“Are we getting closer to big brother?” Chris Wallace asked on Special Report Thursday evening. I like Krauthammer’s take: “I think it depends on who’s in office.”
Exactamundo. Quit blaming all of Obama’s scandals on “Big government run a-muck” like it’s all faceless bureaucrats robotically going down these abusive paths on automatic pilot, as if there was no human intelligence directing them.. We’ve had big government for a long time, but I’ve never feared it until now. Obama’s special Chicago brand of ”punish your enemies” thug politics is reason enough to fear it. I’ll be perfectly honest…I didn’t worry about the Patriot act under President Bush because I trusted in my government not to abuse the information it needed to gather for preventive, intelligence-based counterterrorism. FISA was necessary to keep us safe in the dangerous post 9/11 world in which we live. But, as the last few weeks have finally proven to all but the terminally obtuse or corrupt, this ruthless totalitarian Regime cannot be trusted with these massive investigative authorities.
“The IRS [scandal] is not a necessary product of big government. It was a deliberate attempt to harass and hurt the conservative organizations,” said Krauthammer. “I don’t attribute [IRS targeting] to government in general. I think it has to do with an administration that reviles its enemies, marginalizes them, and tries to ostracize them, and considers them beyond the pale.”
What has happened, argued Krauthammer, is that, “if you are going to give the government all that leeway to collect all that information, and I think in a world of terrorism you have to have a modicum of trust in the people who are doing it.” But most Americans have lost that trust.
“There have been a lot of stupid conspiracies in American and world history,” said Charles Krauthammer on Special Report Monday evening. “The idea of arguing that [the White House ordering the IRS targeting] is dumb because it would have been stupid is nonsensical. It shows you how afraid they are.”
He said the only question at this point was how far up the scandal goes, and advocated giving “people like Lois Lerner immunity” so we can find out.
Extra scrutiny for conservative groups isn’t something that began organically among 88 different employees. We already know from a New York Times story a few weeks ago that some “manager” up the chain told them to get cracking on this. Oddly, though, the Times couldn’t nail down which manager it was. Steve Miller, in his testimony before Issa’s committee, claimed that he’d been told once before who was responsible but … had since forgot. And now we find that Treasury’s own inspector general, whose report noted that the targeting began when a specialist in the Determinations Unit “was asked” to take a closer look at conservative groups, couldn’t figure out who did the asking. Which raises two possibilities. One: Collective amnesia. Two: A whole lot of employees are intimidated by the thought of getting on the wrong side of whoever it is who ordered this, a realization that’s doubly interesting given the transcript Issa released suggesting interest among IRS officials in Washington in some of these cases at the time.
The answer, in a general sense (and, perhaps, a specific one, too), is President Barack Obama, who created a culture of intimidation around conservative donors and non-profits, going back to the 2008 campaign. That effort sharpened in early 2010 when President Obama did the unthinkable: humiliating the Supreme Court on national television during his State of the Union Address over their recent Citizens United ruling.
Dick Morris made the same point a few days ago when it was revealed that former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman had visited the White House approximately 157 times. However Morris goes a bit further, saying it’s “obvious” that Obama was personally involved:
The obvious reason is that Obama was following the IRS audits with an obsessive, personal involvement. Apparently, the Citizens United scandal so galvanized him into action and tapped so deeply into his psyche that he was determined personally to supervise the castration of the wealthy people and groups whose access to the political system was opened wide by the Court.
To see a man who held a subordinate, non-policy making position 157 times, you have to be a president on a mission.
Meanwhile, according to Drudge editor and Washington Times columnist, Joseph Curl, the scandal is about to explode because the so-called “rogue employees” in Cincinnati are sick of being scapegoated.
One source says there’s a paper trail to DC, and some who were worried from the get-go kept a paper trail. Wouldn’t say WH, but said ‘high.’
On Special Report, tonight, Charles Krauthammer characterized Obama’s short presser as a “holding operation” because Obama understands he’s losing his core constituency – the media.
