Free Republic

Unreal. In an explosive new bombshell report, the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza claims that the Obama administration deliberately kept Fox News reporter James Rosen in the dark about the warrant to search through his personal emails. Some new info in the leak case that targeted Fox's James Rosen coming shortly...— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 24, 2013

At Naval Academy graduation, Obama vows to fight ‘foolish’ sequester cuts (that his admin came up with)

MARK LEVIN (transcript): "So why didn't Chairman Issa hold an investigative hearing a year ago? Why didn't Chairman Camp, all Republicans, hold an investigative hearing a year ago, and all the other tripping over themselves right now? "I'll tell you why. Because the establishment Republicans, the RINO Republicans, despise the Tea Party. They despise the conservative movement. "We exist to be managed, to be shuttled to the polling place, to vote for their candidates. The Karl Roves of the world, and all the rest of them. They fight us in the primaries, they fight us at the grassroots. We're a...

White House officials insist that President Obama knew nothing about the IRS scandal until we all heard about it in the news last week. They said because there was an investigation under way, it would have been inappropriate to tell him. And besides, he was too busy not knowing anything about Benghazi. ~ Jay LenoThese White House scandals are not going away any time soon. I’ll tell you how bad it’s looking for President Obama: People in Kenya are now saying he’s 100 percent American. ~ Jay LenoYesterday, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, charged that there’s a culture...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." That's the full text of the First Amendment. But (with apologies to the old Far Side comic), this is what many in the press, academia and government would hear if you read it aloud: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, blah blah blah, or abridging the freedom of the press, blah...

H/t to YoungCons for the original idea.

Gov. Cuomo says it would be shameful if Anthony Weiner is elected mayor. Cuomo, during an appearance before the Syracuse Post-Standard's editoral board Wednesday, stayed neutral when asked his thoughts on Weiner entering the race. "He runs? He runs," the paper quotes him as saying in a transcript But asked how he would feel if Weiner (self-pictured at right) were to be elected, Cuomo was blunt. "Shame on us," he replied. Cuomo, a Democrat, has said he has no plans to get involved in the mayor's race. He gave a less definitive answer hours before he spoke to the Syracuse...

Anothny Weiner, NYC's muppet former congressman, and as we reported yesterday, the man who following his disgraceful fall from grace announced his mayoral campaign on YouTube, continues to be the gift that keeps on giving... if mostly naked pictures of his anatomy to various women. As the WaPo reports, "Former congressman and newly announced New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner (D) said in an interview Thursday morning with WNYC-FM that there could be women coming forward with more e-mails or photos from the inappropriate digital conversations that led to his resignation in 2011." In other words, where there was one...

Voter ID didn’t reduce turnout, but the IRS may have. By John Fund The 2012 election season was filled with angry cries of “voter suppression,” almost all of them regarding attempts by states to require voter ID and otherwise improve ballot integrity. Bill Clinton warned that “there has never been — in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the other Jim Crow burdens on voting — the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today.” Democratic-party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said “photo-ID laws, we think, are very similar to a poll tax.”

DRUDGE: FLASH: ISSA TO SUBPOENA LOIS LERNER BACK TO COMMITTEE... 'Waived her fifth amendment rights' by giving opening statement...

When you get right down to it,the political targeting and stalling of tax-exempt applications by the IRS was an effort to defund the Tea Party. Rick Santelli,one of the Tea Party founders and my CNBC colleague,was the first to make this point. I’ve taken it a step further: The IRS was taking the Tea Party out of play for the 2012 election,as it looked to avoid a repeat of 2010 and another Tea Party landslide.… But there can be only one reason for the stalled-out approval process for conservative groups. The IRS was trying to put them out of business....

Although White House Chief Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler claims to have learned about the IRS audit scandal only last month, she had three unprecedented one-on-one meetings last year with the Treasury Department’s chief lawyer, who has known about the inspector general’s investigation of the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative nonprofits since at least June 2012. The Treasury lawyer in turn has a long history of extreme left-wing agitation. Christopher J. Meade, Treasury Chief Counsel, met with Ruemmler on September 27th, December 11th, and December 13th, 2012, according to White House Visitor Records requests. The two had never met one-on-one prior...

Appalling as the Benghazi, AP, and IRS scandals are, this dwarfs them all. This puts US national survival, and hundreds of millions of lives at stake. The head of Russia’s National Security Council has arrived in the US on a two-day visit for top-level talks on key stumbling blocks in bilateral relations. He will also deliver President Putin’s response to a letter President Obama sent in April. Putin aide Yury Ushakov confirmed on Tuesday that Patrushev is carrying the presidential letter and is scheduled to meet Obama. Among the US officials Nikolay Patrushev will meet during his trip is National...

