week with him in the Oval Office for a private strategy session. At the urging of new White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, who has sought better ties with Republicans, Obama has had more substantive discussions with McCain in the past five months than he did in his first four years in office, according to associates of both men. Suddenly, the two are working together on issues ranging from immigration to the deficit.
…
Asked when he was next expected to meet with the president, McCain said: “I’d like to be over there every day to give him guidance.”
Beretta Leaving Maryland After Gov. Mandates Strict Gun Control Laws
On Friday, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed into law the state’s comprehensive new gun control laws. The new laws, the stated purpose of which is to “save lives,” ban some “assault weapons” (whatever the heck gun grabbers think those imaginary weapons are), limits magazine capacity to ten rounds, and requires mandatory fingerprinting for gun purchase.
…
For Beretta, the Governor’s signature was the sign it needed that now is the time to move on. The move isn’t just about the symbolism of these ineffectual gun control statutes. It also came about because the legislation would make illegal the company’s ARX 100, which is Beretta’s newly issued civilian version of the ARX-160, a tactical rifle used in Italy.
The magazine size limit also puts Beretta in a legal bind. For several of the guns in its product line, Beretta would no longer be able to stock appropriate, standard capacity magazines. While this wouldn’t necessarily force Beretta to close, it would complicate Beretta’s corporate life to the point of “why bother?”.
The IRS made a surprise admission today that IRS employees not only targeted “tea party” groups applying for non-profit status for enhanced review, but that IRS employees actively hunted down and murdered many of the applicants. IRS spokesperson Robert Pilatus made the announcement in a morning briefing and emphasized that all those involved in the killings were low-level employees and that all had been disciplined for their actions.
“We provided terrible customer service when our employees kidnapped applicants and let them loose in a remote natural preserve where they were hunted down and killed by IRS employees. The IRS administration does not condone this kind of activity and it certainly did not come from any direction from our God Emperor in the White House.” Pilatus later noted that the blood of the applicants may have been offered to an image of a person who bears a remarkable likeness to President Obama, but that it was done on employee private time.
When asked about the revelation, White House Spokesman Jay Carney stated that the Obama Administration had no knowledge of the killings and that it opposed the use of murder to advance their political agenda. When asked about bloody handprints on oval office windows and ritual chanting and beating drums heard from the West Wing, Carney replied that sequestration cuts by Republicans were responsible.
CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson attempted to ask a follow-up question but was unable to do so after a dart struck her neck and she fell over dead in the press room. CNN reporter Candy Crowley noted the death but later stated that general consensus was that the death was of natural causes.
The admission of murder for sport by the IRS has made many wonder if Obama, already struggling to implement his second term agenda, will be able to move on from this latest scandal
It occurs to me that with all this talk about impeachment, the current administration is fully prepared to absorb this sort of siege. When a presidential administration is beset on all sides by legitimate and frightening scandals, it’s the go-to answer that the POTUS/White House was “unaware” in some way, and wasn’t directly involved. This is a difficult argument to make if a POTUS is previously seen being very engaged in issues, actively participating or even micromanaging all manner of federal governance.
However, far from this standard, the current POTUS spent nearly the totality of his first term fundraising, campaigning or advocating for a cause du jour (with a heaping helping of golf thrown in). These activities are not governing.
The American people don’t care much about people–even Presidents–that display monumental incompetence. They’d be moved to opposition by “aggressive evil,” but less so by passive incompetence.
In the battle between Stupid vs. Evil, Americans will side with the affable fool every time. Americans embrace incompetence and idiocy just fine. See: Kardashian, Hilton, Kanye, etc. They might outwardly feign disgust if someone asks, but they’ll watch and be enthralled all the same.
Dan Pfeiffer is a senior White House Advisor, whatever that means. Obama and Valerie Jarrett sent him out to present the White House line. Schieffer isn’t having any of it. He correctly notes that the line this administration is handing out is exactly the same one that the Nixon administration used to try to divert attantion away from the Watergate scandal.
Then he notes that they are sending subordinates to do the dirty work. He wants to know why the White House Chief of Staff isn’t there talking with him.
Schieffer is on to something but he has an inflated idea of the importance of him, his program and CBS News in general. During the time Watergate happened CBS was at or near the peak of their influence. Today, with all the other news sources available to the public, and CBS’ history of distorting and creating news stories they are just another source. Schieffer hasn’t noticed that yet but the White House has.
Sure, she jumps to Obama’s defense during the debate, contradicts Mitt Romney and incorrectly states that Obama did in fact say Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Now, the election safely in the bag, she asks “Why didn’t the president just say, yeah, it was a terrorist attack?”
That clip at the end sickens me and I will never believe there wasn’t collusion between Obama and Crowley. During the debate Romney hit Obama hard, Obama just snicked like Mitt is being led into an ambush and Crowley jumps in like Obama’s tag team partner. It was worked out ahead of time Do you think that is far fetched? More far fetched than the IRS targeting conservatives coast-to-coast?
Obama knew he was vulnerable on the Benghazi issue and knew it would come up during the debate. He knew his Rose Garden speech contained a single, off-hand mention of terror. It was just a generic use of the word but it was close enough and his people made sure that Crowley was armed with the fact that he used the word. She used that information to shut down Mitt and defend Obama.
It was dirty as hell and now Crowley isn’t even pretending to support the fiction she inappropriately propagated during a presidential debate.
A tea-party group is targeted, not just by the IRS, but by the FBI, OSHA, and the ATF as well.
