Obama’s Chicago Way Catching Up To Him

May 25, 2013 Leave a comment

The media seems genuinely shocked over both the media subpoena scandal and the IRS scandal. These people really bought the idea that Obama was some sort of Ivy League genius who could manage a massive government of experts in the best way. They really believed he was a post-partisan President, especially so when he was first elected. No President in the last century has received more favorable mainstream press coverage than Obama has. That is until three weeks ago when the IRS scandal hit, followed by the subpoenas leveled against the AP. The reality is that Obama isn’t post-partisan, he’s post-modern. What we’re seeing is just the Chicago way.

Obama is at the top of the heap in his Chicago style Presidency. He doesn’t have to take care of his enemies, his underlings know what to do and go ahead and do it without even asking. It’s been like this from day one of his 2008 campaign if anyone had been paying attention. His campaign used the IRS to harass tax exempt groups who ran ads he didn’t like. First it was a conservative group, then groups which supported Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. The campaign threatened to obtain IRS records and it asked the Justice Department to open an investigation into donors, officers, directors etc. Never mind that these groups did the same thing left-wing groups that supported Obama (think NARAL etc) did. Obama’s campaign harassed his opponents.

It is hardly a surprise then that after using the IRS against enemies during the 2008 campaign that Obama continued using the IRS against enemies as President. Lois Lerner has been a leftist bureaucratic hack since she went after the Christian Coalition in the 90′s. Her hands are all over the IRS scandal. Odds are she lied to Congress when she initially testified that she knew nothing. In fact, her signature appears on demands to conservative groups for intrusive information. Learner wasn’t acting alone, she was acting on winks and nods from on high. It’s the Chicago way.

Eric Holder meanwhile lied to Congress. During his testimony on the AP subpoenas he said “In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. This is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy.” Interestingly he approved of the subpoena for James Rosen of Fox News, which included tracking his phones and his parents. It accused Rosen under the 1917 Espionage Act and even claimed he was a flight risk. As such Holder lied when he said he had never been involved in the potential prosecution of the press for disclosure of material.

Of course Holder operates in the post-modern Chicago way, so he’ll simply claim Rosen isn’t a journalist and Fox News isn’t the press. Hasn’t this been the argument of the administration from the beginning? Fox News is just an arm of the Republican Party, therefore they aren’t journalists and they have no first amendment press rights. So there you have it, Holder isn’t a liar. Except of course he is, despite his attempt to redefine journalism from the Justice Department. The ends justify the means in the Obama administration, if harassing Fox News requires lying to Congress or on subpoenas then so be it with these people.

The press is shocked by the Chicago way. They have only themselves to blame. Had they paid attention to Obama’s dozen years in public office prior to the 2008 campaign they would have seen the seedlings of all these issues. Obama’s minions had an uncanny way of unsealing secret documents of their opponents thus ensuring Obama cruised to victory in the State Senate and US Senate races he was in. Now the press is shocked that the Obama administration has used the IRS against political opponents and that Obama’s Justice Department has used subpoenas to harass and gather information on enemy journalists. Even the AP qualified as an enemy, they upset the administration by scooping them on an irrelevant Yemen source leak that Holder now claims is the third worst he’s ever seen. It’s the Chicago way, reward your friends and punish your enemies.

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Obama’s Tiresome Outsider Routine

May 24, 2013 Leave a comment

Eric Holder approved the subpoena which targeted the phone records of James Rosen of Fox News as well as Rosen’s parents and other Fox News phone numbers. Holder used the 1917 Espionage Act to obtain the subpoena claiming that Rosen was an “unindicted co-conspirator” concerning supposed security leaks. In reality Rosen was just a journalists asking questions of State Department employees and/or White House staffers. No journalist has ever been charged with leaking information under the Espionage Act, in fact since World War One no one has been charged with a crime under the act who hasn’t given information to an enemy power. Perhaps in the Obama administration Fox News is considered an “enemy power.”

Obama is allegedly deeply troubled by all of these attacks on journalists so he’s going to order an investigation. Eric Holder is being ordered to investigate Eric Holder concerning this subpoena he approved of. You can pretty much guess how this investigation will turn out. The bigger question is whether Holder told Obama that he was going to obtain a subpoena and view the phone records of a Fox News journalist. The subpoena was obtained years ago, at a time when the administration was attacking Fox News as not being a news station. It’s a little hard to believe that Holder didn’t mention he was going to be tracking one of their journalists.

