Team Obama’s Fundamental IRS Miscalculation

May 14, 2013 Leave a comment

Last Friday the Obama administration made one of the few tactical political errors they’ve made. They had an IRS executive causally acknowledge that the tax agency targeted conservative groups with terms like Tea Party and patriot in their names for additional scrutiny. The IRS also targeted Jewish groups and shifted their targeting terms so as to capture as many conservative groups as possible. The Obama administration has successfully shifted focus away from Benghazi but the IRS scandal isn’t quite as controlled as they expected. Information continues to leak out, including that top officials at the IRS knew about the targeting of conservative groups in 2010. One finds it difficult to believe an Inspectors General report with that sort of information didn’t make it to the White House.

In 1974 Article 2 of the proposed articles of impeachment against President Nixon focused on his abuses within the IRS. We are nowhere near that level with Obama yet, largely because we don’t know how deep Obama is personally into all of this. The information trickling out isn’t just that the IRS targeted conservative groups for additional scrutiny. The IRS also may have been involved in the leaking of information concerning donations made by Mitt Romney’s PAC. Last year Romney donor Frank VanderSloot was attacked by Obama’s campaign as a “wealthy individual with a less than reputable record.” He was then subjected to two IRS audits. So the question now is two fold. First, did the IRS provide VanderSloot’s tax information to the Obama campaign? Second, did the IRS respond to the Obama campaign’s accusation in deciding to audit VanderSloot or in the alternative did the administration order up an audit?

Team Obama didn’t think the IRS announcement would legitimize complaints made nearly a year ago about the IRS and its use of private tax information for the benefit of the President. Now that the agency has admitted to targeting conservatives, even the media is taking seriously the claims of conservatives which were summarily dismissed just a few weeks ago. That David Plouffe seems to be justifying the IRS actions certainly isn’t helping Obama’s case. We’ve know for a long time that Obama views Republicans as “the enemy.” Is it possible he really has an enemies list and uses the IRS to attack them?

Obama has, not surprisingly, called the IRS scandal “outrageous” and “concerning.” Nixon also claimed he wasn’t a crook, so Presidential shows of outrage over scandal isn’t exactly meaningful. Bringing this back to what really matters, Benghazi, Obama called the investigation a “sideshow.” In this we can see what the administration intended to do with the IRS scandal. Obama got to moralize and show indignation over the IRS scandal while dismissing out of hand the more important and more damning Benghazi scandal. We can see in his comments Monday what the administration really wanted to do with these two issues. The IRS is an outrage but don’t pay attention to that Republican sideshow in Benghazi. When a President plays that card, it’s usually time to pay attention to the sideshow.

The IRS scandal has snowballed out of control for the administration, which will result in the opposite of its intended effect. In Benghazi the administration is relying on the State Department investigation of Thomas Pickering. Pickering never bothered to depose Hillary Clinton or any of her immediate underlings. He claims he already determined she wasn’t involved, which is of course complete nonsense if one listens to Gregory Hicks testimony. The Pickering investigation is a sham, everyone knows it.  Yet Obama relies on it. Because the public is outraged over the IRS scandal and because it’s likely few believe the administration wasn’t somehow involved people are going to be more likely to believe the worst about Benghazi.

This is the miscalculation of Obama’s political team. They really thought the IRS scandal would give Obama the opportunity to stamp his feet in moral indignation while Republicans shifted focus from Benghazi to the IRS. Obama still has an amount of cover over at the IRS. What the politicos didn’t anticipate was a whole host of additional IRS charges, including leaks of financial information by the IRS and politically motivated audits, making its way into the mainstream press. They were slow to react, waiting until Monday for Obama to say anything. That would have been fine but for the snowball effect but once things got out of control Team Obama didn’t respond quickly enough. Now because people believe the administration is up to no good via the IRS, people are more willing to believe the worst about Benghazi.

We know Benghazi goes all the way to the top as we know Obama was involved in the decision making. We obviously don’t know if Obama or any of his White House staff were involved in the IRS scandal. Presumably investigations will take place and we’ll find something out eventually. The question isn’t so much whether there’s an impeachable offense here, there isn’t right now. Incompetence yes but incompetence isn’t impeachable. The question is at what point do the Democrats cut and run from Obama? He’s a lame duck with no political future. If things begin to get out of control scandal wise look for Democrats to distance themselves. They will cut and run to save their own careers before sticking their neck out for a lame duck Obama. Right now, Obama risks losing the country on both of these issues because folks don’t buy that the IRS targeting wasn’t political in nature. Because they question the IRS scandal, they’re going to question Benghazi as well. Team Obama is in full on crisis mode and they should be.