Catherine Engelbrecht’s tale has all the markings of a classic conspiracy theory: She says she thinks that because of her peaceful political activity, she and her family was targeted for scrutiny by hostile federal agencies.
Yet as news emerges that the Internal Revenue Service wielded its power to obstruct conservative groups, Catherine’s story becomes credible — and chilling. It also raises questions about whether other federal agencies have used their executive powers to target those deemed political enemies.
File this one under unintended consequences. Angelina Jolie, by announcing her preventative double masectomy, will likely have significant influence well beyond women’s health. By modeling how to think with data when data do not tell us what we would otherwise want them to say, she displayed a level of decision-making courage that business and political leaders should strive to emulate. For example, her leadership just may end up helping those fighting in the Republican Party to end ongoing anti-science climate-change denial.
Green policies: The economic equivalent of a national double masectomy.
Impeachment? Don’t they know striking him down will only make him more powerful than they can imagine?
Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, says President Barack Obama may face impeachment over his administration’s response to the Benghazi attack.
“They purposefully and willfully misled the American people, and that’s unacceptable,” Chaffetz tells me. “It’s part of a pattern of deception.”
Behind the scenes, he says, House Republicans are frustrated by the White House’s evasiveness, and the calls for impeachment will likely increase.
Chaffetz acknowledges that House speaker John Boehner is wary of moving too swiftly against the president, but the brash, 46-year-old conservative is tired of waiting for answers. He’s ready to issue subpoenas and schedule more hearings.
Unless they have video of Obama ordering the attack on the consulate, they should avoid the temptation. They didn’t get Clinton and they won’t get Obama. They will, however, generate a lot of sympathy for the poor, beleaguered first African American president.
This isn’t about Obama. Well, Obama is a player in this farce but it isn’t about him. This is about the toxic brew of corruption that is inevitably created whenever power, politics and a massive bureaucracy are mixed in a single stinking cesspool.
There are no laws that will prevent crime. There are no rules that will prevent corruption. People will always try to maneuver themselves into positions of power and to manipulate their fellow man.
Government is power. The Founders attempted to create a government in which the power was balanced and in which interests would compete. They didn’t believe that the right system would cause men to become angels and do right by their fellow man.
They expected men to be corrupt and look out for their self interest and attempted to create a government in which those interests would offset and even compliment one and other. That was the balance of power. That was the republic.
What they didn’t create or expect to be created was a byzantine system of centralized command and control that would find its way into every corner and every aspect of the lives of the citizens. This is what we have today.
The offsets and balances are nearly gone. We have learned that the IRS can do anything to anyone for any reason and there is nothing any of us can do about it. We are the serfs but our master isn’t Obama, our master is a massive, faceless, soulless bureaucracy.
The bureaucrats are everywhere and they are nowhere. They control us but we cannot see them. They are, however, our masters and they are despots.
It isn’t, however, jackboot-in-the-face despotism. It is a despotism in which the nominally free know that the powerful can destroy them for any reason.
Prior to last week we knew the federal government in the form of the IRS could destroy any of us. We deluded ourselves, however, that it would need to do it under color of law. We believed that there would be due process. We believe there would be blind justice. Now we know better.
People delude themselves as to the good nature of Obama but no one imagines that IRS is anything other than what it is. They know what its purpose is and they know the meaning of “audit”. Nobody receives a letter from the IRS without a pang of fear.
As of last week, we now know for certain that the IRS is capable of acting on its own, for its own purposes and that there is nothing you can do when it does. We all have proof that the federal government has the power to ruin us for any reason at any time.
That is bigger than Obama. That is an indictment of the entire leviathan. Readers of this site held no illusions as to the awesome power of the central bureaucracy. Last week tens of million of Americans, to their shock and dismay, learned what we already knew.
He’s a lucky guy but in warfare there are lucky guys and unlucky guys. Nothing is fair.
It’s interesting, though, that this little video has gotten close to 200,000 views. Apparently a lot of people think that a bullet automatically means death. Not so.
Meg Lanker-Simons has been going to University in Wyoming. Not long ago she tried to frame an imaginary conservative for allegedly threatening to ‘Hate Rape’ her. It turned out to be a fake. She posted it herself. Cute kid.
Meg Lanker-Simons
She is an outspoken leftist who writes for, of other places, Think Progress. She has acquired some interesting friends. Here she is with unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers:
According to court records, she was charged in November 2005 in District Court with aggravated assault.
Lanker-Simons, then Meghan Michelena, pleaded guilty to the charge in May 2006 as part of a plea agreement, records indicate.
According to an affidavit, the charge stemmed from an incident in which Lanker-Simons walked into an Albany County radio station she’d been fired from with a Glock 22 .40 caliber handgun.
She confronted a man who had decided to terminate her, the affidavit reports. The man also told her, the court documents state, that she would not be rehired.
Lanker-Simons “pulled a semi-automatic pistol from her purse, waved the firearm around and pointed (the) firearm at (the man),” according to the affidavit.
The man, according to the affidavit, said he was “in fear for his life.”
The radio station, the affidavit states, was evacuated.
Albany County Sheriff’s Office deputies made contact with Lanker-Simons as she was attempting to leave the area in her vehicle and detained her at gunpoint.
During an interview with deputies, Lanker-Simons “admitted to having (a) gun in (her) purse and pulling it out and waving it around (the) victim,” according to the affidavit.
She was sentenced to six years of probation in July 2006.”
But the best part of the article is the last two lines:
Lanker-Simons, according to UW, participated Saturday in the College of Arts and Sciences’ commencement ceremony.
She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.”
