This Sunday, Catholics the world over celebrate Pentecost:
Pentecost commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit to the apostles. After Jesus rose on Easter, he appeared to the apostles over the next 40 days, teaching them the significance of what had happened to Him. They listened, but didn’t really understand, so Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would enlighten them and give them everything they would need to carry the Good News to people all over the world.
Then Jesus ascended into heaven, and the apostles were more confused than ever!
They gathered in an upper room with the mother of Jesus to pray. Ten days later they heard a loud noise, and the Holy Spirit descended upon them in tongues of fire. When that happened, they received spiritual gifts that transformed their lives and gave them the power to touch the lives of other people.
They ran into the streets and began to tell people about Jesus. Each person in the crowd understood the apostles in his or her own language. Thousands became believers that day.
Today we celebrate Pentecost as the birthday of the Church.
I love the Sequence of Pentecost, whether I’m singing it myself, or just listening – this tribute to the Holy Spirit is is one of the most powerful invocations of the Church.
So imagine my delight when I found this rare audio recording. The Sistine Chapel Choir director, Baron Rudolf Kanzler conducted the Augustinian Fathers singing the “Veni Sancte Spiritus” (Sequence from Pentecost). Recorded in 1904 for the Gregorian Congress.
Oh my God. Did Obama really say “we are out there trying to hunt down the folks who carried this out, and we are trying to make sure we fix the system so it doesn’t happen again”?! Well, he did, obviously – it’s right there on the tape, but I sure missed that, last week. Good Lord. He was talking about the IRS – not Benghazi – but using the same robotic spiel. He memorized his lines for the last scandal so well, he’s using the same ones for the new scandal. And Pirro of course made the obvious point after watching this clown show dither for nine months : “Weren’t you going to do that with Benghazi?” It gets better from there.
Pirro’s opening statement’sare always outstanding – this one is spectacular. She blistered the Regime relentlessly from start to finish.
“Why Is It You Apologize To Muslims and Lie To Americans?” She asked at the end of her statement.
“Why is it that you use the IRS to silence political dissent and the DOJ to threaten the press?”
“Why is it that you mobilize the IRS to go after political enemies but you can’t mobilize troops to save American lives in Benghazi?”
I made this video in April of 2010, inspired by the spate of left on right violence that had been occurring amidst the toxic, hyper-political atmosphere the president had created, pitting groups against each other as part of his strategy in ‘fundamentally transforming America’. We had never had a president say such derisive things about fellow Americans and it was/is shocking and appalling. Even though no one in the MSM called him out on it, many of us on the right have been in a constant state of alarm and dismay. This is not how a United States president is supposed to sound.
Obama Sets the Tone foreshadowed what Kimberly Strassel wrote this very week in the Wall Street Journal:
As early as January 2010, Mr. Obama would, in his state of the union address, cast aspersions on the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, claiming that it “reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests” (read conservative groups).
The president derided “tea baggers.” Vice President Joe Biden compared them to “terrorists.” In more than a dozen speeches Mr. Obama raised the specter that these groups represented nefarious interests that were perverting elections. “Nobody knows who’s paying for these ads,” he warned. “We don’t know where this money is coming from,” he intoned.
In case the IRS missed his point, he raised the threat of illegality: “All around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates . . . And they don’t have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation.”
Short of directly asking federal agencies to investigate these groups, this is as close as it gets. Especially as top congressional Democrats were putting in their own versions of phone calls, sending letters to the IRS that accused it of having “failed to address” the “problem” of groups that were “improperly engaged” in campaigns. Because guess who controls that “independent” agency’s budget?
The IRS is easy to demonize, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It got its heading from a president, and his party, who did in fact send it orders—openly, for the world to see. In his Tuesday press grilling, no question agitated White House Press Secretary Jay Carney more than the one that got to the heart of the matter: Given the president’s “animosity” toward Citizens United, might he have “appreciated or wanted the IRS to be looking and scrutinizing those . . .” Mr. Carney cut off the reporter with “That’s a preposterous assertion.”
Whether or not it can be proven that Obama was explicitly involved with the IRS’s discrimination of conservative groups, it is undeniable that he implicitly sent the message.