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One Bad Week Could Derail Obama

May 13, 2013 2 Comments

The President’s Twitter feed declared Obama to be “Our North Star.” As absurd as that description of him is the White House doesn’t seem to be kidding around. Perhaps they’re dreaming of better times when the media treated him as the Savior of the nation, when Republicans were powerless and when Democrats loved him. After last week, the White House Twitter feed felt a lot like Hitler’s last days in the bunker. Dreaming of better days while bombs are exploding all around. It’s been a long time since the country saw its President have such a dreadful week. Last week is one for the history books. Benghazi is the obvious big scandal, it’s the one to really focus on. The IRS scandal, potentially more insidious, could do significant damage.

You know it’s been a bad week for Obama when Maureen Dowd turns on him. Even the New Yorker is finding Obama’s Benghazi lie difficult to believe. Meanwhile liberal Time columnist Joe Klein is highly disturbed about the IRS story that broke at the end of the week. Klein doesn’t buy that the targeting of conservative Tea Party and patriot groups wasn’t partisan in nature. While the IRS claims they didn’t know about the targeting until recently, as early as 2011 senior counsel at the IRS knew. Klein accuses Obama of heading into Richard Nixon territory. Article 2 of the proposed impeachment articles against Nixon included using the IRS for political purposes.

While the IRS scandal feels like bait, in other words a controlled scandal wherein Obama can blame a Bush appointee who headed the IRS through last year, it still speaks of Obama’s executive incompetence. If in 2011 senior counsel at the IRS knew the agency was targeting conservative groups (and apparently Jewish groups) for scrutiny why didn’t Obama know about it or why didn’t Obama do anything about it? He’s either incompetent in that he has no control over the executive branch or he didn’t care. The administration is making the same argument on Benghazi. They’re going with Obama’s incompetent rather than Obama’s involved in a coverup.

The Benghazi situation is only going to get worse. They’re going to have a tough time going after star witness Gregory Hicks, a lifelong Democrat who voted for Hillary and Obama twice. Now that the media is actually interested in the scandal, Obama can’t roll his eyes and mock scandal hungry Republicans. The IRS scandal, which could be a huge can of worms rather than the controlled scandal the administration hopes it will be, is going to cause scandal interested Republicans to go wild. The House Ways and Means Committee is already demanding all IRS communications involving this scandal by Wednesday. Perhaps the GOP will find a way to be interested in multiple scandals all at once.

In short, last week couldn’t have been any worse for Obama. With these scandals simmering and with the media sharks beginning to circle, the odds of Obama’s domestic agenda passing grow dimmer each day. Immigration reform is already a tough sell for Obama, these scandals are delaying this debate thus giving the opposition time to figure out there’s a biometric database of all Americans hidden in the gang of eight bill. The more time people have to figure out what’s in this bill the more likely opposition to it will grow. The longer Benghazi and the IRS scandals dominate the news the longer it will take for Congress to consider any of Obama’s agenda. Last week was a turning point in Obama administration, a turning point for Obama’s legacy. One bad week will cast a long shadow over the rest of his term.

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Don’t Take The IRS Scandal Bait

May 11, 2013 Leave a comment

Out of nowhere the IRS issued an apology to conservative groups for targeting them during the 2012 election. The IRS targeted for additional scrutiny groups that included the terms tea party and patriot. They asked all sorts of intrusive information from these groups, including demands for various direct and indirect communications with legislative bodies, contact with news media and information on members and their families. The IRS explanation is that underlings in Cincinnati were responsible. Yet there will be no discipline, no one is being fired. Obama had previously joked about targeting conservatives with the IRS. Yet we are to believe that politics wasn’t a motivation here. Not surprisingly the New York Times dismissed conservative complaints last year.

The timing of this is curious. The person who made this random announcement during a speech, Lois Lerner, isn’t exactly a top level IRS agent. It’s no surprise this came to light on the notoriously slow news day of Friday. Perhaps the administration is trying to shift conservative attention away from Benghazi. After all, the conservative press has been largely focused on this issue. Especially after ABC News reported that the administration went through 12 drafts of their Benghazi talking points, taking out terrorism in the process. We all know at this point the administration made up the video story, they did so to distract away from the true cause of the Benghazi attacks: Terrorism. Or if you’re Geraldo it’s missile running to Syria or if you’re Glenn Beck it’s gun running to Syria. (neither would surprise)

We cannot forget that for this administration everything is political. Thus when our consulate in Benghazi is attacked they view it as a political event to be spun. Likewise they view Republican responses to everything as political in nature. Thus you have the folks at MSNBC blaming the GOP for Obama’s Benghazi response because of course Republicans made Obama lie with their political attacks. As such, we have to analyze the IRS announcement yesterday in a purely political manner. What was the point of the announcement, why was it announced yesterday?

