Fox News Sunday talk show host Chris Wallace was extremely happy that the mainstream media is finally engaging in the Benghazi story, and he was quick to say that they were on this story from day one. Hello, Chris your network was also the first to report the three New Black Panther party intimidating voters, the so-called scandals of ACORN, Fast and Furious, and Solyndra, to name a few. Yes, the media is now covering Benghazi but they have not uncovered anything new or anything that even resembles a smoking gun. Former Republican Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said it’s comical to think that the military could have responded to the events in Benghazi. He also said he would not have authorized such a move.
I now have enough information to come to my own conclusion. The so-called consultant in Benghazi was not fortified, and it was really a CIA outpost. When it was attacked the CIA and State, Dept. went into full CYA mode;thus the 12 revisions of the talking points. The inter agency fighting between the CIA, Defense and State Dept. is not new. The CIA by definition is highly secretive, and they are given a license to lie in order to give the leaders of our country plausible deniability. In hindsight, the president should have put out ALL the talking points and said, “ let the investigative committees sort it out.” Of course that would not have stopped the cover-up and impeachment talk. We’ve had nine Benghazi investigations and hardly any on the 2008 financial crisis but those on the right now want a select committee to investigate. We shouldn’t have ambassadors in Libya or Syria because we only have 1200 Marines to guard our embassies around the world. There are still those that want to stop foreign aid, leaving us with no tools whatsoever to make any headway in these countries.
Joe Scarborough must've been on his third cup of coffee this morning when he started screaming to say, " Jay Carney’s press conference was the worst one he's ever seen.”I guess Joe forgets the obvious lies that poor Scott McCellan made in saying that Karl Rowe was not involved in the Scooter Libby scandal. Then Joe said that President Obama should have already condemned the IRS for targeting conservatives; namely the 298 Tea Party groups. President Obama doesn't have the luxury of flying off the handle like Joe Scarborough does.Joe Scarborough is still making excuses of why he believed Iraq had WMD. President Obama will probably address the situation this afternoon when he meets with U.K Prime Minister Cameron.
The IRS should never have targeted any special group and those involved or knew about it should be punished to the fullest extent. That's not to say that 501 (c)(4) groups shouldn’t be scrutinized because they're tax exempt organizations that have been flying under the radar for quite some time. The Citizens United decision opened the floodgates for these groups but left and right wing groups should be investigated equally. I've always thought that religious groups have gone to the water's edge involving themselves in partisan politics.Remember when the evangelicals met in Texas to decide who their candidate was going to be in the Republican presidential primary?
Like Benghazi, conservatives will probably overreach when there is a legitimate scandal that should be taken care of in a bipartisan way. It surprised me when Joe Scarborough sang the praises of the ACLU for getting out in front of this. Joe Scarborough and Newt Gingrich immediately poisoned the water with their conspiracy theories. Joe Scarborough said that Cincinnati was right in the middle of a swing state, so somehow the administration has something to do with it. The IRS uses regional offices for different tasks. For example, Charlotte North Carolina accepts returns that have a payment due from individuals, and Atlanta Georgia will accept payments from businesses. The Cincinnati regional office was given the task to accept or reject 501(c)(4) applications. Newt said it was about Obamacare needing tax revenue. If the Cincinnati office was working on applications, and the IRS needed revenue; how would rejecting an application generate a fee?
The Cincinnati office used key words like “Tea Party.” Patriot”,"9/12” “Government Debt'” to choose applications for further study. Does it legitimize the cry of tyranny like MSNBC’s Willy Geist suggested? I don't think so; I think it's some sloppy agent's way of simplifying their application process. Some on right are ready comparing Obama’s White House to that of President Nixon, who actually tried the use the IRS to go after their political enemies.
A lot of people already hate or mistrust government, so they are not surprised when a government agency steps out of line. Just this week alone, we learned of the many sexual abuse cases in the military, veterans waiting forever to get their applications processed and now the most hated agency (IRS) violated the constitution by targeting American citizens.
Senator Rubio is already calling for the IRS Commissioner to step down but not so fast, he is the acting commissioner because the Senate has not appointed the Obama nominee for IRS Commissioner.
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Update: Just to prove what I was saying...Karl Rove told Fox News this morning that if the Bush administration targeted liberal the press would be up in arms...I don't know if they forget or they what to take political advantage.
"Stepping up its probe of allegedly improper campaigning by churches, the Internal Revenue Service on Friday ordered a liberal Pasadena parish to turn over all the documents and e-mails it produced during the 2004 election year with references to political candidates.
All Saints Episcopal Church and its rector, the Rev. Ed Bacon, have until Sept. 29 to present the sermons, newsletters and electronic communications."
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/sep/16/local/me-allsaints16
Conservatives want to control the issue and language...Darrel Issa is upset because the president said terror instead of terrorists..That's why the president said that the talking points issues was a circus..I agree with Hillary"what difference does it make" four Americans were killed doesn't matter who they were.
Mitch McConnell is taking full advantage by saying" “The whole effort by the administration to silence their enemies is going on across the board — at the FEC, the FCC, the SEC, and the HHS,” he says. And the legislative vehicle for those efforts, the DISCLOSE Act, which would require more openness about campaign spending, “should go nowhere.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/348152/mcconnell-irs-boss-%E2%80%98resign%E2%80%99
Now any attempt to pass any law the GOP ad will read" would you trust the government..Blah blah blah.
Armstrong withdraws from mayors race...Why?