“That was the absolute minimum he could have done, he said. He relieves one person – he obviously had to – he had to relieve at least one person and he chose, of course, the acting commissioner.”
And who even cares? He had little to do with the IRS harassment of conservatives, anyway. He was hired in November of 2012, two years into the IRS’s targeting of conservatives for political reasons. The SOB who lied to Congress is Doug Shulman, seen here telling the House Ways & Means Subcommittee that his agency was not engaged in the targeting of tea party organizations even while they doing it hot and heavily.
And then he says there’s going to be an investigation from Treasury. Well, that just means that the left hand of the government investigating the right hand. He did say he’d cooperate with Congress, but then he has the chutzpa to essentially warn republicans not to make this into a political event.
[W]e’re talking about is the IRS applying political criteria — inexcusably, unconstitutionally, probably criminally — and deciding who it’s going to investigate.
“I found this the bare minimum,” he concluded. “It’ll hold them for 12 hours, but no more.”
By the way, Krauthammer wasn’t the first person to call the media Obama’s “most important constituency”, today. That honor goes to Lisa Myers, this morning.
In December, the state’s tax authority determined that a tax break claimed over the past few years by 2,500 entrepreneurs and stockholders of California-based small businesses is no longer valid and sent out notices of payment.
“How would you feel if you made a decision, which was made four years ago, (and) you absolutely knew was legally correct and four years later a governing body came in and said, ‘no, it’s not correct, now you owe us a bunch more money. And we’re going to charge you interest on money you didn’t even know you owed’,” Brian Overstreet told Fox News from his office north of San Francisco.
On Special Report, tonight, Charles Krauthammer said, “I think we do have to revise our doomsday pronouncements. We had been saying up til now, America’s heading the way of Greece. I would say it’s headed the way of Cyprus.
Because when you start to confiscate peoples’ money retroactively, you’ve got a real problem on your hands.”
The Special Reportpanel took turns berating former Senator, Chuck Hagel in the wake of his contentious Confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Thursday.
First Steven Hayes took some swipes, reading off his list of the most egregious moments from the hearing. Then the Washington Post’s Charles Lane said something, (edited out of the video.)
Then Dr. K dripped the hammer; “His problem isn’t a paper trail. His problem is a demonstrated, incredibly remarkable lack of competence,” Charles started. He continued to blast the poor guy for his “astonishing lack of competence”, honesty, and borderline anti-Semitism. He concluded by asking, “is this the best mind that Obama could find to run the largest entity on the face of the earth?
Regular readers of this site know that I have not been in favor of former Senator Chuck Hagel’s nomination—but even his biggest detractors did not expect the performance he gave today during his senate confirmation hearings. It wasn’t that he said things that people disagreed with, or got caught with some sort of scandal–he looked totally unprepared and out-classed. He was pathetic.
The guy knew what he would face…his own statements and record, many of them were posted here. Chuck Hagel had weeks to figure out responses–and OH MY GOD, he didn’t even understand what containment means.
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped before two congressional committees on Benghazi this month, she was ready for every question fielded at her and, save for the infamous “what does it matter” moment, didn’t crumple under the pressure.
Today, President Obama was likely wishing some of that preparedness would have rubbed off on his Defense secretary nominee.
Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearing before his former Senate colleagues was, in a nutshell, a minefield despite the simple, predictable questions lobbed his way. In short, he appeared exceptionally uncomfortable and unsure for a man who would command the most powerful military on Earth.