There’s a lot of interesting material here, but the most novel information is from Schoen, who asserts that National Security Advisor Tom Donilon has been leaking to the press in a quid pro quo to keep his own name out of the discussion. If that’s true, and Schoen seems positive that it is, calling him a “leaker par excellence,” the administration must be aware of it. So, when we compile a list of key people that the administration is evidently trying to protect from scruitiny, badly in some cases, we have to include Donilon with Hillary and with Sarah Hall Ingram, the last in the IRS scandal. Hillary, as we know, was never interviewed in the Mullen-Pickering report, and Issa has now subpoenaed both Mullen and Pickering to appear before his committee and explain the alleged deficiencies of their report. In his testimony before Issa’s committee, Mark Thompson stressed that it was very unusual from his perspective that the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) should not have been activated under the circumstances (whether or not they could have reached Benghazi quickly enough to save anyone), and that in essence they were cut out of the decision-making loop. This week we have learned that their division, established under Bush the Younger, had been demoted de facto under the Obama administration. The Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG), was never convened on the evening of 9-11-12, although it is supposed to play a central coordinating role under exactly the circumstances presented by the Benghazi attacks. Whether the recalcitrance was the result of a general administration disdain for Bush-era policies or the usual half-assed hubris, or both, we don’t yet know.
The segment begins with an excellent discussion about the IRS hearing, yesterday. And towards the end Shoen made a very savvy point about how the Regime is handling all the scandals, calling it “the big lie technique.”
“There is not a direct nexus between what they’re saying, and what’s coming out, he said.” Exactly what I’ve been saying. And he ended on this note – “the Obama agenda effectively is dead.” Exactly what I said in the car coming back from BlogCon to Duane Lester and Thomas LaDuke. And they weren’t sure they agreed.
No, Obama and his grotesque Regime have finally gotten a comeuppance. Now that people have finally figured out how deceitful and corrupt they are, they will not be trusted on ANYTHING. They cannot, must not be allowed to continue to run roughshod over the Constitution.
Republicans in the House and Senate need to drop any and all bipartisan cooperation with the Regime’s agenda, immediately. (I’m looking at you Marco Rubio and John Boehner.) Holder’s on the way out. Obama is finished.
How big of a wake-up call are the Obama scandals, especially the ones surrounding the seizing of phone records from the Associated Press and the IRS’s targeting of conservatives? So big that two of the media’s most shameful and shameless gun control advocates — Joe Scarborough and Piers Morgan — have finally conceded that arguments made by pro-Second Amendment activists against the expanding of background checks might not be so ridiculous.
The jig is up – it’s time to start undoing the damage.
Obama Scandals Timeline IRS HHS DOJ EPA:
IRS, HHS, DOJ, EPA Having trouble keeping track of all of the Obama administration scandals? Your not the only one. Here’s a run down of recent abuses.
Glenn Beck Maps Out How Scandals Reveal Obama’s Goal Of ‘Fundamentally Transforming’ America:
This is unbelievable! The Obama IRS asked a Texas Tea Party group for back-end access to their website.
This is criminal behavior!
Via an interview with Kristina Ribali from FreedomWorks.
I was in the audience when Glenn interviewed two local tea party activists for his Dallas based show on Monday, and one of them told that story. I’ve been looking for the video on Youtube because their stories were so shocking.
It’s kinda fun to watch Glenn and his crew’s live reactions to the IRS hearing, yesterday…
The Blaze: Glenn Beck » IRS Gives Laughable Defense:
Life News reported yesterday that the IRS subjected one pro-life group to “repeated and lengthy unconstitutional requests for information about the viewpoint and content of its educational communications, volunteer prayer vigils, and other protected activities.”
One of the more shocking revelations to come out of today’s hearing came from Republican Rep. Aaron Schock, who asked Miller if the IRS had indeed asked a pro-life group to include the content of their prayers.
Krauthammer Has Had it up to Here With Presidents Answers to IRS Questions:
Obama parsing in a way ”that would make Bill Clinton look unsophisticated.”