Once we start asking these questions we can piece together why the administration made the announcement yesterday. The conservative press has been hammering the administration to the point where the liberal mainstream press is beginning to get in on the action. The administration believes that by dangling a carrot they can shift the focus of the media away from the Benghazi coverup and onto an easily explained away IRS problem. After all, the administration can easily hide behind the fact that the head of the IRS last year was still a Bush appointee. Then they can claim politics wasn’t a factor while conservatives stamp their feet in outrage. Thus their goal is to control the scandal situation so that we either forget about Benghazi or stop paying so much attention to it.

Let’s not be sucked into this tomfoolery. Benghazi is important. It’s important because this administration failed to protect our Libyan ambassador. It’s important because it shows us that al Qaeda is alive and well. It’s important because to coverup their terrorism failure, the administration lied to the public about the cause of the attack. Playing in the background is potential gun running or weapons running to Muslim Brotherhood terrorist rebelling against the government in Syria. The IRS scandal is small potatoes in comparison, it’s a scandal that the administration can easily fob off on underlings in an agency headed by a Bush appointee. The Obama administration is playing politics with us, we ought to not get sucked in.

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In 20 Years Guns Double, Gun Crime Down 70%

May 10, 2013 Leave a comment

In the last twenty years the number of privately owned guns in the United States has roughly doubled. There are approximately 300 million privately held firearms in our nation today. Millions more are being purchased every month as Americans fear gun control regulations will limit their second amendment rights. If one were to listen to the hysterical Democrats and their surrogates in the media, one would think the doubling of guns in this country would equal a massive increase in the number of murders and other violent felonies. In fact 50% of the country thinks violent crime has increased over the last twenty years. In fact, it’s decreased dramatically.

In the last twenty years murders are down almost 40%. Gun murders are down almost 50%. Violent crimes involving guns are down around 70%. These are dramatic decreases in violent crimes committed with guns and yet our nation roughly doubled the number of privately held guns. How can it be that a nation which doubled its guns saw crime drop so much? Obviously there are a lot of factors in the decrease in the number of violent crimes committed. One of them undoubtedly is that a significant number of potential violent criminals are fearful that a potential victim is carrying a gun. That fear is a significant deterrent.

These numbers aren’t exactly surprising to those who believe in a robust second amendment. Since 1960 all of the mass public shootings in the US but one took place at a location where firearms were banned. You could probably throw in most of the European mass public shootings as well, they have these events just as much as we do despite severe firearm restrictions. When potential criminals aren’t afraid of their victims being able to defend themselves, they’re emboldened to commit crimes. There’s a reason why mass public shootings happen at government schools and movie theaters and malls which ban guns but not at NRA conventions.

In the 90′s it was popular for European visitors in Florida to put a NRA sticker on their rental car or wear a NRA hat. At the time, European travelers were targeted by criminals for muggings and car jackings because they were vulnerable targets. The NRA paraphernalia warded off potential attackers who were afraid these people might be packing a firearm. That they were not doesn’t really matter, it’s the fear a criminal has that is important. If a criminal fears violent retaliation they’re less likely to engage in a criminal act.

Yet the Democrats want to restrict access to firearms in this country. They want to ban certain kinds of guns and ban certain kinds of magazines or clips. They want to make it more difficult for law abiding citizens to obtain a firearm. Yet all of the evidence available to us indicates that more firearms aids in having less crime. We’ve doubled our guns in the United States and at the same time violent crime with a gun is down 70% and murders with a gun are down 50%. We have 300 million guns in the hands of private citizens, the government isn’t going to be able to confiscate all of these weapons. Rather than trying to restrict access to more firearms, we would be better off allowing American citizens to exercise their gun rights. Would it shock anyone if crime dropped as a result? Probably only Democrats.

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The Moral Relativism Of Left-Wing Logic

May 9, 2013 2 Comments

Heather MacDonald of the New York Post has a piece attempting to figure out what she calls the madness of liberal moralizing. In the world of the left a 15 year old is mature enough to buy the one pill version of the morning after abortion pill. That same 15 year old isn’t mature enough for the two pill version of the morning after abortion pill. The 15 year old also isn’t mature enough to smoke a cigarette until she’s 18, some liberals want to make that 21. The 15 year old in question isn’t mature enough to have a glass of wine until she’s 21. In liberals minds no one is mature enough for a 17oz Coke nor are we mature enough for raw milk cheese or unpasteurized pancetta from Italy.