I'm pretty sure Obama un-wisely went off script and told a whopper of a lie when he claimed he first heard of the IRS scandal on May 10. This must have driven the west Wing crazy, knowing that they would now have to protect that lie with a series of implausible defenses.check out this excerpt from the Washington Post / Post Partisan column:

The revelations that the IRS singled out groups seeking tax-exempt status for special screening have caused a political earthquake — prompting the resignations of two top IRS officials, a criminal investigation and multiple congressional probes.

USBC News Wire- According to a report by the Boston Globe, First Lady, Michelle Obama, is said to be eying a vacation for an "extended period" while the crisis-ridden Obama struggles on, trying to contain numerous scandals. Currently, the Obama administration is struggling to handle an increasing number of scandals. This list is long and includes among others, ethical failings from the lingering "Fast and Furious" investigations to the Benghazi inquiries continuing to Pigford abuse through to potential abuses of power in the IRS...

Tempers flared in a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday, with members on both sides of the aisle castigating the Internal Revenue Service for targeting conservative groups with special scrutiny, and then hiding the practice from Congress. Rep. Darrel Issa, the committee's chairman, said that the committee learned just yesterday that the IRS completed its own investigation a year before a Treasury Department Inspector General report was completed. But despite the IRS recognizing in May 2012 that its employees were treating right-wing groups differently from other organizations, Issa said, IRS personnel withheld those conclusions from legislators. 'Just yesterday...

Although there’s still a great deal to be learned about the scandals and controversies swirling around the White House like so many ominous dorsal fins in the surf, the nature of President Obama’s bind is becoming clear. The best defenses of his administration require undermining the rationale for his presidency. “We’re portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots. It’s actually closer to us being idiots.” So far, this is the administration’s best defense. It was offered to CBS News’ Sharyl Attkisson by an anonymous aide involved in the White House’s disastrous response to the attacks in Benghazi, Libya....

J. Russell George, the inspector general who uncovered the IRS scandal, appears to have at one time dated Michelle Obama, well before she was married to Barack Obama. "All the attention was new, but George has operated in these halls of power his entire career. He worked for Dole, and then in President George H.W. Bush’s White House. In between, he attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 1988 alongside a young Michelle Obama (then Michelle Robinson)," reports National Journal. They weren’t in the same section – the academic groupings that Harvard uses to divide its students – but as two...

I've rarely seen the "iron worker" so angry. He may have been playing for the cameras but he tends to be honest. I'll also point out that he's my representative and that I would have preferred that he get the US Senate nomination instead of Ed Markey and that he'd be a better senator than either Markey or the republican Gomez.

(Reuters) - With the White House already reeling from three major controversies, some Republican lawmakers are zeroing in on what they perceive is another possible scandal tied to President Barack Obama's landmark health reform law just as it nears implementation. On top of the troubles the administration is facing over its handling of the attack on the Benghazi mission, the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups, and the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press phone records, Republicans hope to target Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. They are questioning her soliciting of funds on behalf of a non-profit...

As Tea Party groups stage successful rallies at Internal Revenue Service offices nationwide, one California organization is staging a frontal assault on this government behemoth. One of the largest and most active Tea Party groups in the nation is filing the first of what is expected to be many lawsuits against the government for allegedly singling out conservative organizations. The NorCal Tea Party Patriots, based in northern California, claim the IRS violated its rights when it either held up or rejected its applications for tax-exempt status…. The NorCal lawsuit was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of Cincinnati. The...

9:30am (ET) LIVE: HOUSE OVERSIGHT CMTE. HEARS ABOUT IRS AND CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATIONS http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/

Justice Seized White House, Fox Phone Records Tuesday, May 21, 2013 08:01 PM By: Todd Beamon The Justice Department seized the telephone records of at least five Fox News reporters and several White House staffers in connection with the 2009 probe into a former State Department contractor who is accused of leaking classified information to Fox journalist James Rosen. The disclosure came in a document filed in the case of the former contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, on October 13, 2011, The New Yorker reported today.

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said ATF Agent John Dodson had provided significant information and public testimony on the agency’s handling of the Fast and Furious probe and “was retaliated against by” U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke with the unauthorized disclosure in late June 2011 of an ATF memo the agent had drafted. In the report, the inspector general said Mr. Burke, who resigned after Fast and Furious had become media fodder, provided the memo to Fox News in violation of Justice Department policies — a disclosure that “was likely motivated by a desire to undermine” Mr. Dodson’s public criticisms. The...

CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19) - The claim that the ongoing IRS scandal is limited to low level employees is falling apart. The six Cincinnati workers we have identified, who sent scrutinizing letters to conservative groups with words including "patriot, liberty, tea party or 9-12" in their names are Mitchel Steele, Carly Young, Joseph Herr, Stephen Seok, Liz Hofacre and a woman identified only as Ms. Richards. But was all of this done at the hands of a small group of Cincinnati employees working together? During Friday's congressional hearing, that appeared to be the theme. Now, that explanation just became less likely....

Excerpts from speech at Charity Law Conference in Toronto, Canada.

USBC News Wire- According to a post via Twitter by a Columnist with the Washington Times, aides in the scandal-ridden Obama administration are “terrified” by information being closely guarded by the White House. Joseph Curl says that a CIA source has told him that the increasingly withdrawn Obama Administration’s most recent scandal, involving the monitoring of Fox News reporter James Rosen’s email account, “goes much deeper.” He goes on to say, in future posts, that “only a few in WH know that ‘something’ — ‘It’s been deep sixed, like Osama bin Laden.’” Mr. Curl’s ominous revelations via twitter...

A new Washington Post poll finds Americans believe the targeting of pro-life groups and conservatives by the International Revenue service was a deliberate act. “As you may know it’s been disclosed that the IRS singled out some conservative political groups for extra questions about their tax status. Do you think it was appropriate or inappropriate for the IRS to do this?” the poll asked. Some 74 percent of respondents say it was inappropriate compared to just 20 percent who say it was appropriate. Another 51 percent said they thought the IRS actions were illegal while 44 percent said they were...

More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with PJ Media Monday afternoon. These whistleblowers, colleagues of the former diplomats, are currently securing legal counsel because they work in areas not fully protected by the Whistleblower law. According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really transpired in Benghazi that are potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. snip... Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to...

Yesterday I asked in this space, among other questions about the IRS scandal, this: What was the subject of the Obama-Kelley March 31, 2010 meeting? I received the following response to my question from the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) — the union for IRS employees headed by ex-14 year agent Colleen Kelley. The response came from union spokesperson Dina Long. It reads, in its entirety, this: Statement of NTEU On March 31, 2010, NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley attended the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility at the Old Executive Office Building. The forum was attended by approximately 200...

Scandal Watch: Despite White House attempts to brush the IRS scandal aside as "irrelevant" or the work of rogue miscreants, huge questions remain about who ordered IRS agents to harass Tea Party groups, and why. Every day, in fact, raises new and more disturbing questions that congressional investigators must get answers to. Among them:

Maxwell, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs from August 2011 until his removal last December, following tours in Iraq and Syria, spoke publicly for the first time in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast. “The overall goal is to restore my honor,” said Maxwell, who has now filed grievances regarding his treatment with the State Department’s human resources bureau and the American Foreign Service Association, which represents the interests of foreign-service officers. The other three officials placed on leave were in the diplomatic security bureau, leaving Maxwell as the only official in the...

Drudge editor and Washington Times staff writer has been tweeting since May 14th... "Drudge editor Joseph Curl: ‘CIA source says still one more shoe to drop’ for Obama admin" And again today via Red Flag News... "CIA: Fox News Scandal “Goes Much Deeper,” White House Sitting On Something that has Top Obama Aides “Terrified." And again via Fox News today... http://nation.foxnews.com/james-rosen/2013/05/20/you-must-read-tweet-joseph-curl

The timeline for when senior White House officials knew about the IRS scandal seems to be shifting. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday that the president’s counsel was told on April 24 about the preliminary findings of an IRS audit that showed tax officials unfairly targeted Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status. Carney had previously said that White House counsel did not have any details about the IRS probe and was given a generic heads up that one was being conducted. Senior legal counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was told about the audit on April 24, Carney said Monday....

Liberals think crap like this is leadership, go figure.

The White House on Monday once again added to the list of people who knew about the IRS investigation into its targeting of conservative groups — saying White House chief of staff Denis McDonough had been informed about a month ago. Press secretary Jay Carney said again that no one had told President Barack Obama ahead of the first news reports: not his top aide McDonough, nor his chief counsel Kathy Ruemmler, nor anyone from the Treasury Department. Monday’s revelation amounts to the fifth iteration of the Obama administration’s account of events, after initially saying that the White House had...

joseph curl�@josephcurl8m CIA source says Fox News scandal the "4th Shoe"; says it goes much deeper; says WH also sitting on "something" that has top aides terrified.

The White House is circling the wagons as one of the most feverish periods of President Obama’s tenure enters its second week. Obama and his aides have taken a more aggressive stance in recent days after fumbling their initial response to headline-grabbing scandals at different government agencies. The administration’s strategy is centered on a simple defense: “Our basic thrust is that nobody, here, did anything wrong,” an Obama administration official told The Hill. “That’s why none of this is going to stick.”Even though there is no evidence yet of wrongdoing in the White House, it does not mean that Obama...