Mediaite: Krauthammer: If White House Had Any Connection To IRS Scandal, It Will Be ‘Fatal Problem’ For Obama:
Charles Krauthammer sat down with Sean Hannity to react to President Obama denying he had any advance knowledge of the IRS targeting tea party groups. Krauthammer suspected that there may be more to the White House’s involvement in the scandal, predicting that if thee was any White House involvement in the scandal and such involvement becomes public knowledge, it will deal a fatal blow to the Obama administration.
The Obama Administration took a page out of the Nixon playbook when its IRS targeted the political enemies of the President. How high up the food chain does the new IRS scandal go, and is President Obama involved? Hear what Trifecta has to say.
84% of all Colorado sheriffs have filed a lawsuit against the new gun law that passed earlier this Spring in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting. The sheriffs are hoping to have the new restrictions invalidated because they believe they violate the Second Amendment.
The Colorado Legislature passed two laws that are set to take effect July 1 which limit the size of the of ammunition magazines to 15 rounds and expand background checks to private and online firearm sales.
Sheriffs from 54 of the state’s 64 counties are involved in the lawsuit because they believe it’s their duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
Goth Andrew De Leon Amazes The Judges With His Voice:
Dr. James Dobson was a guest on the Hannity show Friday night to talk about the run-around his Christian, pro-family, group, Family Talk Actiongot from the IRS when they applied for a 501(c)(4), a process he said “went on and on and on” for 19 months.
When his lawyer called the IRS to find out what the problem was, an IRS rep named Medley told him, “we don’t think we’re going to approve your application.” And when he asked, “why not? She answered, because you’re a right wing organization, and you’re political, and you’ve been critical of the President and we don’t think you give other people an opportunity to express their views, and besides that – you’re not educational.” An answer Dr. Dobson took great umbrage at.
“Do you want to rewrite your application and resubmit it?” she asked. He answered, “no, we’ll just have to litigate”, and about eight days later they gave them their 501(c)(4).
Obama definitely set the tone for these abuses. “Punish your my enemies”, he ordered from on high. The only question is whether he was ever more explicit, or personally aware that his minions in the IRS was doing his bidding.
Of the IRS abuse cases that have recently come to light, the use of the IRS to enforce the defunct “Fairness Doctrine” on broadcasters is one of the most disturbing.
“I am alarmed by reports that suggest a federal official at the IRS instituting a de facto Fairness Doctrine,” National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) President & CEO Dr. Frank Wright said in apress release. Wright was referring to long-time Christian radio host Dr. James Dobson revealing that his organization had to submit sample radio programs to the IRS, and that an IRS agent indicated that his criticism of President Obama would prevent his ministry from getting a certain form of non-profit status.
This is not my country. The Chicago thugocracy we have in the White House is every bit what Michelle Malkin has always said it was, using government to target and oppress political ‘enemies’.
In this segment, Frank Vandersloot tells BillO that after he gave Romney one million to help his campaign, he was then targeted by the Obama campaign on their official website along with seven others. Shortly after that he received a letter from the IRS saying he would be audited. And then on top of that, he also had the Labor Dept. come calling because they wanted to look at his books.
Because Obama does have an enemies list– literally.His Orwellian “Truth Team” lists on his campaign website the names of some of Mitt Romney’s biggest donors.
While President Nixon kept his Enemies list secret, Obama’s list is right out in the open and designed to inspire scorn, rebuke and retribution from his minions.
The truth is, anyone who runs as a Republican or donates to conservative causes can count on being targeted for intimidation by the organized left.
When did this become okay? When did it become okay for the President’s party to attack, insult, and slanderprivate citizens for no other reason than they gave money to his opponent?
When did it become okay for a President to sic government agencies on private citizens who give to the “wrong” campaign?
This has been a point of contention for me, too…Does the Republican establishment think that the American people can’t handle the truth? Why do they insist on raising the white flag in the battle for hearts and minds, by ceding to the left one of their weakest propaganda points?
It’s so easy to point out all of the things that make Obama a not-so-nice bully, yet the establishment doesn’t even try.
There is a reflexive desire among a certain species of moderate Republicans to be perceived as “civil” by liberal opponents who believe that the mere existence of free-market, limited-government conservatism is an indecent affront to humankind. All aboard the U.S.S. Lost Cause.
