CNN goes to bat for IRS commish

CNN headline: "Top IRS official beats back Republican barrage". 

The story is a glowing portrait of the Democratic fix-it man, who formerly took over Fannie Mae after the financial crash.  Now he's facing the grilling of Congress, mainly from the GOP, over the IRS targeting scandal and CNN frames its coverage as that of a grizzled vet 'beating back' the Republican attack.  

But take a look at Gowdy's questioning of this man, which shows an entire exchange and see if you think the CNN article accurately portrays the situation..



Gowdy is making a solid case that Eric Holder should appoint a special prosecutor to determine whether laws were broken (assuming the FBI is no longer on the case).   This clip also shows what's so great about Gowdy.  Arrogant SOBs come in front of him, hear the southern accent and see the wild haircut and think "what a goofball, I got this guy".  By the time it's over they are left saying "who is this guy and WTF just happened?"  

CNN headlines finally find Bundy

After 45 days of almost nothing but MH370 headlines--including a 'breaking news' version the other day over a piece of random sheet metal floating off the coast of Australia--the Communist News Network has finally found the Bundy ranch story..

Racist comments from Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy – who earlier this month appeared to win a highly publicized standoff against federal authorities over his two-decade long illegal grazing of cattle on public land – are giving Democrats a new weapon to attack some top Republicans who earlier came to Bundy's defense.

To be fair, CNN did sorta cover the story when the BLM special agents had their dogs and guns staring down the various men, women, and children, but as more an afterthought. None of the other networks covered the ranch story when it was breaking, now every network is headlining Bundy's racism.  Dog bites man.

As to Bundy, evidently he was crudely trying to make a point about Johnson's Great Welfare Society and its effects on the black community, ie, single mother homes/babies out of wedlock, crime, unemployment, etc. Personally I don't care if he's a racist.  Hell, Harry Reid had to apologize for his 'racist remarks' about Obama.  Any support I had for Bundy wasn't personal, it was because there was an overreaction.  I had the same feeling when Elian Gonzales was ripped out of that Miami home by federal agents carrying automatic weapons and sent safely back to Castro so he could be used as a propaganda tool.

Nothing Bundy says about race changes the fact that federal agents were removing his cattle and threatening him with weapons over a past due bill.  They weren't doing it because he wasn't politically correct.  It's almost as if some liberals are saying, 'see, he deserved to be gunned down by a BLM sniper because he's a racist!"  Meanwhile Al Sharpton has a show on NBC and gets to hobnob with the President while owing over a million in back taxes.  Yes, the same guy who has made many a racist remark in his time.

But OK, the left/media has their story now. They'll try to connect Bundy to every GOP politician from here through the midterms, probably using his comments about race as some kind of litmus test in the debates, or maybe even trying to tie supporters to Ted Bundy.  After all, they are terrorists.

MORE  4/26/14

It's tempting to kneejerk a reply to Dana Milbank's WaPo hit piece on the Bundy ranch racist fallout.  But isn't it true, to some degree?  There are racists out there and they do tend to associate themselves with conservatism. Those on the right would do well to stand back and take a look at some of their bedfellows without the emotion of the Bundy cause. 

Yeah, one can easily point to the left and criticize their bad behavior in the same area, such as embracing people like Bill Ayers, Mumia Abu Jamal and other known radicals, or Pelosi kissing up to the Occupy Wall St movement (who unlike the Tea Party contains some actual domestic terrorists).

But for the conservative movement to advance within a biased climate of left wing media and the low information attention spans they try to manipulate, conservative leaders need to acknowledge racism and some of the other nuttiness that occasionally gets lumped with the right in general.   No, it's not fair--the current president hobnobbed with an actual domestic terrorist and the media yawned, which would not have happened had McCain been associated with a figure in the Sovereign Citizens movement.  But it is what it is. 

Remaining silent will simply further the disinformation and allow the left to smear the entire movement.  Speaking out will give conservative leaders the credibility to point out bad behavior of the same stripe on the other side, knowing the media will not.    

The Fabric of the Nation...

...appears to be unraveling before our very eyes.