The FDA is investigating age restrictions for caffeinated beverages. So our 15 year old, who by liberal logic is mature enough to have sex and take one morning after abortion pill but not two is nonetheless not mature enough to drink an energy drink or perhaps a cup of coffee. Over in Europe the EU wants to criminalize seeds which aren’t registered with the government. How long before our left decides this is a terrific idea in order to protect those who aren’t mature enough, all of us apparently, to eat vegetables grown by unregistered seeds?

We all know the common denominator here is sex and abortion, both of which the left will defend in nearly all circumstances. As far as the left is concerned any 15 year old is mature enough for sex and aborting a baby without her parents knowledge but at the same time they want to throw parents in the slam for giving their kid a glass of wine. The logic only makes sense in light of the left’s obsession with free sex and baby killing. Neither of which the left would care about but for the fact that they help tear down Christian society and further leftist agendas, particularly the left’s eugenics agenda.

We’ve been treated to leftist hypocrisy in the news just this week. The sexual enslavement of three women in Cleveland resulted in several dead babies that were buried in the back yard. The media was very concerned and outraged over this. Yet the same media isn’t covering the Kermit Gosnell trial. Gosnell is an abortionist who killed late term babies out of the womb. The man kept a pair of pickled baby feet in a jar on his desk. The left-wing media isn’t interested in this story in the least but the babies who were killed by a slime ball kidnapper are to be mourned. Both situations are outrageous but the left refuses to be outraged over the grisly details of an abortion clinic because to be outraged over the death and gore of an abortion clinic would call into question the entire practice of abortion.

The left loves to regulate our lives, they love to tell us what we can and can’t do. We can’t have cheese made with raw milk, we can’t have a glass of wine until we’re 21, we can’t have a 17oz pop in New York City, we couldn’t have foie gras for awhile in Chicago etc. But at 15 the left will defend the maturity and right of a girl to have sex and kill her baby without parental consent. She isn’t mature enough of course for two pills, just one. She also isn’t mature enough to quit school, truancy laws keep her in school until at least 16 if not 17 or 18 depending on where she lives. She also isn’t mature enough for a R rated film. But she can get a baby killing pill. The moral relativism of the left is appalling.

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Sanford Victory Does Not Equal A 2014 GOP Landslide

May 8, 2013 Leave a comment

Mark Sanford won a Congressional run off election last night, fairly handily 54-45. The Democrats sunk $1 million into this race, obviously hoping to kick start a return to power in the House next year. Mark Sanford is a despicable character, having committed adultery and lied about his whereabouts while gallivanting around South America with his whore. Odds are he’s a sociopath, so of course he’ll fit in well in the halls of Congress. While there’s no doubt that had the Democrats pulled off a win last night they would be crowing about Nancy Pelosi returning to the Speaker’s chair next year, this election was about Mark Sanford and nothing else.

We’re talking about a crimson red district, not a swing district in any sense of the term. The question was whether enough Republicans could stomach voting for Sanford for no other reason than they want a Republican representing their district rather than a Democrat. With a much larger base, the Republicans were easily able to get enough voters to the polls. Let’s not fool ourselves about Congressional elections. While we’re voting for individuals, the reality is that 90%+ of the time they’ll vote with the party they’re part of. As such, we’re really voting for a party rather than an individual. In a Republican district, even a sleazeball like Sanford will win because there are enough people who want the district represented by a Republican.

Had Sanford lost it would have only been because enough Republicans couldn’t stomach voting for him. Yours truly would have been part of the group sitting the election out. The focus here is on Sanford rather than national policy though, which is why neither party should view these results as tea leaves for 2014. If there is one thing that seemed to galvanize Sanford voters it was his attacks on Nancy Pelosi. That’s about as national as this race got. Fear of Pelosi returning to power seemed to convince a red district to vote for someone they don’t particularly care for. If there’s one lesson the Republicans can take from this race it’s that demonizing Pelosi pays dividends.

Would this lesson even apply to a swing district? It’s hard to say. Republican voters detest Nancy Pelosi, probably more than Obama. Crimson red districts can be convinced to vote for a sociopathic serial adulterer when he attacks Nancy Pelosi, so perhaps such attacks will solidify the base in a swing district. While there is perhaps a lesson to be learned from the Sanford victory, we should in no way view his win in a red district as a sign of what’s coming next year. It just wasn’t that kind of race, it couldn’t be with someone as sleazy and controversial as Mark Sanford on ballot.