Hagel himself doesn’t matter. He won’t make foreign policy. Obama will run it out of the White House even more tightly than he did in the first term. Hagel’s importance is the message his nomination sends about where Obama wants to go. The lessons are being duly drawn. Iran’s official media have already cheered the choice of what they call this “anti-Israel” nominee. And they fully understand what his nomination signals regarding administration resolve about stopping them from going nuclear.The rest of the world can see coming the Pentagon downsizing — and the inevitable, commensurate decline of U.S. power. Pacific Rim countries will have to rethink reliance on the counterbalance of the U.S. Navy and consider acquiescence to Chinese regional hegemony. Arab countries will understand that the current rapid decline of post-Kissinger U.S. dominance in the region is not cyclical but intended to become permanent.Hagel is a man of no independent stature. He’s no George Marshall or Henry Kissinger. A fringe senator who left no trace behind, Hagel matters only because of what his nomination says about Obama.However the Senate votes on confirmation, the signal has already been sent. Before Election Day, Obama could only whisper it to his friend Dmitry. Now, with Hagel, he’s told the world.
Obama might have played a long shot here. Even the Senate’s Democrats will hesitate before awarding him their votes. However, the probability or improbability of Hagel’s confirmation pales before the political importance of his nomination.
Politically, the Hagel nomination does three things:
It reassures an important component of Obama’s support base that yes, he really does hold America responsible for what’s wrong with the Middle East and the world generally;
It exerts an intense, unpleasant pressure on the Republican caucus in the Senate, whose members are mostly old-line GOP Establishment loath to criticize a fellow Republican even when he richly deserves it;
While adhering cosmetically to the tradition of having one Cabinet member from the opposition party, it simultaneously expresses Obama’s contempt for his political adversaries in the clearest possible terms, thereby maddening his opponents and reassuring his more venomous supporters of his intent to destroy all opposition to his rule.
Indeed, that last bit might be the most important part of all in our all-politics-all-the-time milieu.
Obama is no Lincoln. He has no intention of trying to convert his enemies into friends. His overriding aim is to destroy all resistance to his will. Every move he makes, every word he utters must be studied in that light, for they make no sense in any other.
As a divide-to-conquer move, the Hagel nomination is superb. It pits younger, Tea-Party-style Republicans against the older GOP Establishment, widening the gulf and enhancing the prospects for future strife between them. It could only have been more effective if Hagel possessed John McCain’s war-hero status.
Fran, I’m not sure the older GOP establishment was too impressed with Hagel, yesterday. He gave them every excuse to vote against him. It’s a long shot, because when push comes to shove, Obamacrats do what the Master orders, but this nominee was so egregious Repubs may be able to peel away enough of them to filibuster him.
Leave it to Charles Krauthammer to put Obama’s too cute by half campaign appearance masquerading as a press conference, Monday, into perspective. The Hammer was in rare form Monday night on Fox News’ Special Report as he blasted the President for displaying “incredible arrogance” at such a crucial moment during the very delicate negotiations - “hovering benignly at an Olympian level above the fray where the children are playing in the sandbox” asking everyone to be reasonable as if he “just arrived in Washington on a tourist visa.”
“He ridicules the Congress,he spikes the football on the Republicans, he rubs in the fact that they were resisting a raise in rates and that he made them do it.”
Krauthammer is thinking what a lot of Republicans are thinking tonight – Obama wants to go over the cliff so he can blame Republicans for it. Can there be any other explanation for such a ridiculous display of arrogance?
Even though he has come off his last campaign for political office, President Obama acted like a candidate on the campaign trail–one prepared to use whatever political capital he had accumulated to take shots at the opposition in Congress at the very moment leaders from both sides are trying to work together.
Less a President, Obama behaved more like an ESPN talking-head making fun of RG III’s knee injury.
Obama’s address, which you can watch below, was held basically to announce that some other people are working on solving the “fiscal cliff” crisis. They are close, Obama reported, but they aren’t quite there yet. He then proceeded to make some jokes about Congress, to warm applause from his selected audience. Smug doesn’t come close to capturing the true nature of his tone.
Appearing on NBCs “Meet the Press” on Sunday, President Barack Obama said that he cut spending by
more than $1 trillion in 2011. However, the White House Office of Management and Budget says that federal spending increased by $147 billion from fiscal 2010 to fiscal 2011.