This Edward Snowden thing has turned blue to red and red to blue.  On the NSA thing we've got Lindsay Graham siding with the likes of David Axelrod while Elijah Cummings sides more with Rand Paul; on Syria we have John McCain agreeing with Susan Rice and Samantha Power about Responsibility to Protect, while Obama doesn't want direct involvement; many Democrats are siding with the Tea Party on the IRS thing while Obama true believers are left to bizarrely defend the very Bush policies they claimed made them vote for the One in the first place. Many Bush-era neocons are now misremembering their once rabid support for programs like TSP.

Meanwhile the president himself has been put in the position of almost prosecuting himself for the outing of a program he said the country shouldn't have and he would eliminate.  Er Sir, about that liberty versus security debate you think we should have--it's over, you won, twice, by coming down against secret spying.

Giants Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and company are probably lying about their role in the spy backdoor thing since they are compelled to cooperate.  That leaves Glenn Beck to praise Glenn Greenwald.  On the IRS, people have always hated and feared them, now they can't be trusted.   

Wait, sorry, I'm losing track of all the scandals.

OK, back to Snowden. China now appears to hold custody of a guy who dumped US secrets about possible spying on them via the PRISM program and other drag-the-net routines while we have been complaining about Chinese hackers attacking internet companies.  This as Obama said he was going to "pivot to the Pacific" in the second term, well the Chinese just hoisted a big F you sign, with a capital F.   The Russians have launched nuke subs into their southern waters again.  Picture Kevin Bacon saying all is well.   


But wait, could all of these scandals simply be an elaborate "look, squirrel" setup designed to allow Congress to slip immigration reform under the radar while nobody is watching?  All of them have magically appeared on the horizon since the three people testified over Benghazi and it began to hit the fan on Friday May 10th.   Benghazi is the only one the administration calls a side show and has declared over, despite lingering questions (like where was the president that night).

Of course for that to be true we'd have to establish a connection between Eric Holder, whose department sent the letter to AP on that fateful Friday just as Benghazi was beginning to blow up (and the Paid Liar had a special private meeting with 14 select news orgs), the same day the IRS planted a question to allow that scandal to break out (which was likely coordinated between the IRS and some in the White House), and Snowden, who was purportedly in the process of arranging for a liberal newspaper to take his story, to be written by a liberal advocate journalist.  Even the James Rosen email spying revelation seemed to come out of the blue, released after erroneously being held for years---right as all this Shiite was going down.

Maybe, just maybe Mickey Kaus is right.  Maybe the biggest things going on are Benghazi and immigration and somebody doesn't want anyone focusing on them anymore.   This will be proven soon, if true.  If so, expect more outrageous, shocking stories to blast out as the bill crawls through the Senate to the House.   Personally I'm not convinced, sounds too elaborate with a very large circle of knowledge, but stranger things...

Scandal Update

Let's see...

On the James Rosen-subpoena-did-Holder-lie scandal, has it ever been established whether DoJ actually informed News Corp?  It sounds like they were initially notified of an investigation about phone taps back in 2010 but not that Rosen's emails were being scrutinized.  News Corp's former lawyer says he would have remembered such a thing, but doesn't remember such a thing.   The link points out a possible leverage play between Fox and the DoJ based on the UK phone hacking case that was going on at the time.  Interesting, as in maybe they felt they had a freebie with Rosen.  Since O'Reilly's head still hasn't exploded and Rosen seems to be partially in hiding, hmmm.  Not that it would justify such a thing but it would illustrate classic Chicago hardball politics in play.  

On the AP email harvesting scandal, where are they in terms of finding a suspect(s) after trolling all that email?  Are they close to an arrest?   Tom Donillon has 'resigned' as NSA and Rice will take over, not that there's any connection, just sayin.  Can executive privilege be retro-active?  Can Rice refuse to answer questions in her new position based on EP even about old events?  Speaking of AQ, will the White House release any additional documents captured in the UBL raid other than the selective seventeen that helped support the notion that AQ was on the run?   

On the Benghazi scandal, where was the president after about 8pm Washington time during the night of 9/11?  What did he and Hillary discuss during the 10pm phone call Obama placed to her, after which State issued a press release mentioning the Mohammed video clip?   Did the administration try to call a consulate a mission to avoid the legal responsibility of security that was denied by Hillary's autopen? 