Yet this is what we are to believe, that Obama knows nothing. The President is very troubled by all of this and doesn’t want journalists to be threatened with criminal prosecution for doing their job. So far we know of twenty AP reporters who were tracked by Obama’s Justice Department, one Fox News journalist and his parents as well as several phone likes at Fox News. The President acts like he’s shocked to hear this is going on. Yet he’s been President for over four years, he’s already in his second administration. To listen to Obama, you’d think he’s just beginning his first term and is shocked by the lengths his predecessor went to chill first amendment press freedom. The problem is this all happened under his watch.

Obama pulled the same stunt yesterday with his drone speech. He acted like he hasn’t been President for four years and is shocked and appalled at what the last guy did with predator drones. So shocked that he’s creating standards for their use so that never again can drones be abused by a President. Except of course Obama has been President for four  years and has used drones to kill suspected terrorists, civilians and at least four Americans over the course of four years. We know he spreads out pictures of terrorists in the Oval Office and points at which ones he wants killed via drone.

Obama isn’t an outsider, he’s a second term President. Yet everything that happens in his administration is news to him, usually shocking news to him. He doesn’t know what’s going on at the IRS but finds it troubling. He has no idea journalists are being targeted at the Justice Department and is upset at the chill the targeting us creating on a free press. He’s deeply disturbed by how he’s using drones to kill terrorists. Benghazi seems to be the only scandal he doesn’t find troubling, that’s just a partisan witch hunt in Obama’s world. That likely means Benghazi is the real scandal because Obama’s hands are likely all over it in a way that would upset the public far more than killing terrorists with drones.

It takes a great leap of faith to believe Obama is so far on the outside that he has no idea what’s going on within his own administration. The President sets the tone for his administration and Obama’s tone has always been negative. Like most leftists, everything in Obama’s world is political and if it’s political there are enemies that have to be destroyed. His White House has behaved in this manner and it’s hardly surprising that it trickled down into the rest of the executive branch. Odds are the White House knew about all of these scandals from the beginning. If Obama wasn’t told, that’s on the President. It’s simply not believable that the President is an outsider in his own administration. Obama hasn’t been an outsider in politics since he beat John McCain. In Obama’s second term, his outsider excuse is getting tiresome.

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Kathleen Sebelius Tries To Shake Down Health Insurance Companies

May 23, 2013 Leave a comment

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is charged with implementing Obamacare via regulation. She has an enormous amount of power to interpret the meaning of the 2,700 pages of Obamacare, to say nothing of the power to set up the bureaucratic apparatus of the bill. She and the Obama administration wanted more funds for Obamacare, in particular they wanted funds to advertise the “benefits” of Obamacare. (read: they wanted propaganda money) Congress has refused to fund such a program for Sebelius. So what did Sebelius and the Obama administration do? They created a non-profit called Enroll America to be the propaganda arm of Obamacare. Enroll America solicits private funds to push a government program that Congress has refused to fund.

Who Sebelius soliciting funds for Enroll America from? It just so happens that she’s soliciting funds from the very health insurance companies subject to her oversight and regulation. Sebelius has the power to deny health insurance companies approval for their exchange insurance policies. She has the power to regulate companies out of business. With that sort of power, a request (read: demand) from Sebelius to donate money to Enroll America has a certain air of inevitability. If Sebelius comes knocking on your door, a wise health insurance company cuts a check lest Sebelius deny approval for your health insurance policies under Obamacare.

Sarah Ingram once headed the IRS office involved in the targeting of Tea Party groups. She now just happens to head the Obamacare wing of the IRS. With the overreach of this administration concerning the Tea Party on the minds of health insurers, when Kathleen Sebelius calls demanding donations for Enroll America you can bet they cut a check immediately. The racket Sebelius is running is basically a domestic version of Iran-Contra wherein Congress refuses to fund something and high government officials use their office to force donations to fund what Congress refuses to.

If Sebelius were a private citizen, none of this would be a problem. She would have a right under the first amendment to solicit funds for whatever non-profit she wants. The problem here is that she’s the HHS Secretary in charge of regulating the health insurance industry and in charge of writing regulations for Obamacare. As a government official she’s seeking to circumvent Congress and use her position to coerce  the companies she’s regulating into donating to a non-profit she has either set up or is otherwise associated with. The whole point of the non-profit is to circumvent Congress, which would be fine but for Obama’s political appointees and regulators soliciting funds for it. The threat here is clear, donate or Sebelius will use her position to regulate a particular company out of business.

