The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is holding a hearing on the IRS political targeting scandal, this morning at 9:30 am. Eastern.
“The IG report indicts IRS for a colossal management failure, but leaves many questions unanswered,” said Chairman Issa.
You can watch the hearing streamed live at http://oversight.house.gov or on CSPAN.
The Committee has invited the following witnesses to testify:
Neal S. Wolin, Deputy Secretary, Department of the Treasury
J. Russell George, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration
Lois Lerner, Director of Exempt Organizations, Internal Revenue Service (Pleading the 5th.)
Douglas Shulman, Former Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service
The Regime and its sycophants have proven over and over again, they’re not serious about leveling with the American people about Benghazi. After sending out Susan Rice to all the Sunday talk shows five days after the attack to spin a not believable yarn about what happened, and then again, eight months later, make the same mistake by sending out yet another stooge, to spin wildly and unconvincingly for the Regime, they havs proven once and for all, that they really have no interest at all in telling the truth and frankly little respect for the intelligence of the American people..
In this excellent video by Ben Howe for Heritage, their never-ending mendacity is laid bare for all to see. Benghazi: Demand the Truth:
Contrary to the election-time narrative that “al-Qaeda is on the run,” defeated by the Obama Administration, President Obama and his staff are now pleading ignorance across the board. Pfeiffer’s problematic media appearance could fit into an emerging narrative that the Obama Administration may have been more incompetent, than Machiavellian in its handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack. Administration officials spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity, proffering the line that bungling, ignorance, and inexperience may have been at the root of the debacle that left four Americans dead in Benghazi.
On very short notice, and with very little organization, other than hearing about it on the radio, or online, tea partiers across the nation gathered at their IRS offices to protest the targeted abusive treatment conservatives have received from what increasingly appears to have operated as branch of Obama’s thug regime.
One of the bigger protests was in Cincinnati, Ground Zero for the IRS scandal. According to attendees on Twitter, the crowd swelled to around 500.
Which means she’ll be about as forthcoming as Jay Carney is at the average WH press briefing. Who could she be protecting, I wonder?
Oh. I should mention that Lerner did bad thingsduring the Clinton administration when she was at the FEC, too. I think we can assume the woman will not be praying or engaging in any prayerful activities ahead of the hearing, tomorrow.
ABC News’ Jonathan Karl had an interesting exchange with Jay Carney, Monday during the daily press briefing.
Carney: “Nobody’s been more outraged by the reported conduct than the president of the United States”, Carney asserted, (as he likes to do.) No one ever cares as much, works as hard, is more dedicated, more outraged, or more whatever than this president. He’s the POTUS with the MOSTUS.
Karl: “Jay, with all due respect, the outrage from the president came, last week….”
Carney: (interrupting) “his outrage came within hours of the release of the report”...(I’m so impressed!)
Karl:” But, but, but what I’m saying is that there were public reports that this was going on for almost a year before the presidential election. How is it that no one in the White House has a responsibility even before the IG report to say, ‘hey! By the way, this kind of activity shouldn’t be going on…let’s make sure, and take steps to get this to stop?’”
Carney: (bored, resigned tone): “Again, I refer you to the IG, who investigated this matter, the treasury Dept and others who investigated this matter.”
And then he launched into a long dissertation about the IG report, which I’m not going to bother to transcribe, because it was stupid, (and irrelevant.)
(At this point, I would have asked, “HEY DOES THE PRESIDENT NOT HAVE ACCESS TO TV, RADIO, NEWSPAPER, INTERNET? THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTED ON THE PROBLEM AT LEAST A COUPLE OF TIMES. YOU HAD TO BE LIVING UNDER A ROCK NOT TO HAVE KNOWN THAT THIS WAS GOING ON. A FAIR AND IMPARTIAL LEADER WOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING TO STOP IT. GEE, MAYBE YOU’RE JUST GIVING US THE RUN AROUND, HERE, BECAUSE THE PRESIDENT DID KNOW, AND WAS IN FACT ORCHESTRATING IT.”
Karl: ”You’re missing the point of the question – public reports almost a year before the election… Is there any responsibility on the part of the administration of saying, “hey IRS, we don’t treat groups differently based on politics.”
Carney: “It is absolutely our view, (crosstalk) but you’re saying accusations, and in response to these accusations there was an IG audit launched. Uh – that was appropriate and the findings are that which we now know. And the president’s response to those findings could not be more clear(finger comes out signalling a huge whopper is ahead) We need to hold people accountable and we have to make sure that this activity doesn’t happen again because it’s very important that the American people believe that the IRS applies our tax laws fairly and neutrally.”