Another day another scandal but the latest one of the government snooping through the records of AP reporters for two months will be the most damaging politically... Now the press is, embolden and in they won't leave a stone unturned. That's what the press was supposed to be doing all along. This morning, you could tell that Lisa Myers of NBC was visibly angry but Mike Barnicle brought her back to reality when he stated that the press should have been more aggressive on Iraq. I checked some of my old blogs to make sure, but there it was; I saw editorials and posts by conservatives wanting James Rison of the New York Times to be tried for treason because he wrote of the Bush administration warrantless wiretapping. The Bush administration subpoenaed all of Rison's records looking for the person who leaked classified information. I heard that Atty. General Holder had excused himself from this investigation because he was a subject of the leak probe. I'm a firm believer in the power of the press, so a federal judge should put a stop to this abuse of power by the government and again heads should roll.
Last night Lawrence O'Donnell and Ezra Klein said that the IRS should have never singled out conservative groups, but they were doing their job. This all began when the applications for 501(c)4s rose from 1500 in 2010 to 3400 in 2012. Those seeking tax-exempt status had to be exclusively working on social welfare. The IRS changed the wording to exclusively and "primarily."... The word "primarily" open the floodgates to people like Karl Rowe, Glenn Beck and Obama's Super PAC run by Bill Burton. The only primary mission of those folks was politics and nothing to do with social welfare so the taxpayers shouldn't have to pick up the tab. It's a shame that the negative publicity will make the IRS back off and the abuse is of the 501(c)4s will escalate. Yesterday, Chris Matthews interviewed someone from a Tea Party who tried to lie by saying that they were not political at all.... Chris Matthews tricked her by asking her if they railed against Obamacare after it was signed into law and deemed constitutional. She didn't answer the question.... It's important to note that the Cincinnati approved several of the applications, and they didn't audit anyone. In 2004, the NAACP was audited without any outrage after the IRS wrote a letter saying that they were getting audited because of the Iraq war protest from the pulpit.
The IRS wisely embeds red flags for searching tax returns but they should do it evenly. Some examples of red flags are the home office deduction,hobby v business losses and contract labor or employee classification.
Don't be fooled by the press and yes even some Democrats like former Governor Redell or liberal pundits like Chris Matthews or those too scared of the far right...The IRS should have approved all the applicants and then they should have gone after them because the Tea Party is not primarily engaged in "Social Welfare" and that's easy to prove...Do you think Bill Burton,Karl Rowe and Glenn Beck would set up a Super PAC for Social Welfare?...You are pretty naive if you think they are not abusing the intent of the 501(c)4.
The "talking points Gate" is coming to an end since the original email from the WH indicates no-cover up
"Was ABC News used by someone with an ax to grind against the State Department? It looks possible. A key email in its “scoop” that the administration’s “talking points” on Benghazi had been changed a dozen times came from White House national security communications adviser Ben Rhodes. It seemed to confirm that the White House wanted the talking points changed to protect all agencies’ interests, “including those of the State Department,” in the words of the email allegedly sent by Rhodes.
But CNN’s Jake Tapper reveals that Rhodes’ email didn’t mention the State Department, and doesn’t even seem to implicitly reference it. The email as published by Karl differs significantly from the original obtained by Tapper.
According to ABC’s Jonathan Karl, Rhodes weighed in after State Department’s Victoria Nuland, who expressed concerns about the way the talking points might hurt “my building’s leadership.” ABC quotes Rhodes saying:
We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.
The email obtained by Tapper is very different.
Sorry to be late to this discussion. We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.
There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don’t compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression.
We can take this up tomorrow morning at deputies.
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/who_doctored_a_white_house_email/
The GOP will try and keep the nation's focus on the so-called scandals so no one will notice the good news.
By Ezra Klein, Published: May 14, 2013 at 4:13 pmE-mail the writer
It looks like we’ve moved to talking about possible scandals just in time, because according to the Congressional Budget Office, the debt disaster that has obsessed the political class for the last three years is pretty much solved, at least for the next 10 years or so.
The last time the CBO estimated our future deficits was February– just four short months ago. Back then, the CBO thought deficits were falling and health-care costs were slowing. Today, the CBO thinks deficits are falling even faster and health-care costs are slowing by even more.
Here’s the short version: Washington’s most powerful budget nerds have cut their prediction for 2013 deficits by more than $200 billion. They’ve cut their projections for our deficits over the next decade by more than $600 billion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/14/cbo-says-deficit-problem-is-solved-for-the-next-10-years/
Kudos to Harry Reid...A Democrats who's not afraid to tell it like it is.
""And I ask, what has Karl Rove ever done to improve the social welfare of the United States?" Reid said. "That's what these shadowy organizations are supposed to do; that's what their charter says. His organization, Rove's organizations, have one purpose and one purpose only, and that's to defeat Democrats. Anyone who thinks otherwise is being willfully foolish. Preventing these groups from masquerading as social welfare organizations is really a critically important task, whether these groups are on the left or the right."
Reid called for the passage of the Disclose Act, which would require big-spending outside groups to disclose their donors. The bill died in the face of Republican opposition.
"So again I ask, where was the outrage of the Republicans then?" Reid said. "While we must stop these abuses by the IRS, we must also crack down on the efforts of Karl Rove and others to exploit our tax code and pour unlimited amounts of money into our political system, masquerading as social welfare."
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), speaking to reporters on Tuesday, did not reference what happened during the Bush administration, instead comparing it the misdeeds of President Richard Nixon.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/14/harry-reid-irs_n_3274166.html
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