On the IRS scandal, did the White House coordinate with those in IRS/Treasury on the phony-baloney question at the conference that got the story out?  If so, did they purposely time it to hit the media on the same day the Benghazi story was blowing up in the press--the same day Carney called a special background briefing for 14 select media friends?   Was Jake Tapper present in the meeting of the 14 journos on Friday?  He received a the leak the following day containing an actual email that was used to pretend the GOP Congress were lying about their characterization of the talking points emails, which were later released and showed that State and WH indeed both wanted things removed but the narrative had already been changed by the Paid Liar to 'case closed, they lied.  If the White House was involved in helping time the IRS story, why isn't that bad?    

Meanwhile Obama's answer to all of this is to bring a gun to a knife fight.  The announcements about Comey for FBI, Power for UN Ambassador and Rice for NSA are classic fingers in the eye.  This from the most transparent post-racial uniter in history.

IRS and Rosen Scandals and the Mid-Terms

Even if nothing comes of the IRS or James Rosen/AP snooping scandals; even if Holder keeps his job and nobody is fired in the bureaucracy, there may still be a political silver lining for the Republicans:  removing the target on the Tea Party.

Conspiracies aside (such as the RINOs were in cahoots with the president to use the IRS to destroy their common enemy) it's going to be very hard for the administration to go on the wapath against the Tea Party from here through 2014.  Any time they get the urge to call them 'tea baggers' (as Obama did in May of 2010, right when the targeting started), or 'terrorists' (as Biden did in 2011 before a debt ceiling vote), or accuse them of trying to destroy democracy or spread racism (the spitting incident during the Obamacare vote) they'll have to pause and consider how that might sound in the aftermath of IRS-gate.  Republicans will be sitting on the ready to say "see, there they go again, we better check the IRS to see who got audited".   That's a pretty good card to have. 

Look, everyone knows Obama is going nowhere.  There's no appetite in the national press to get rid of their Nobel Prize-winning trailblazing hero, one, because they don't want to be called racists by their elite friends and two, because they are hoping for the same change.  It seems half of them are married to administration insiders anyway.  So that's already becoming a dead end.  The GOP may have to take what they can get but that's a pretty decent get.

AN ASIDE....

If anyone needs confirmation of the above theory that none of these scandals are going anywhere watch the White House daily press briefing today.  The only controversial item broached was trying to get Jay Carney to respond to Issa calling him a liar.  One Holder question, no followups. Pure milquetoast.  Even Fox News is hard to figure, sending in Wendell Goler to ask puffy non-sensical questions, as if they are afraid.  Why not send Rosen in there, guns blazing, while he's got some political capital?    
  

Rx for Scandal

How does a liberal administration put out a scandal brush fire that hasn't really caught on with the low information set amidst a formerly doting, but lately irritated press corpse?

• One, suddenly cut back significantly on showing any Presidential Daily Briefing videos on the White House website.  Go there now--the last one available is May 22;  the transcripts are available however.

• Two, appoint a reliable bureaucrat as head of the IRS and immediately task him with a snappy "30 day top down review", which instantly becomes a buzz phrase for all subsequent talking points.  Never mind that the new guy will be investigating his new agency from within.  

• Three, have the top guy pretend to be outraged, but when asked if he approves of his public servants saying "I don't know" or taking the 5th pretend like a squirrel just ran by, exclaiming "look over there!"

• Four, have the Attorney General convene a special meeting to discuss how the Attorney General should handle the press when it comes to classified leaks--the same Attorney General who's convening the meeting because he lied about knowing of the Rosen event.  Then have the top guy say he has 'full confidence' in the AG even after he tried to keep the meetings about press freedoms off-the-record.

• Five, focus on weather events and other things that are real no-brainers from an optical standpoint.  Holding babies, throwing footballs at an arcade, making speeches about bringing everyone together or pointing out that one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch, wink, wink.

• Six, keep replying to any question about Benghazi by mentioning something like, "250 million documents have already been given to the GOP Congress, so what more do they want about this side show?"

• Seven, hint to the media on possible story ideas that will kill the scandals and return them to their former position at the right hand of the Father.  No proof of this, but perhaps it doesn't take a directive. 

There may be more. 

