Free Republic

My post was not a defense of Obama. Why won't anyone read the darn piece?

The point is a politicized bureaucracy is an even bigger problem than a corrupt administration. Administrations can be exposed and forced to fire people or be voted out. But if the rot extends to the bureaucrats, they have civil service protection and a much bigger fix is required. I hope all we have here is a corrupt administration.

Modern Muslims believe in a version of the Brezhnev Doctrine, that once a country is conquered for the Muslims it can never go back. Even though parts of Europe have been Christian for 500 years, they still feel it is their right, if not their duty, to take it back. And Western liberals go around apologizing for the Crusades.

Spot on. Candy Crowley, what do you have to say for yourself now?

People should read the piece instead of taking cheap shots at Taranto, because he makes an important point.

If this was the work of someone in the White House or another Presidential appointee, we can fix that by firings or even impeachment.

It may be an even scarier proposition, however, if people within the IRS dreamed this up and just thought that harassing and suppressing conservative groups was the right thing to do. The latter would indicate corruption deeply embedded in the federal bureaucracy, an even harder problem to fix. Given the performance before Congress by that asshat former Acting Director, we may have a problem deeply embedded in the IRS, the second most powerful agency in the government.

Barry Benghazi sides with Boko Haram over the legitimate government of Nigeria. Barry's State Department refuses to label Boko Haram a "terrorist" organization. And I guess they don't regard this, committed by Boko Haram, as a "human rights violation."

Bennett and Udall are not moderates. Both come from long time liberal Democrat families. The leadership lets them vote with Republicans every now and then when the Dems have excess votes so they can pretend to be moderate. But when the Party needs every vote, as in Obamacare, these guys vote liberal.

Thanks for a wonderful story.

The Washington establishment seems to be turning on Eric the Red.

The war in Western Europe sure would have turned out different if instead of surrendering the French would have evacuated their government, army and navy to North Africa, as Churchill urged. We might have been back in Europe a year earlier.

Or Hitler might have invaded Spain and attempted to invade North Africa himself.

How about the SS Benghazi?

As Peggy Noonan said, Presidents set the tone of each administration. This one is run by a hyperpolitical, snarky, thuggish, Chicago-style politician. And that’s exactly the way the IRS acted here.

This guy nails it. Exactly how I feel.

But I was even more outraged by that Acting Puke who acted like, "what's the big deal"?

I lost interest in what David Stockman has to say when he publicly trashed supply-side economics while still in the Reagan administration and basically agreed with the “voodoo economics camp.”

Ted Olson argued the Bush case before the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore.

From the headlines, Matthews sure was reporting on Spain from the Loyalist point of view. I see that he was the Times’ principal correspondent in Rome for quite a while, a plum assignment. He must have P.O.’d someone to be exiled to India. He may have gone to Afghanistan for a diversion.

Here is the part of the statute applicable to federal employees:

§ 7213. Unauthorized disclosure of information.

(a) Returns and return information.

(1) Federal employees and other persons. It shall be unlawful for any officer or employee of the United States or any person described in section 6103(n) [26 USCS § 6103(n)] (or an officer or employee of any such person), or any former officer or employee, willfully to disclose to any person, except as authorized in this title, any return or return information (as defined in section 6103(b) [26 USCS § 6103(b)]). Any violation of this paragraph shall be a felony punishable upon conviction by a fine in any amount not exceeding $ 5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution, and if such offense is committed by any officer or employee of the United States, he shall, in addition to any other punishment, be dismissed from office or discharged from employment upon conviction for such offense.

Note that it is equally illegal to disclose "return information," which is a very expansively defined term. Basically, anything in an IRS file would be "return information."

Yes. Not sure if harassing conservative 501(c)(4)'s is a crime, but I tend to think not.

Disclosing tax returns without authorization most definitely is a crime.

I googled the Times Afghanistan reporter and found out that he scooped the world by finding Fidel Castro in Cuba after everyone thought he was dead. His dispatches were so flattering that most of America thought Castro was a democracy loving freedom fighter, before finding out the truth. There's even a book on the subject:

The Man Who Invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba, and Herbert L. Matthews of The New York Times (annotated Edition)
by Anthony Depalma
Hardcover, 320 Pages, Published 2006

Never did find out what he was doing in Afghanistan.

Homer, you are absolutely right about the Baldwin article. Fantastic piece. It makes even clearer how much the Army needed the North Africa campaign to tune up for the main event on the Continent. Lots of lessons learned.

Sulzberger's forecast for the war's end sure got it wrong. He predicted 1944 because Germany would be in about the same position then it was in 1918. But he should have known Hitler and the Nazis regarded 1918 as a sellout and would never surrender until the fatherland was invaded, if then.

Also interesting that Hitler and Goering won't survey the war damage. What a contrast to Churchill and the Royal Family. Goering was such a slimeball.

I concur the Afghanistan article was interesting. I wonder what motivated the reporter to go there?

Welcome to "Topeka."

The only reason they would be in the program is if they had given testimony for the government in, say, the WTCI case. If so, leaving the program would not be a real smart thing to do.