A group members of the U.S. House of Representatives have sent Secretary of the Department of Human and Health Services, Kathleen Sebelius, a letter questioning her reported actions of soliciting donations from non-profit organizations that are “directly implementing” Obamacare. Florida’s Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Jeff Miller, Bill Posey and Trey Radel are among the 26 members of Congress who penned their signatures on the letter to Sebelius. The letter asks Secretary Sebelius if she indeed made the calls,how many did she make? In addition, Sebelius was asked if Department resources were used, and how much money was raised?

The IRS abused its power in targeting conservatives for harassment and probably leaking information to liberal groups during the presidential election cycle. But the IRS’s actions crossed a line from merely corrupt into sinister when it grilled an Iowa pro-life group about its religious views. During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Friday, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., asked outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller about it. “Their question,” Schock said, “specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers.’ Would that be an inappropriate question...

National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley (in tan jacket) leads a protest earlier this month. About 250 Federal workers massed in Federal Plaza in Manhattan May 7 to protest the sequester cuts. (The Chief) This explains things… President Obama met with anti-Tea Party IRS union chief Colleen Kelly in the White House the day before the agency targeted Tea Party. The Spectator reported: “For me, it’s about collaboration.” — National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley on the relationship between the anti-Tea Party IRS union and the Obama White House Is President Obama directly implicated in the IRS scandal?...

UNREAL!… IRS Shake Down of ‘True the Vote’ Involved Visits From FBI, OSHA and ATF – Who Checked Gun Safe (Video) Catherine Engelbrecht of True The Vote joined Governor Mike Huckabee to discuss the harassment and abuse she received from the Obama IRS since she applied for tax exempt status. Her group does not advocate for particular parties or candidates but just for fair elections at all levels. The group obviously is a huge threat to Barack Obama and Democrats. Engelbrecht reminded Governor Huckabee that in the last 18 months voter fraud cases have been prosecuted in 36 states. Engelbrecht...

The late columnist William Safire once said that a good clue that someone in Washington was engaged in “an artful dodge,” i.e., a cover-up, was that they used the phrase “mistakes were made.” Safire defined it as a “passive-evasive way of acknowledging error while distancing the speaker from responsibility for it.” The phrase became infamous when both Richard Nixon and Ron Ziegler, his press secretary, deployed it to explain away Watergate without explaining who did what and when or whether any ill motive was involved. AdvertisementAstonishingly, the Internal Revenue Service resurrected the Nixonian expression within hours of its clumsy revelation...

The Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press reporters’ phone records was reportedly one element of a “sweeping” federal investigation to find out who leaked classified information about a failed Al-Qaeda plot to bomb an American airliner. Now, the Obama administration has reportedly apologized to Israel for another leak of classified information to the media, one that occurred earlier this month and which Israeli officials are concerned could place Israeli lives at risk. Israel Radio’s diplomatic correspondent Chico Menashe reported Sunday morning (via the Jerusalem Post): American officials apologized to their Israeli counterparts for confirming that Israel was behind the airstrikes...

See the video of the exchange via the link DAN PFEIFFER, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: The point that our Chief of Staff is making is that this is the Republican playbook here which is try, when they don't have a positive agenda, try to drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped up hearings and false allegations. We're not going to let that distract us and the President from actually doing the people's work and fighting for the middle class. BOB SCHIEFFER, HOST: You know, I don’t want to compare this in any way to Watergate. I do...

With so many White House scandals—and new ones popping up every day—how are average citizens supposed to keep track? Wouldn't it be nice if Obama went on ESPN and mapped them all on a bracket?Why wait for next year's March Madness when you can start May Madness today? Introducing the Obama Scandal Bracket! Click here for a full-size version and vote for the scandal you think will bring down the president.

There is so much to say about what happened in Benghazi and the aftermath that one almost does not know where to begin. It was certainly refreshing to watch the news conference the other day with the entire White House Press Corp all over Jay Carney for misleading them regarding the matter. The fact Benghazi is now a lead story in mainstream media outlets is very exciting. We must all look at some realities that remain regarding this whole affair. The biggest reality remains that the administration of Barack Obama seriously misled the American people. They did this knowingly and...

The American people have lost faith in U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., and he must be replaced, a top GOP senator said Sunday. “I lost confidence in the attorney general a long time ago over his cover-up of the Fast and Furious investigation,” said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, referencing Mr. Holder’s role in the infamous gunrunning scheme that went awry and cost the life of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Calls for Mr. Holder’s ouster have grown louder since it was revealed the Justice Department gathered telephone records for at least 20 Associated Press editors and reporters...