A poll must have told him that, because I doubt anyone in this Regime could have figured that one out on his own.
So what’s the takeaway, here? Well, apparently, before the President is allowed to say anything about accusations, he must wait until there’s a full investigation, and a report comes out (after an election, of course.) Because to do otherwise would just be irresponsible, or something.
But this President has used the bully pulpit like a bully for years. On any number of controversial issues, he was happy to share his strong opinions. Even non-political issues like the professor who was accosted by police when it looked like he might be breaking into a house, (it was his own) and was arrested for behaving belligerently, Obama was happy to share his opinion that “the police acted stupidly,” even before he knew all of the details about the case. When George Zimmerman shot Travon Martin, (allegedly in self defense,) Obama was happy to share his opinion on the case before it was investigated or litigated. Travon looked just like Obama’s son, if he had one, in case you don’t know. When Sandra Fluke was insulted by Rush Limbaugh, the otherwise reticent President jumped right in there! He called Fluke and said, “there there, now”, and then he weaponized her to beat all pro-life Republicans over the head for the rest of the year. (Big coincidence. Pro-life groups were some of the IRS’s targets, too.)
But most of all, Obama constantly voiced his opinions on divisive issues that pitted groups of Americans against each other. Almost like it was a political tactic, or something,.
Will someone please rein in our relentlessly hectoring President? Barrack Hussein Obama has taken his gift for inspirational oratory—one of the traits that got him elected—and turned it into something darker and more insidious.
Bam is a bully. Bad enough that he bashes Wall Street, but this President has gone farther than any in modern history in the wrong kind of “bully” back into what Teddy Roosevelt had called the bully pulpit.
Obama’s latest broadside came over the weekend, when he vehemently criticized the state of Arizona and its (Republican) governor for passing a tough new law on illegal immigration.
The President called the measure “misguided” and all but labeled it un-American. He even ordered the Department of Justice, before the ink on this bill-signing has even dried, to examine the civil-rights “implications” of the new law. Seems like the courts and rights groups could handle that once any problem actually emerges.
Can you remember any other modern President, wagging a finger from on high, so directly and bitterly criticizing a new law passed by any state?
It’s funny how Obama’s “bully pulpit” has become the new normal, and people now pretty much expect him to pit Americans against each other.
Obama’s visceral dislike of the tea party was noted by Jake Tapper at ABCin May of 2010.
Three days after he decried the lack of civility in American politics, President Obama is quoted in a new book about his presidency referring to the Tea Party movement using a derogatory term with sexual connotations.
In Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” President Obama is quoted in an interview saying that the unanimous vote of House Republicans vote against the stimulus bills “set the tenor for the whole year … That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.”
To those of us who were paying attention during the 2008 election, this behavior was wholly expected of Obama. In May of 2011, I wrote,Obama Still Poised To Silence Critics.
Very early in Obama’s presidency, on February 19, 2009 to be exact, I wrote a post about how this thin skinned president was poised to silence criticsof his regime.
We already knew about Obama’s history of intimidation, and character assassination. We knew how he had tried to destroy his political enemies – at least regular readers of this site know, because I covered it while it was happening, here, and here, and here. While projecting an outward appearance of near messianic magnanimity, his underlings, lawyers, and political allies were always working feverishly to steamroll over critics,(and plaintiffs).
Mark Hyman of The American Spectator wrote about Obama’s Chicago brand of hardball politics, recently in an article entitled, Obama’s Enemies List. As many of us feared, the “Chicago way” has found a home in The White House:
In only his third full day as the 44th president Obama personally went on the offensive against a media personality. On January 23rd, Obama warned Congressional Republicans against listening to Rush Limbaugh. The man who offered to sit down with Holocaust denier and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without any preconditions whatsoever views an American radio talk show host as a dangerous threat.
In precedent-setting action, Obama moved his director of political affairs, a highly partisan post, from the Old Executive Office Building into the West Wing. Political operative Patrick Gaspard was given White House access not experienced by his predecessors. Obama official Shauna Daly, a non-lawyer and career opposition researcher described as a “partisan dirt-digger,” was assigned to the White House counsel office. The move signals not only a new low in partisan activities, but suggests the office assignment may be intended to hide Daly’s political activities under the guise of the counsel’s attorney-client privileges.
Well, the new normal has come up and bit Obama on the a$$. People are sick of the lies. They’re not fooling anyone, anymore, and what do you know? The media has been burned , now, so they’re not in the mood to play pattycake with the Regime anymore. For five years now, they were happy to give Obama a pass. But now, finally, as I’ve previously noted, I’m sensing a change in their reporting which is becoming increasingly unfriendly to their former God King. I don’t want an MSM on any one person or group’s side. I want them on the side of all Americans and on the side of the truth. I suspect an honest search for the truth could lead to a very bumpy ride for Obama in the coming weeks and months.. With an MSM that has an allegiance to the truth and not some fictional hero President (which Obama never was), the Regime is in big trouble.