Even if you think Sebelius would never use her position to threaten insurers, what she’s doing looks an awful lot like coercion. It doesn’t look good when the HHS Secretary solicits funds from the companies she regulates in order to fund a non-profit that seeks to promote a government program that Congress refuses to fund the promotion of. This looks dirty and it likely is. It may even be illegal for a Cabinet Secretary to circumvent Congress or otherwise use her position in this way. This is yet another example of the Obama administration ruling by intimidation.

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Obama To Propose Meaningless Drone Strike Standards

May 23, 2013 Leave a comment

The US Government killed four Americans via drone strikes during the Obama administration. It’s a little kept secret that Obama spreads out pictures of alleged terrorists in the Oval Office and points at the ones he wants to kill via drone. We’re supposed to just trust that the President knows what he’s doing even though we know several hundred innocent civilians and four Americans have died. Today Obama is going to propose new rules for his administration to follow, as though those rules couldn’t be broken. Again, we’re supposed to just trust him. There is no judicial or otherwise independent oversight of the rules Obama is placing on himself. Just trust him.

In the case of drone strikes we’re supposed to just trust Obama because he has all sorts of classified information about the terrorists he’s attacking. His new standards are essentially meaningless because he can argue that all of the terrorists he attacks are a continuing and imminent threat to Americans. After all, the standard is going to be kept by the same person applying and arguing the standard in the first place. The buck stops with Obama, he’s the one who picks which terrorists will be attacked. Obama will ask Obama whether the standard has been met concerning a certain terrorist he wishes to attack. It’s utterly absurd.

Obama is trying to get ahead of this scandal. Americans will be rightfully outraged that four Americans were killed by Obama’s predator drone strikes. The country is generally uncomfortable with such strikes and will love to hear that there are standards being put in place. Obama is of course counting on no one noticing that the standards are irrelevant. There won’t be an independent commission reviewing drone strike proposals. There won’t be someone from the judiciary signing off on a drone strike. It will all come back to Obama and if it doesn’t come back to Obama then it will come back to people within the Obama administration who probably won’t tell the President so he can be shielded from any mistakes or criminal activity.

The problem with drone strikes and Obama is that we’re expected to trust his judgment. This is the same President who went to sleep rather than orchestrate a defense of the Benghazi consulate. Four Americans died, including our ambassador. This is the same President who isn’t told much of anything when scandal hits the agencies he’s running or in the alternative is lying about scandals in his government. This is a President who has used the power of the government to suppress whistleblowers and the press. Yet we’re supposed to trust Obama’s grand standards for drone strikes?

Obama’s speech today is all smoke and mirrors. It’s meant to divert attention away from scandals which are increasing in intensity by the hour. Obama is trying to present himself as someone who wants to get out ahead of these nasty drone strikes, as though he hasn’t used them more in his first term than Bush did in two terms. He’ll present himself as though he’s an outsider, absolutely shocked at the power of drone strikes, their potential for abuse and the precedent they set. Obama has been President for four and a half years, he can spare us the moral indignation at this point. His proposals are meaningless, they have no teeth. Why would they? Obama has lived off these drones for four years in the war on terrorism. He isn’t going to actually give them up now even if he tells the country all about his shiny new standards.

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Obama Attacks On The 1st Amendment

May 22, 2013 2 Comments

Lois Lerner refused to speak to Congress today, citing her 5th amendment right to not speak if it would incriminate her. Not content simply invoking the 5th, Lerner said she committed no crime and never lied to Congress. If that’s the case, why is she pleading the 5th? The 5th amendment doesn’t protect government employees from testifying on subject matters that make them uncomfortable. It’s clearly time for a special prosecutor in the IRS scandal. The IRS knew six months before the election about the extent of the Tea Party targeting and said nothing to protect Obama’s re-election chances. Now they don’t want to talk about it.

