Know Nothings

Once upon a time, Democrats were concerned with infringements on civil liberties, when the president abusing power was someone they opposed and when the deaths of Americans bothered them. It was a magical time called the 2000s, but it might as well have been a century ago because that party has since gone the way of the Dodo.

OK, Democrats never truly cared about those things in principle, mind you, but they at least paid lip service to the concept in a fairly convincing way.

To Democrats, when George W. Bush was president, he was personally responsible for the actions of soldiers he’d never met in a prison he’d never visited on the other side of the planet. Every job loss was a pink slip signed by him to enrich his Halliburton masters. Now that Barack Obama is president, the people he appointed to cabinet positions not only aren’t responsible for the actions of their subordinates, they aren’t responsible for their own actions. 

Lost on the media is the irony that the very people who have been trying to dismiss the IRS scandal as the work of “misguided mid-level rogues” would be buying out bullhorn supplies to shout their outrage had the parties been reversed. (Derk Hunter)

After all, the Democrats were the only screaming at the top of their lungs that Valerie Plaime was a big f*cking deal when it wasn’t. But that was then this is now.

And in 2013 it’s still Bush’s fault! FOR EVERYTHING. It’s the Six Degrees of Bush Blame!

And now the President is blameless for everything and nothing THEY DO is a big F*cking Deal. You complaining about it is the problem. It’s not them, it’s you!

You know the people I’m talking about. The Know-Nothings.

You know the folks who pushed that one law regarding almost 20 percent of the entire economy before they even read the bill? The ones who rushed it into law just to see what was in it? The ones who managed to write a bill, while still not being familiar with what the bill actually did?  

Yeah, those guys? The Know-Nothings.

Well, they know nothing about a lot of other stuff too.

Obama’s one of those guys. So is Eric Holder. So, apparently, is the entire staff at the IRS from the executive offices upward. 

They are kind of an “Axis of See No Evil, Hear No Evil”. (speak only evil of anyone who disagrees with you)

Below is a laundry list from the Huffington Post about Attorney General Eric Holder’s gripping testimony to congress regarding his department’s latest suppression of the First Amendment while seizing phone records from a news organization.

You know, just in case you didn’t know about it, this will clear everything up for you. And just in case you miss the subtlety below, Holder, by the way, knows nothing:

·      “I was not the person involved in that decision,”

·      “I am not familiar with the reasons why the subpoena was constructed in the way that it was because I’m simply not a part of the case.”

·      “I do not know, however, with regard to this particular case, why that was or was not done.”

·      “I simply do not have a factual basis for answering that question.”

·      “Again, Mr. Chairman, I don’t know.”

·      “I assume he was, but I don’t know.”

·      “I don’t know what has happened in this matter.”

·      “This is both an ongoing matter and an ongoing matter about which I know nothing.”

·      Holder also said he did not know “precisely” when he had recused himself from the investigation.

Liberal publications, including the Washington Post, carry similar lists.

However, Holder’s Know-Nothing affiliation shouldn’t surprise us because his boss is a Know-Nothing too.

In fact, he’s the chief Know-Nothing.

When asked about the recent Inspector General’s report on the IRS’s practice of targeting conservative groups, the president said: Hey! I just read about that! 

“I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this,” Obama said in a statement that says nothing, but still reveals much. “I think it was on Friday.”

As a follow-up I wish someone had thought to ask Obama what he had for lunch on Friday. It’d be nice to know if our president knows nothing about that as well.

Obama apparently knew nothing about Boston, about the illegal seizure of Associated Press phone records, the strong-arming of State Department employees, the constitution, the economy, job creation….

In fact, as I wrote at the beginning of the month, Obama, the know-it-all, suddenly seemed to know nothing, even before the IRS-AP fracas:

Still, it’s surprising that the administration that knows more about banking than bankers, more about healthcare than doctors, more about firearms than people who legally possess arms, more about budgets than citizens who have to balance their checkbooks and more about practically everything than anyone else, would admit that on a few things, they really know nothing.

“On most days it’s hard to tell him he’s wrong about anything,” recently confessed one top Democrat about the Commander in Brief.

It’s seems equally hard to TELL him about anything too.

But here it is:

Obama knows nothing about Benghazi.

He knows nothing about Boston’s Tsarnaev brothers.

He knows nothing about Fast and Furious; he knows nothing about green energy loans, either.

Yes, the man who recently proclaimed: I AM IN CHARGE NOW, FINALLY! knows nothing.

This seems strange coming from the administration that leaked every damn detail about how Barack Obama personally hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden, while simultaneously saving Detroit from bankruptcy… saved Detroit at least until after the election in 2012, that is.    