On behalf of Tea Party, Patriot groups, 9/12, liberty activists, and the American people, we are calling for anyone and everyone to protest the IRS’ complete abuse of power on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 at noon local time.
Tea Party leader, Jenny Beth Martin spoke at a press conference about the IRS scandal. Senator Rand Paul, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Louie Gohmert, Sen. Ted Cruz, and other Tea Party leaders speak out regarding IRS Intimidation.
Here’s Ted Cruz’s speech:
Catherine Engelbrecht Discusses IRS Targeting on Huckabee:
This is bad. Megyn Kelly just reported that Rosen was named as a criminal co-conspirator because when you so name a reporter, the rules say that you do not have to inform the target, and he is not entitled to have his side of things heard by the court.
This allegation makes it an ex parte hearing with only the government and, most likely, one of its favorite judges, in the room.
The Regime sent White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer to appear on all five major Sunday morning news shows in an all too obvious attempt to do damage control after an exceptionally bad week of exploding scandals. He did this by going on the offense against Republicans, and alleging that all inconvenient facts were “irrelevant.”
“Irrelevant” was Pfeiffer’s refrain: “The law is irrelevant” on the IRS scandal, he told ABC’s This Week; it’s “a largely irrelevant fact” where Obama was during the Benghazi attacks, he told Fox News Sunday; it’s also “largely irrelevant” who edited the Benghazi talking points to create a misleading picture of the attacks.
On Meet the Press, he told host David Gregory what the Republican playbook is: because they “lack a positive agenda” they’re trying to “drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped up hearings, and false allegations.”
“We’re not going to let that happen”, he assured Gregory. “The president’s got business for the American people.” I guess since he was on NBC, he figured he could get away with such hyper-partisan spewage.
But he had a harder sell on CBS with Bob Schieffer, who recently referred to the Regime as “Dumb and Dumber”.
Pfeiffer dropped the same exact rhetorical turdball on Schiffer, “This is the Republican playbook, here, which is, when they don’t have a positive agenda, they try to drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped up hearings, and false allegations.”
Schieffer told Pfeiffer his response reminded him of how the Nixon White House responded to Watergate, lol. Not exactly the reaction he was hoping for.
Schieffer also noted toward the end of the interview that the decision to send Susan Rice to go on the Sunday shows with the incorrect talking points was basically a “PR” stunt. And he asked a question that a lot of us have had, ” Why did you do that? Why didn’t the Sec. of State come out and tell us what she knew, and if she knew nothing, tell us, ‘we don’t know, yet.’ Why didn’t the White House Chief of Staff come out?”, he continued. “And I mean this as no disrespect to you, but why are YOU here today? Why isn’t the White House Chief of Staff here to tell us what happened?”
Yikes, this one did not go smoothly at all.
On ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked Pfeiffer about the controversy surrounding Benghazi talking points. Pfeiffer had no answer as to why the talking points showed more extensive changes than Jay Carney claimed, last November, so he went on the offensive, arguing that Republicans owe UN Ambassador Susan Rice an apology.
There are hacks, toadies, lackeys, flunkies, and yes-men – and then there are guys like Jay Carney and Dan Pfeiffer who are in a class by themselves.
Behold the audacity of mendacity.
On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace reminded Pfeiffer that Obama didn’t really talk with Secretary Clinton, Secretary Panetta, or Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the night of 9/11/2012. “He was talking to his national security staff,” Pfeiffer insisted without naming names.
Asked about whether the president entered the Situation Room, Pfeiffer says, “I don’t remember what room the president was in on that night, and that’s a largely irrelevant fact.”
Pfeiffer then argues that Wallace’s questions about the president’s handling of the Benghazi terror attack are “offensive.”
“The premise of your question”, he huffed, “is that somehow, there was something that could have been done, differently”….
Why yes. That’s exactly the premise of his question. And there indeed were things that could have and should have been done differently, as an administration official who was part of the Benghazi response told CBS News, last week, regarding the Foreign Emergency Support Team: ”I wish we’d sent it.”
The list of mea culpas by Obama administration officials involved in the Benghazi response and aftermath include: standing down the counterterrorism Foreign Emergency Support Team, failing to convene the Counterterrorism Security Group, failing to release the disputed Benghazi “talking points” when Congress asked for them, and using the word “spontaneous” while avoiding the word “terrorism.”