OUTRAGEOUS!   6/1/13

The president expressed outrage when the IRS scandal broke and vowed to clean things up.  He early-retired the old chief and appointed a new chief with instructions to do a top down review. 

Now that new chief has missed a deadline to respond to a Senate inquiry.  

Boy, this should really piss the POTUS off! 

Freeze!

This is just absolutely getting hilarious..

Breaking: Eric Holder arrests self in DOJ sting; releases self after forgetting to read self Miranda rights — David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 28, 2013

Check the comments for some funny add-ons as well.

OK, well the long Memorial Day weekend is over.  There wasn't a doc dump on Friday--far too obvious--but they did manage to give press secretary Jay Carney several days off last week, one more today (and of course the holiday), so the inevitable is being put off.  But eventually he's going to have to face the music and explain how the president could possibly expect the Attorney General to investigate himself.  He can start with explaining why that's not the funniest political thing ever.

Meanwhile, other things are causing havoc for the 1600 folks.  Obama had a nice diversionary photo-op trip to New Joisey to meet his BFF Chris Christie today, who promptly out-man-carded him at an arcade football toss, winning the president a stuffed Chicago bear--on the first toss, while POTUS was oh-for. 

Over at State, low key spokesman Patrick Ventrell tried to avoid explaining why two State employees were shot at a topless bar in Caracas (they were 'injured' somewhere outside the embassy).   And now NBC News is confirming that no, it wasn't just some low level employee in Cincinnati whom the IRS apologized for, things might go a little higher.  They've still got their friends so it's not over yet, but the kettle is slowly boiling.   

What next?  Or what diversion will happen next?  Maybe a certain politician coming out of the closet?  A big terror bust?  Maybe an announcement we're arming John McCain the Syrian rebels?   Proof of alien contact?   We await...

BRIEFING FOLLIES  5/29/13

Carney must have spent his time off coming up with talking points on Holder.  He would not be swayed today when asked by CNN, CBS, Fox and Mara Liason about the perjury issue.  Seems people are 'conflating' things or not understanding the legal nuances--see the Justice Dept for additional details.  Amazing hubris--telling people to see Eric Holder's office for more details about Eric Holder and Eric Holder's investigation of Eric Holder.  Here's the fireworks from today's Q&A..



Yes, they are going to seriously argue that no deception or misdirection took place when the AG told Congress he knew nothing about any event involving Rosen.  In the face of such utter nonsense the press room was far too quiet.  Guess they are starting to think--hey, this is just a Fox News reporter.  If things get to the point where only Ed Henry and Major Garrett are asking questions the administration will have won this issue.   Even Henry immediately flopped to a huge softball question on the improving economy, obviously to score some brownie points (which evoked laughter).  Intimidation works--just ask any Third World tinpot.

Pitchfork Politics

The political world is going nuts. We have two wars still raging across the globe with a gay advocate for gays in the military leaking troves of US secrets (as if to point out how great things will be if it's repealed) to a globetrotting hacker nerd with power never before seen from his ilk. The cables point out how deceitful everyone is, including those who usually call us the enemy (we suspected), while his supporters (cough Ron Paul cough) demand total transparency for everything government, perhaps to include online access to the nuclear football.

And now the recent coup de grace--the Democratic Party, with a straight face, trying to call a tax increase a tax cut.

In support of this chicanery (other than the usual media figures) we have one of their own, a US Senator from Missoura, threatening that if this tax increase called a tax cut doesn't pass it will justify the taking up of 'pitchforks'. Presumably she means storming the capitals or storming the subdivisions or gated communities, or the Tea Party.

But let not your heart be troubled--in this wacky world we have someone who'll save those evil rich from the pitchforks!

SPEAKING OF SECRETS.. 12/4/10

Should sunshine principles also apply to Presidential visits to war zones? Maguire wonders whether some media outlets had other motives, but he sometimes likes to be facetious in making his points. Worth noting:

In fact, according to TVNewser, Fox News Channel was the only major news outlet to strictly honor the Obama security embargo, reporting the president's arrival in Afghanistan two minutes after White House press aides gave the official OK.

Oh, the humanity.

MORE 12/5/10

The New York Times piles on:

The approximate amount that extending the Bush tax cuts on income above $250,000 a year — which Congress seems on the verge of doing — will cost a year, in inflation-adjusted terms. On average, the affluent households that benefit from these cuts will save $25,000 annually. What else might that $60 billion a year buy?