Perhaps pleading the 5th will be the administration’s new “I don’t know.” What do you want to bet Eric Holder doesn’t know why Fox News reporter James Rosen was named as an unindicted co-conspirator under the 1917 espionage act which allowed the government to track his phone records? Not only did the Department of Justice track Rosen’s phone lines, they tracked at least five other Fox News lines, two lines at the White House and even the phone lines of Rosen’s parents. No one at the Justice Department knows anything about it of course and if they do, they’ll just plead the 5th even if they’ve committed no crime.

It’s hard to say which story is more shocking right now. No reporter in American history has ever been charged with a crime under the 1917 espionage act. In fact, after World War One few if any have been charged under act for anything other than providing information to an enemy government. So far as anyone can tell, no journalist has ever been named on a subpoena as an unindicted co-conspirator over the release of government information in the press. What the Justice Department is doing is chilling freedom of the press by harassing journalists who dare attempt to procure information from the government. The Obama administration hasn’t just attacked Fox News, they’ve gone after the AP as well. It’s safe to say there are probably other news organizations that have also been targeted.

The flip to that is watching Lerner tell us she committed no crime but then refuse to answer questions from Congress. It simply makes no sense to plead the 5th when you’ve committed no crime. Especially so in this context. The 5th amendment doesn’t exist to protect government employees from uncomfortable questions. It exists to protect those accused of crimes from incriminating themselves. Lerner isn’t being accused of any crimes. If she is allowed to get away with invoking the 5th amendment, then potentially all government employees could refuse to speak to Congress if it makes them uncomfortable. This is an expansion of the 5th amendment well beyond its intent.

This administration has engaged in a full frontal assault on the first amendment. They have used the IRS to harass conservative groups in an attempt to chill their first amendment right to free speech. They have harassed journalists who publish stories the administration doesn’t like via the Department of Justice. They have also tried to stifle freedom of religion by requiring religious institutions to fund contraception despite the institutions religious objections. The Obama administration likes to talk about freedom but when it comes to the freedoms guaranteed in the first amendment, Obama has used the government to stifle them. It’s time for a special prosecutor on these matters. These rights are too precious for us to not protect.

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President Passive Is Really President Intimidation

May 21, 2013 Leave a comment

The spin doctors in the Obama administration are giving us a schizophrenic view of President Obama. We’ve all seen for years Obama calling Republicans the enemy while accusing the Tea Party and conservatives of racism. The cop acted “stupidly,” Republicans have a “fever” and so on. Despite all this rhetoric, the spin doctors present for us a President who has no idea what’s going on in his own administration. No one is more shocked than Obama about the IRS scandal we’re told. Obama creates a culture of intimidation in the executive branch and then sits back and feigns outrage when the intimidation becomes public.

Senate Democrats spent much of 2010 begging the IRS to investigate Tea Party groups all while Obama toured the country encouraging minority voters to “punish” their “enemies” in the GOP. When the IRS actually goes forward with the intimidation, Obama acts like he found out about it when reading the newspaper. The White House Chief of Staff knew about it for several weeks but we’re to believe he didn’t tell Obama. Hearings were conducted on the matter in Congress last year. Are we to believe Obama didn’t know about potential political targeting at the IRS which Congress was investigating? Who kept that information from the President?

The President Passive routine isn’t really believable. On March 31st, 2010 President Obama met with the National Treasury Employees Union head Colleen Kelley. This union covers the IRS and has been quite public in its opposition to the Tea Party. It just so happens that the very next day members of the union within the IRS started their intimidation of Tea Party and other conservative groups. Nothing is on paper, winks and nods all around so that Obama can pretend he knew nothing while the IRS intimidated and harassed conservatives. Kelley believes her union is collaborating with the White House. No doubt they are. One wonders if these union employees are also responsible for audits of 15 top Romney donors.

It isn’t just the IRS that Obama has used to intimidate enemies. The Department of Justice leaked documents meant to smear whistleblowers in the Fast and Furious scandal. In that same scandal the DOJ tracked at least two Fox News journalists who they believed we’re receiving damaging information from whistleblowers. We already know the administration has threatened other whistleblowers concerning a leak to the AP in Yemen and in the Benghazi matter. If the administration doesn’t release damaging information about the whistleblowers themselves, they harass and intimidate the journalists who are trying to report to the American public about what their government is up to. If you think harassing reporters doesn’t have a chilling effect on whistleblowers (and journalists) you have another thing coming.