Conservatives really need to do a better job of making sure people like Sanford don’t win primary elections. How many times have we lost in primary battles because two or three conservatives split 60% of the votes among themselves while the moderate cruises to victory? We do more to hurt ourselves by now bowing out of primary races for the greater good. Sanford’s primary win is a good example, there are a number of others including Michigan’s Governor’s race in 2010. If we want to change Washington, we have to not be quite so self absorbed and arrogant in primary races. We’ll end up with more Sanford’s as long as arrogant conservatives refuse to back out of races which split conservative votes. If there’s one overriding lesson to be learned from yesterday’s Sanford victory it’s that.

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Some Questions For Congress To Ask On Benghazi

May 7, 2013 7 Comments

Jay Carney told us the other day that the Benghazi attacks happened “a long time ago.” Carney said this as though it was outrageous that anyone was still talking about the terrorist attack that killed our Libyan ambassador which happened just eight months ago. Congress is holding hearings on the Benghazi attack this week, several whistleblowers are scheduled to testify. The administration’s response is to declare that the State Department already investigated the matter and their conclusions are “unimpeachable.” In other words, the administration already made its determination and how dare you question it. You must be one of those people concerned about government tyranny or something.

It’s  the job of Congress to investigate these matters, especially when an ambassador dies. The Obama administration spent two weeks lying about why the Benghazi attack happened. For two weeks they claimed it was because of an anti-Muslim video on You Tube. In reality it was an al Qaeda terrorist attack. The media never questioned Obama, even after it was revealed that the attack was terrorism. You’ll recall at the second Presidential debate CNN’s Candy Crowley openly sided with Obama despite Obama not telling the truth. Blaming the You Tube video was a cover up, part of an extensive cover up in fact. The Obama administration could have done something but Obama chose not to. Congress is right to investigate.

Obama presented himself last year as the hero of the War on Terror. He was the killer of Osama who hadn’t allowed any terrorist attacks during his time in office. He intervened in Libya, taking out its terrorist dictator. Then a terrorist attack happened which resulted in our ambassador dying and being dragged through the streets of Benghazi. The administration could have stopped the attack, we had drones and special ops in the area but they were held back. Obama went to sleep that night not knowing or caring about the end result of the terrorist attack. When it turned out to be a potential political disaster for Obama, the administration blamed a video no one had ever heard of to protect the President. The media ate it up and refused to do any investigations themselves.

One wonders why the media isn’t concerned about administration threats against whistleblowers. One wonders why the media doesn’t seem to care that the State Department won’t vouch for the credibility of any whistleblower. In doing this the State Department is essentially telling us all the whistleblowers can’t be believed or in the alternative the career diplomats are too afraid of losing their jobs to speak up. Whistleblowers used to be the sort of people the media championed because they spoke the truth while entrenched power lied. These days the overtly partisan press won’t challenge the President they agree with and ignore or disparage whistleblowers against him.

It isn’t just Obama of course, Hillary Clinton is right in the middle of this mess. The Democrat press badly wants her to run for President in 2016. If there is one thing that can derail Hillary it’s Benghazi. Her fingerprints are all over this mess. The ambassador died under her watch, she’s responsible for ensuring his security. She’s responsible for him being in Benghazi rather than Tripoli. It is Hillary who never requested additional security or help for the ambassador on the night of the attack. Hillary went along with the video excuse and sent Susan Rice off to deliver the lie on all the Sunday talk shows less than a week after the attack. Benghazi could take down or limit the power of both of these Democrats.

While the media wasn’t much interested in Benghazi in September and October last year, they’re showing at least minimal interest now. The follow questions need to be asked and answered in the next week or so, if not by Congress than by the media. 1. Who in the administration came up with the idea of blaming the You Tube video? 2. Who helped construct the story? 3. Who gave the final go ahead with releasing the excuse? 4. Who in the administration was asked by the Benghazi consulate for additional support? 5. Who in the administration decided not to provide it? 6. Which members of the administration aided in the making of that decision? 7. We need a minute by minute accounting of Obama’s whereabouts and who he was with on the night of Sept. 11-12. 8. Were American special forces or the US military every denied authority to attack or otherwise provide aid during the Benghazi attack. 9. Why was our ambassador in Benghazi on Sept. 11? Answers to these questions will aid Congress and the public in determining what actually happened.

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