But the Know-Nothing party isn’t just a celebration of individual ignorance, it’s institutional too:

“Republicans seem to be losing patience with [ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service Steven] Miller because his answers don’t change,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “of course, neither have their questions. Miller, in response to rough questioning from [Republican] Dave Reichert, says he doesn’t know who is primarily responsible for initiating these searches of tea-party groups.”

“I don’t have that name, Sir,” Miller said.

Nor does anyone else at the IRS.

But of course the only people who seem surprise by this outbreak of ignorance are those other Know-Nothings, the press.

The rest of us?

We knew that this administration knew nothing a long time ago.  (John Ranson)

And if you know what’s good for you, Citizen, you’ll know nothing, ALWAYS.

And you like it that way.

And Benghazi? Forget about it!

OR ELSE!

Quid Pro Quo

Oh, and the lady in charge at the time of the current intimidation and partisan scandal is now in charge of ObamaCare. But nothing to worry about…Nothing to see here…

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”-George Orwell

Sarah Hall Ingram, who served as commissioner of the Tax-Exempt and Government Entities Division from 2009 to 2012, is now serving as director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act division.

(and Benghazi head Media Liar, Susan Rice, is still waiting for her promotion).

Ingram was so good at her job of suppressing the political speech of administration opponents by using the tax code as a political bludgeon that she was rewarded during her tenure with four bonuses totaling $103,390.

Her annual salary went from $172,500 to $177,000 during the same period, and she was also rewarded with the Affordable Care Act responsibilities.

That the person who rode roughshod over Tea Party groups was put in charge of riding roughshod over our health care is entirely fitting.

The Tea Party was a grass-roots response to the power grab and assault on the Constitution that Obama-Care represents.

It cost the Democrats the House in 2010, and the prime opponent of ObamaCare had to be punished. Her tenure at the exemptions office dovetailed perfectly with the Tea Party’s rise.

Now Ingram is running the IRS’ ObamaCare enforcement office, and if you think the IRS’ “extra scrutiny” of conservative, pro-life and pro-Israel groups is scary, think of the IRS having access to your private medical information.

ObamaCare has 47 separate provisions that involve the IRS. It’s the second-largest agency, after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, charged with implementing the Affordable Care Act.

As the House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act Thursday evening, Speaker John Boehner expressed “serious concerns” that the IRS is empowered as the law’s chief enforcer.

MSNBC aside: And lately, the IRS has expanded its monitoring to include social media.

The agency now keeps an eye out for online discussions about nonpayment or underpayment of taxes, and even sale prices of goods on sites like eBay that don’t match what taxpayers report.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says “the IRS part of administering ObamaCare, particularly in the wake of this IRS scandal with regard to suppressing the views of Americans who were critical of the IRS, raises further suspicions about their involvement in the administration of ObamaCare.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has introduced the “Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013″ that prohibits the Treasury secretary, or any delegate, including the IRS, from enforcing the Affordable Care Act.

“Now more than ever, we need to prevent the IRS from having any role in Americans’ health care,” he said. “I do not support ObamaCare, and after the events of last week I cannot support giving the IRS any more responsibility or taxpayer dollars to implement a broken law.”

Neither can we, and we are troubled by a lawsuit in California by a company against 15 IRS agents who were investigating a tax matter with a warrant for a former employee of the company.

The warrant authorized the IRS only to obtain financial records of the employee in question.

Yet, as the suit alleges, these agents stole more than 60 million medical records of more than 10 million Americans, including at least 1 million Californians.

Are the likes of Sarah Hall Ingram the people we want enforcing ObamaCare?

Is a government we can’t trust with our tax records to be trusted with our medical records?

Should we trust people who abuse their power to conduct universal background checks?

Will Tea Partiers and conservatives be likewise harassed and intimidated over their Second Amendment rights?

Keep the IRS out of the doctor’s office and repeal ObamaCare or at least neuter its funding mechanism lest one day the only two things we will be sure of will be death panels and taxes — both run by the IRS. (ibd)

We are From The IRS and we are Not here to Help you, we are here to help ourselves…..
And if you don’t like it, Talk to the Hand. The Hand of Big Brother.

Big Brother is watching you.!

 

 

On the QT

 

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.

Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.  (ABC)

Nothing to see here, we already had out main course of Sacrificial Lamb….

A little extra salt for that Lamb skewer: Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harrassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012. (WE)

Nothing to see here, you racists (at least according to Al Sharpton)…

President Barack Obama, seeking to regain his footing amid controversies hammering the White House, named a temporary chief for the scandal-marred Internal Revenue Service Thursday and pressed Congress to approve new security money to prevent another Benghazi-style terrorist attack.