This disastrous, bend-over bipartisanship is a hard habit to break. In 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain rode the “Barack Obama is a nice guy, but vote for me” wave to crashing defeat. In 2012, McCain’s endorsee, Mitt Romney, has made “Barack Obama is a nice guy but in over his head” a standard stump-speech talking point.
Conservatives of good will who’ve watched President Obama brutalize his enemies have one question for the nice-guy niceties: Why, GOP, why?
Romney’s smarter-than-thou strategists explain that he can’t scare off independents and Democrats with straight talk about Obama’s thuggery. But he’s turning off the conservative base, on whom his hold is tenuous. More importantly, Romney’s McCain-lite impersonation is also writing off independents and Democrats who’ve come to realize what the myriad targets of White House bullying have learned the hard way over the past four years: Barack Obama is not a “nice guy.”
Ask Gerald Walpin, the former AmeriCorps inspector general who was pushed out of his job by the Obamas afterexposing fraud and corruption perpetrated by Democratic mayor of Sacramento and Obama friend Kevin Johnson. Walpin was unceremoniously fired and smeared by Team Obama. The White House baselessly questioned the veteran watchdog’s mental health and never apologized for slandering him.
Ask the family, friends and co-workers of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. They have been forced to sue the Obama administration to combat the Operation Fast and Furious cover-up of deadly policy decisions that led to their hero’s death. “I think they are liars, and I would tell them that,” Terry’s father, Kent, said of Obama’s henchmen.
As Townhall editor Katie Pavlich makes clear in her devastating new book, “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up,” the president, his corrupt attorney general, Eric Holder, and their minions weren’t “in over their heads.” They knew exactly what they were doing and have obstructed investigations into the bloody consequences of their policies ever since.
“But if you read through all these e-mails, you see that everyone in the government is saying, ‘Oh, let’s not tell the public that terrorists were involved, people connected to al Qaeda. Let’s not tell the public that there were warnings.’ I hate to show, this is one of the documents with the editing that one of the people in the state department said, ‘Oh, let’s not let these things out.’ And I have to go back 40 years to Watergate when Nixon put out his edited transcripts to the conversations, and he personally went through them and said, ‘Oh, let’s not tell this, let’s not show this.’ I would not dismiss Benghazi. It’s a very serious issue.As people keep saying, four people were killed. You look at the hydraulic pressure that was in the system to not tell the truth, and, you know, we use this term and the government uses this term, talking points. Talking points, as we know, are like legal briefs. They’re an argument on one side. What we need to get rid of talking point and they need to put out statements or papers that are truth documents. Okay, this is all we know.”
Take that White House spinmeisters:
Meanwhile, hacktastic Jay Carney on CNN, last night, proclaimed that the emails proved that the White House was right all along, and that Republicans were perpetuating a “faux controversy.”
But Hicks is then ordered not to meet with an investigative congressional delegation — the first time in his 22-year career he had been so ordered. And when he speaks with them nonetheless, he gets a furious call from Clinton’s top aide for not having a State Department lawyer (and informant) present. His questions about the Rice TV statements are met with a stone-cold response, sending the message — don’t go there. He then finds himself demoted.
What were the American people fed? Four days and 12 drafts later, a fiction about a demonstration that never was, provoked by a video that no one saw (Hicks: “a non-event in Libya”), about a movie that was never made.
The original CIA draft included four paragraphs on the involvement of al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists and on the dangerous security situation in Benghazi.These paragraphs were stricken after strenuous State Department objections mediated by the White House. All that was left was the fable of the spontaneous demonstration.
That’s not an accretion of truth. That’s a subtraction of truth.
In no uncertain terms and with no hedging, The New York Timesreports that the Obama administration was aware of the fact that the IRS was targeting Tea Party groups as far back as June of 2012. The Treasury Department’s Inspector General confirmed that he told senior Treasury officials in June of 2012, a full five months before Election Day:
The Treasury Department’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s screening of politically active organizations seeking tax exemptions, disclosing for the first time on Friday that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.
We still don’t know for sure what the President knew or when he knew it, but this does confirm that the administration was aware of the fact that Obama’s political enemies were under fire by the IRS and covered that fact up during an election year.
As Lisa Meyers of NBC News told “Morning Joe” today, “Imagine if we — if you can — what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different.”