The Foreign Emergency Support Team known as “FEST” is described as “the US Government’s only interagency, on-call, short-notice team poised to respond to terrorist incidents worldwide.” It even boasts hostage-negotiating expertise. With U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens reported missing shortly after the Benghazi attacks began, Washington officials were operating under a possible hostage scenario at the outset. Yet deployment of the counterterrorism experts on the FEST was ruled out from the start. That decision became a source of great internal dissent and the cause of puzzlement to some outsiders.
Thursday, an administration official who was part of the Benghazi response told CBS News: “I wish we’d sent it.”
There were no mea culpas coming from Pfeiffer, however because the Regime thinks they have a way out of Benghazi culpability. Carney and Pfeiffer have both made a big deal about the so called “doctored emails” which he blamed on Republicans, but there is no evidence that a Republican deliberately doctored any emails. We don’t know who Jonathan Karl’s source for the emails he released were, but we do know that the source had seen the original emails but was not permitted by the White House to make copies of them.
…quoting verbatim a source who reviewed the original documents and shared detailed notes:
“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”
The source was not permitted to make copies of the original e-mails. The White House has refused multiple requests – from journalists, including myself, and from Republican leaders in Congress – to release the full e-mail exchanges.
The differences in the two versions are being taken by some as evidence that my source sought to intentionally mislead about the extent of State Department involvement in changing the talking points. The version I obtained makes specific reference to the State Department, while the version reported by CNN references only “all of the relevant equities” and does not single out State.
The White House that’s blaming Republicans and accusing them of “fabricating” emails could clear all of this up by just releasing the original emails. They have chosen not to do that. Instead, they’re adding to the cover-up. Jay Carney should be very, very careful with future actions. Up to now his statements have been excusable as doing his boss’ bidding. Accusing people of fabricating evidence in an ongoing investigation is a very serious charge and could open him up to charges of his own, perhaps obstruction of justice or something along those lines.
This line of attack is a Media Matters standby, by the way – find one flaw, one discrepancy that can be blamed on the enemy (Republicans) and use it to shoot down their whole argument. Because there was a discrepancy between some of the talking points that were released, and the White House version, the White House is now somehow totally exonerated? That’s the Empire’s story, and they’re sticking to it.
Chris Wallace agreed to disagree, but should have followed up with – how about telling your boss to release all of the emails, then? He missed a huge opportunity, there..
You can watch Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz respond to that interview, here.
Trey Gowdy appeared on Fox and Friends Weekend to talk about the scandal eruptions.
He noted that there’s a an Oversight and Reform hearing scheduled for this Wednesday, which should be awesome because there are some firebrands on that committee (Gowdy of course, chief among them.) His message on the House responses to scandals, so far – be patient. Congress has to be disciplined in how they go forward. But they are determined to get answers.
The one area where Pfeiffer feigned outrage at someone besides Republicans was the IRS scandal, which is killing the Regime from a PR standpoint. So Pfeiffer pretended that the very idea of the IRS targeting the very ”teabaggers” his boss and media flunkies have been demonizing for the last four years is horribly offensive to them.
OMG, this is such an outrage, there’s no excuse! Who ever heard of such a thing?! That was just awful awful awful bad stuff we would never condone…
It’s as if suddenly the tea party conservatives who have been *cough* victimized by two rogue agents in Cincinnati *cough*(who btw, Obama heroically vowed will be “hunted down” and brought to justice just like the Benghazi terrorists) are beloved citizens the Regime wants to protect. It’s really touching how shocked and offended they are about this. And how eager they are to get to the bottom of it.
On the Sunday shows today, White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer sought to discredit criticism over how the infamous Benghazi talking points were scrubbed of references to terrorism by focusing on the differences between how ABC News described a single White House email and its actual text:
Here’s the evidence that proves the Republicans are playing politics with this: They received these emails months ago, didn’t say a word about it, didn’t complain, confirmed the CIA director . . . right after that. And then last week, a Republican source provided to Jon Karl of ABC News a doctored version of the White House email that started this entire fury. After 25,000 pieces of paper that were provided to Congress, they have to doctor an email to make political hay, you know they’re getting desperate here.
The incorrect versions – and they were inaccurate quotes – were not generated by GOP operatives. They were extracted by ABC’s Jon Karl from notes taken by attendees at the original meeting when the White House refused to initially allow anyone to have copies which could have been used for full referencing. ABC went with the notes, being the closest thing anyone had to an official record, and the GOP worked off those notes. But even then, the “doctoring” wasn’t nearly as significant as the Democrats are making it out to be.
You know what’s scary? High officials at the White House approved of Pfeiffer’s talking points, Sunday.