Of course, they could have phrased it as "what will a 60 billion tax increase buy us", but why mess up a perfectly good device, especially with added benefit of "Bush" in it? Never before has the prospect of a MASSIVE TAX INCREASE gotten such favorable cover. No matter what happens, it's Bush's fault!

Disappointment or Silver Lining?

Only a week ago someone in the O admin leaked a story to the WaPo saying that Holder may not get around to trying KSM and his Gitmo cohorts til after 2012. There was lots of speculation on how Obama didn't want to alienate his Soros-backed base too much.

Strangely, the story was leaked just as the Ghailani trial was winding down in Manhattan. The accused African Embassy bombing facilitator was the first terrorist tried in federal court who had been held in an off-site CIA facility or at Gitmo, and it was no doubt a test-case for the Holder terrorist justice paradigm.

And the Ghailani verdict is in--not guilty on all but one conspiracy charge (not guilty of murder, essentially). The media is running wild with that headline. Of course that one charge holds a 20 to life sentencing possibility so the administration is claiming victory. But everyone knew he wasn't going free anyway.

So the question is how this might affect the KSM situation, since the judge tossed out the most damning evidence on Ghailani due to his detention outside the court system.

Fear not, Holder might say, because with KSM there's plenty of damning evidence collected outside of Gitmo and the Black Site days, most notably that in support of his 1996 indictment. Of course revealing such means the general public might suddenly wake up and realize he was indicted in 1996. Indicted and not caught until after 9/11.

This might be shocking to some voters who believe the history of AQ terrorism began on either January 20 or September 11, 2001. Those halcyon days of Bubba have largely been left as a misty water colored memory and/or stain on a blue dress.

So lots of machinations to consider for our politically-minded president. Let's just hope they don't get swept away in the blink of an eye by another serious attack, because that could change everything.

MORE 11/18/10

Funny how the DoJ is patting themselves on the back for saying there were no security incidents in New York with the Ghailani trial, as if that proves anything about a potential KSM or bin Laden trial. Note also their dropping of the torture card on the Bush folks. They just can't resist.

HEARTBROKEN 11/18/10

...seems to capture this Times piece about what didn't happen in the Ghailani trial:

That said, the trial also failed to fulfill one of the hopes of some advocates of civilian courts, who saw them as a potential forum for a detailed examination of the Bush administration’s post-9/11 policies on detention and interrogation.

Evidently that was the silver lining for the Bush folks--the trial failed to show them for the criminals they are. Geez. Imagine what these "advocates of civilian courts" were/are expecting from the KSM version.

Does Not Compute

NASA Administrator Bolden to al-Jazeera..



Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs, Monday, asked about Bolden's comments..

Q I wanted to ask you, there are some comments that the NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden, made a couple weeks back that drew some interest, specifically from conservatives who are wondering why we he said that one of the charges that the President gave him when he got the job was that he had to focus on outreach to the Muslim world. Why is the NASA Administrator doing that?

MR. GIBBS: That's an excellent question, and I don't think -- that was not his task, and that's not the task of NASA.

Q So did he just misspeak?

MR. GIBBS: I think so.

Q Has the President spoken to him about that clear it up?

MR. GIBBS: No.

Q Anybody here at the White House?

MR. GIBBS: I’m sure people -- people at the White House here talk to NASA all the time.

First off, of course people in the WH talk to NASA all the time, just as they do with all the agencies. That was a throwaway deflection. Second, the initial explanation some days ago was that Bolden's "foremost" comment was about outreach only, ie, the foremost outreach, which could make sense, but watching the al-Jazeera video he seems to be pretty clear about the three pronged charge given him by Obama. And if that was the case why did Gibbs toss him under the space bus yesterday?

Apparently the new strategy is to downplay and pretend the whole thing was just a slip of the tongue--no harm, no Lebron foul. But if he really misspoke about something that large, something that could offend the Muslim world if interpreted wrong, why wouldn't the chief call him in for a little chat about acting so stupidly? Gibbs claimed Obama had not spoken to him, not even over a beer in the Rose Garden. Did anyone talk to Bolden then? Who's running the show, Zuckerman?