This bunch makes the Nixon administration look like a bunch of schoolgirls.

I wonder if this is the guy who told the flunkies to do it?

He’s a quality guy. He played a couple of seasons with the Rockies and I wish they would have kept him.

Dingy Harry was probably pulling it out of his butt again, but if he really had copies of tax returns he might be an accessory to a crime.

What the hell does “re-industrializing” mean?

It's nonsense, but its use is very telling. The target of the alarmists has always been industrialization and industrialized society itself. These people have the belief that the human race is destroying the planet by the very process of industrialization. They invented AGW theory as their silver bullet that explains how we have been destroying the planet and how we can "save" it.

To the extent the alarmists' plans have been implemented, Hanson and his ilk view it as "de-industrializing," that is first steps in reversing the industrial revolution. That is their real aim.

True, but it puts the lie to the claim this was all done by two “rogue” agents.

The eurocrat is living in a fantasy world.

Listen to the tape. These guys say their sources told them two Cincinnati IRS agents have been subpoenaed to testify before Congress on Monday and they are saying they just followed orders from higher up.

So, basically it’s the golf defense. Hey, I was playing golf and flying to fundraisers, so how the hell did I know what was going on?

I don’t have one, but my understanding is you can store videos on at least some iphones.

Even WaPo gives her “three Pinocchios”!

After watching nude babes on the beach all day, some guys may want a little action. Prostitution is legal in Germany. So, “strip club” may mean a little more there than in the U.S.

You will find that most law schools are dominated by lefties, just as are most universities.

This law school is pretty far down the totem poll in terms of national prestige. Lerner may very well be one of their most successful graduates, so it's not surprising she's getting an award.

Of course IRS is dominated by Democrats, just like most of the federal bureaucracy. The front line reviewers wouldn't see anything wrong with a directive to give special scrutiny to conservative groups.

The issue now for the House is to issue subpoenas and find out just how high up the knowledge of this was. I think this woman was right in the middle of it, if she didn't order it herself.

Sylt is famous for nude beaches. Never been there myself.

Next thing China will lay claim to Siberia. Hey, it was part of the Mongol and Kublai Khan’s empire.

Tyrannize me. Please.

Send me your money and i will take on your sin. You can thank me later.

Apparently, they didn’t offer the designated scapegoats enough.

Why the upset? IRS was only doing what Barry’s Democrat Senators demanded they do.

Those lefty morons have no idea what their Messiah has done to them.

The IRS computer is already overtaxed, so to speak. They often claim data mismatches that are easily explained. When they wade into health care the mistakes will be ridiculous - and the burden will be on citizens to prove whey they screw up.

It was a very painful process of trial and error for Europeans to figure out how to plant successful colonies in areas that did not have precious metals to exploit. How to deal with Indians. What crops to grow. What cash crops to grow. Jamestown darn near didn’t make it. Plymouth wouldn’t have without Indian help, showing them how to grow crops in sandy soil, which flummoxed the English.

To liberals, the world is a closed system, if you get more, I get less. So, let's redistribute what we have.

They ignore the reality of human history. Malthus said population growth was exponential but food production increased arithmetically. But he was wrong. The industrial revolution opened new possibilities. So, Ehrlich ignores the facts and makes new predictions of human demise due to overpopulation that also don't come true. These days he denies he made any predictions, but at the same time says they will come true - someday.

The fact is average daily calorie intake per capita has been increasing worldwide since WWII, despite population increase. Even the UN admits global population will level off by 2050. And we know from experience in the West what will follow is population decline, which will probably be much more of a bad thing than good thing.

Libs also don't get that an economy, properly structured, will expand, floating all boats. It is not a closed system, either.

It is very chilling when you catch liberals talking candidly about population. They support abortion because it disproportionately impacts the poor and minorities - and limits the population. They casually talk about how nice it would be if Earth had a few billion people less. Of course, that wouldn't mean them, it would be those black, brown and yellow people "over there."

Experts and former officials say the White House’s laissez-faire approach to the Justice Department — adopted in part as a response to the politicization there under President George W. Bush — allowed prosecutors’ naturally aggressive tendencies to burst through unchecked…

Incredible. These A-Holes are still trying to blame Bush for their actions.

Obama is going to finish out his term very unpopular. Hillary is the only Dem with any chance to succeed him. Biden? Please.

So, the libs are gonna pull out all the stops to save her skin. I predict they are even willing to throw Obama under the bus if that's what it takes to save her viability. We may already be seeing some of that. The harder the press pushes the IRS the farther back they push the Benghazi story.

Wow, Onatopp has not aged well. She used to be a real looker.

Polls this far out basically test name recognition.

Oh, we ain't seen nuthin' yet, Jim. It's the IRS that will fine Americans who don't buy the right insurance. (Oh, excuse me Justice Roberts, that fine is really a "tax.") To enforce the law they are building the mother of all databases with our information from all over the government.

This is why Obama had to be defeated last year. Now, it's going to be really, really bad.

The right call here is pretty obvious, but its funny P.C. San Franciscans are tying themselves in knots trying to figure out what is the “correct” view.