This administration is constantly changing its story. The IRS story changes nearly daily. Benghazi changed repeatedly as did Fast and Furious. The spin doctors in the administration are doing this intentionally. For public consumption they’re making all of these stories confusing with ever changing facts. They’re predicting that the public will give up due to confusion and then the administration can point the finger at Republicans and blame them for creating scandals out of nothing. They’ve already done this on Benghazi, they’ll try to do the same thing on the IRS. This is yet another example of the administration intimidating people, this time through confusion.

Of course Obama knows nothing about any of this. He’s just one of us you know, picking up the morning paper only to find out some outrage is occurring in Washington. Obama is the first President since John Tyler to act as though he is a completely disconnected outsider of the office he holds. President Tyler perhaps had good reason to feel disconnected, President Obama does not. As more information trickles out we will discover more connections between Obama and the IRS scandal. We’ll find more reasons to question what was really going on in Benghazi. Worse, we’ll see even more examples of this President intimidating whistleblowers so as to protect his own political fortunes. Obama isn’t President Passive, he’s President Intimidation.

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Planned Parenthood Pulls $85 Million In Profit On Abortion Sales

May 20, 2013 Leave a comment

Since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 over 50 million abortions have been performed in the United States. According to the CDC’s most recent date in 2009 there were around 800,000 abortions performed in our country. Nearly 40% of those abortions take place at Planned Parenthood, which made over $100 million in abortion sales and earned $85 million in profits according to their 2011-2012 annual report. Most of those abortions took place in inner cities, targeting black and hispanic children. Yet we’re not allowed to discuss Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, and her  racism. We’re supposed to bury our head and pretend abortion is about women’s health. In reality, it’s about murder and racism.

The conservative media was outraged over the Kermit Gosnell trial. Gosnell was  ultimately convicted of murdering several babies born via botched abortions. He snapped their necks shortly after birth. Conservatives weren’t just outraged over the murdering of botched aborted babies. We understood that had these babies still been in the womb Planned Parenthood would defend to the death the right of Gosnell to snap their necks. No matter how much the left wants to pretend that an unborn baby (which the media arrogantly dismisses as a “fetus”) is just a clump of cells, the reality is that it’s a separate and distinct human life.

From the founding of Planned Parenthood the goal was to reduce the number of minorities and other “undesirables.” Sanger and the Eugenics crowd of the early 20th century made that abundantly clear. It should come as no surprise that most abortion clinics are in minority neighborhoods. Gosnell’s clients were almost all black. In New York City, 41% of all minority conceptions end in an abortion. Killing black and Hispanic babies is a multimillion dollar industry sold to us as women’s health. Planned Parenthood alone pulls in 9 figures on abortion sales while turning an $85 million profit. They claim abortion is only 3% of their business but it directly correlates to their profits.

The left is forever accusing conservatives of being racist and hating minorities. Yet it is conservatives who have been defending the right of black and Hispanic babies to live since Roe was decided 40 years ago. If conservatives hate blacks so much why wouldn’t we support their death via abortion? The fact is that throughout the past 150 years it has been progressives that have advocated racism, not conservatives. We support the right of blacks, Hispanics and all racial and ethnic minorities to live their lives free of government intrusion. This includes the right to be born without state sponsored or state supported abortion threatening minority lives.

Gosnell and all the other grotesque abortion clinics show us a number of things. First, these people don’t care about women’s health. Planned Parenthood forever complains about back alley abortions if Roe is overturned. Yet they support Gosnell and the legion of dirty abortion clinics out there. Second, Gosnell highlights for us that abortion targets minorities for death. Third, for all Obama and the left claim they want abortions “safe and rare” the result is neither. With over 800,000 abortions in 2009 and 50 million since 1973 it isn’t rare. With Gosnell’s operating legally, even protected by states supportive of abortion or fearful of Planned Parenthood political reprisals, it isn’t even safe. Of course, abortion has never been safe for babies, it always results in their death.

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The Condemnation of Big Government

May 18, 2013 2 Comments

From the beginning of the progressive movement more than a century ago their goal has been a massive Federal government run by experts and a legion of bureaucrats. They have long wanted to control our every move via regulation. As for us little people, we’re supposed to trust our betters running the government because after all they’re experts. We’re also supposed to trust that these people will be fair in their application of the regulations they expertly write and enforce. This is the government Obama and his progressive administration so desperately want. Yet when it comes down to administering such a government, it’s become quite clear that everyone from the top to the lowest level bureaucrat is incapable of fairly enforcing the never ending pages of government regulation.

The IRS scandal is a good example of the problem with massive government. Steven Miller, the man Obama didn’t actually fire but who was leaving at the end of his term in June, testified before Congress yesterday. He claims the IRS did nothing illegal in targeting conservative groups. He may very well be right, there may be no Federal law or regulation preventing this targeting. Us little people are expected to trust the IRS to fairly apply the regulations they create, yet it’s clear we can’t trust them. The IRS asked one pro-life group for the content of their prayers. They targeted conservative hispanic groups and engaged in political intimidation for years. The IRS stalled conservative groups for years but of course gave speedy approval to Obama’s groups.

Obama acted outraged when he “discovered” the IRS scandal allegedly last week. Funny thing about the original public disclosure, it was via a planted question. The IRS knew about the targeting in 2011 and did nothing about it. The White House knew in June 2012 and did nothing about it. Why? Because it would hurt Obama’s re-election chances. Just like the Benghazi talking points memo, the Obama administration wanted to keep information from the American people because it would hurt the President’s re-election chances. So they don’t tell us about terrorism or al Qaeda ties in Benghazi, they don’t tell us about subpoena’s of AP journalists phone records over a “leak.” The interesting thing about that scandal is that the administration was simply paying the AP back for reporting the story one day before the administration planned on crowing about the foiled al Qaeda plot. Beat the administration to the punch and they’ll harass you.

Not even Chris Matthews is buying the administration line on the IRS scandal. Where Matthews and the left will get this scandal wrong is that they’ll blame low level bureaucrats and mistakes made within the Obama administration. What the public ought to take away from these scandals is that big government cannot be trusted. They’ll use the IRS to target political groups they don’t like then cover it up until after an election. They’ll punish the press for printing stories the government doesn’t want printed. They’ll not provide the public with information that makes the government and its leaders look bad. Then when called out for all of their misdeeds, the government and its leaders will either blame the opposition or claim their own incompetence. Of course don’t you dare suggest smaller government, that would be an outrage. You should be controlled by your betters in government, they know best! If they target conservatives in the IRS nonprofit office, they’ll get promoted to the Obamacare department of the IRS. Don’t question our betters.

Perhaps there is something positive to having Obama in the White House. We’re getting a chance to see that the progressive vision of big government doesn’t work. The progressives are incapable of managing the massive government they so badly want. They’re also incapable of fairly applying the laws and regulations they pass. They don’t need the Tea Party protesting in Washington to destroy the public’s idea of big government. The progressives merely need to expose themselves via their own expansion and mismanagement of government. They’ve shown themselves incompetent and unfair. They’ve shown themselves willing to target, with the massive power of government, anyone who questions them or challenges them. It’s been a long time since such a good case was made for the conservative vision of smaller government. Obama has been good for something after all.

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AP Accuses GOP Of Badgering Obama

May 17, 2013 2 Comments

The AP appears to be back on board the Obama train as they ran an article today accusing Republicans of “badgering” the President. That was just the headline. It appears those dastardly enemy Republicans aren’t satisfied with the Benghazi emails. They want more information about the White House talking points and they want more information about the situation generally. How dare they badger the President for such information! Never mind that the first emails released leave a gap of 67 hours between the attack and first email. Don’t pay attention to the fact that meetings took place in the White House in which notes exist. Benghazi is now about a badgered President.

What we still don’t know is why the administration blamed the video in the first place. In the many talking points drafts the video doesn’t appear until the very end. In the released emails, the video doesn’t appear until the very end. So why did Susan Rice and the entire Obama administration claim the video caused the attack? Who decided that was fact? Who decided to put it into the talking points? We still have no idea because the White House thinks a handful of emails ought to satisfy the badgering hordes.

What we still don’t know, what still hasn’t been asked by the Republicans is why Ambassador Chris Stevens was in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012. What was he doing there? What official business was he conducting. We still have no idea why the ambassador was in Benghazi or what he was doing or planning to do. Why didn’t he have enough security? Obama blames budget cuts but the fact is sequestration was six months off last September and played no role in the lack of security in Benghazi. Yes, questioning the security puts Hillary Clinton’s reputation at risk. So what? Four Americans died within her State Department. She’s responsible for security expenditures, the public has a right to know if she screwed up by not providing enough security.

This isn’t about Hillary Clinton, it isn’t even about Obama. It’s about figuring out what happened in Benghazi and pinpointing ways to prevent such an attack in the future. There are potential crimes that took place here, from what we know Obama and Hillary should not be the target of such a criminal investigation. However, there are chain of command issues that a special prosecutor needs to look at. The fact that the administration so adamantly opposes a special prosecutor suggests, fairly or unfairly, that they have something to hide. It suggests there’s more here than meets the eye.

Obviously incompetence isn’t a criminal offense. But it can and should result in Congressional investigations. Democrats would have been well within their rights during Bush’s last two years to conduct investigations about the Federal government response to Hurricane Katrina. Likewise, Congressional investigations are required for Benghazi and the other Obama scandals. It isn’t a matter of badgering a President, it’s a matter of holding him and his administration accountable. Congress is charged with such under the Constitution and we should expect nothing less from our elected representatives. Perhaps as the Republican House continues investigating they might ask why Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi and what he was planning on doing there.

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Eric Holder Needs To Go, Special Prosecutor Needed

May 16, 2013 Leave a comment

President Obama is just as outraged at the IRS abuses as the American people. See, he’s one of us! Except he’s the President and he alleges he found out about a scandal within his own executive branch at the same time the rest of us found out. He told the country last night he forced the resignation of acting IRS chief Steven Miller. Miller claims in an email to IRS employees he was leaving in June because that’s when his assignment was scheduled to end. Which version is correct? That’s anyone’s guess. We can bet that President Passive isn’t going to get to the bottom of it.

The White House released a bunch of Benghazi emails that they seem to think vindicates their position. It does no such thing. The emails prove Jay Carney was wrong in suggesting the White House had a limited role in creating the Benghazi talking points. The CIA wanted to scrap the talking points and the video didn’t become the focus of them until the very end. Of course Attorney General Eric Holder won’t be appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the deaths of four Americans, including an ambassador. If there was ever a case where a special prosecutor could actually help a President it’s this one. Unless the administration is afraid of a special prosecutor finding out what really happened in Benghazi.

At the center of all of these problems is Eric Holder. Holder claims that in the AP phone monitoring scandal he recused himself from the investigation of the original leak. There is no written evidence that Holder recused himself and he has no idea when he actually recused himself. He passed the matter off to one of his deputies in the Justice Department and if you were paying attention Holder suggested Congress couldn’t subpoena the deputy. If so, isn’t it convenient for Holder. Does anyone really believe that Holder wasn’t involved in the AP subpoenas? Doesn’t anyone believe that he didn’t at least know about them?

At yesterday’s Congressional hearing Eric Holder called Rep. Darrell Issa ”unacceptable and shameful.” This is a classic administration tactic. Rather than answering questions, tough though they may be, Holder is shifting focus away from himself and onto Issa. As though it’s outrageous that Issa is questioning the administration. Isolate and demonize, it’s straight out of the Saul Alinsky playbook.  Hillary Clinton did the same thing during her Benghazi testimony in January. What’s unacceptable and shameful is how little Holder seems to know about the Federal agency that he runs. Just like Obama, he seems to know nothing. Do we have a government managed by a President and his cabinet or is our government run by a cabal of bureaucrats who do whatever they please?

Eric Holder needs to be fired. Obama can easily make Holder the fall guy for all of his problems. One big head rolling is likely to calm most of these storms. Firing the temporary IRS chief isn’t good enough. If Obama wants to stop the bleeding, he takes out Holder. He won’t do it of course, Holder is to good at using the Justice Department in illegal ways while deflecting criticism with a torrent of “I don’t know’s.” Like Obama, Holder knows nothing about anything. Fast and Furious, AP phone tapping, denying a homeschool family asylum. Holder knows nothing and as such he’s valuable to Obama.

Beyond Holder, a special prosecutor needs to be appointed for all of these scandals. There are enough links between the Obama campaign and secret tax information of conservatives and their organizations that a special prosecutor should investigate. We should have an independent review of the AP phone subpoena. Benghazi needs a fresh set of eyes, free of the political eyes both sides of the aisle have on the matter. The American people have a right to know what’s going on within their government. A special prosecutor is the best way to find out. We shouldn’t count on it though. Obama and Holder have either too much to hide or don’t like the idea of outsiders snooping around.

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