Why do we need new “security money?” after all, it was an Internet Video that caused the attack, right?

So I guess the money would be used to spy on the American People more, especially those violent, anti-government haters — The Tea Party.

It certainly wasn’t “terrorism”. And surely wasn’t because of <whisper> Muslim extremists…

Obama, who was criticized by both opponents and allies for his measured initial response to the IRS targeting, vowed to ensure the agency acts “scrupulously and without even a hint of bias.”

“I think we’re going to be able to fix it,” he declared. (my way)

That’s why he appointed the person in charge of it to the IRS’s jackboots on ObamaCare and Susan Rice- The Sacrifice to the Media for Benghazi- he is still trying to get her a Cabinet/White House Level job for her brave service.

Nope, nothing to see here.

“I’ve still got 60,000-plus troops in Afghanistan, and I’ve still got a whole bunch of intelligence officers around the world who are in risky situations,” he said. “Part of my job is to make sure that we’re protecting what they do, while still accommodating for the need for information.”

But 4 people in Benghazi, ah f*ck ‘em! That’s just a Republican partisan plot to make me look bad!

After all, President Barack Obama vowed to “bring to justice” the perpetrators of the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya. On Oct. 26, 2012, Obama said his “biggest priority” was bringing the “folks” in Libya responsible for murdering four Americans to “justice.” Tick, tock, tick, tock. (Michelle Malkin)

Oh, by the way, if the last “blow up the White House” heroic movie wasn’t enough (“Olympus has fallen” there’s a second one- “White House Down.” coming.

After all, Hollywood terrorism is much more real and believable than REAL terrorism!

The South Side

Mr. Tinkle Up My Leg Chris Matthews: “The liberals, the progressives, the reasonable people…”

Matthews & Sharpton: Obama’s Scandals Prove “Racism” and “White Supremacy” in GOP.

Well, you knew they’d get around to it eventually…

*********

The White House on Wednesday released 94 pages of emails between top administration and intelligence officials who helped shape the talking points about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that the CIA would provide to policymakers in both the legislative and executive branches.

The documents, first reported by THE WEEKLY STANDARD in articles here and here, directly contradict claims by White House press secretary Jay Carney and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the revisions of those talking points were driven by the intelligence community and show heavy input from top Obama administration officials, particularly those at the State Department.

The emails provide further detail about the rewriting of the talking points during a 24-hour period from midday September 14 to midday September 15. As THE WEEKLY STANDARD previously reported, a briefing from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shows that the big changes came in three waves – internally at the CIA, after email feedback from top administration officials, and during or after a meeting of high-ranking intelligence and national security officials the following morning.

The Internal Revenue Service has identified two “rogue” employees in the agency’s Cincinnati office as being principally responsible for “overly aggressive” handling of requests by conservative groups for tax-exempt status, a congressional source told CNN. In a meeting on Capitol Hill, acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller described the employees as being “off the reservation,” according to the source. It was not clear precisely what the alleged behavior involved. Miller said the staffers have already been disciplined, according to another source familiar with Miller’s discussions with congressional investigators.

Hey, it was essentially just two guys, and they’ve been “disciplined,” so can’t we all just move on? (Townhall)

They did it ….No! They Did it!…Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!….Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!Oh No We Didn’t They Did it!

Confused  and Frustrated yet?

The Payoff:

Insiders with ties to the Obama administration tell The Cable that U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice has become the heir apparent to National Security Advisor Tom Donilon — a post at the epicenter of foreign-policy decision making and arguably more influential than secretary of state, a job for which she withdrew her candidacy last fall amid severe political pressure.

“It’s definitely happening,” a source who recently spoke with Rice told The Cable. “She is sure she is coming and so too her husband and closest friends.”

The Speech

“Now, if we’re being honest with ourselves, as you’ve studied and worked and served to become good citizens, the fact is that all too often the institutions that give structure to our society have, at times, betrayed your trust.”

“I think it’s fair to say our democracy isn’t working as well as we know it can. It could do better….Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works.”

Well, in recent days this suggested line of thinking has turned around and bit Obama on his own South Side. Let’s recap:

We have the lethal Benghazi scandal when Obama’s administration was totally unprepared for 9/11 attacks, the president went missing all night, no rescue was even attempted, Obama and pack repeatedly blamed an obscure anti-Islam video for two weeks despite knowing it was terrorism from minute one, they demoted career diplomats who asked questions. And have strung out congressional inquiries in hopes of fading interest in the smoldering scandal.

We have the IRS apologizing on a Friday, hoping to defuse a Tuesday investigative report into its attempted intimidation and successful harassment of a wide variety of conservative groups for years. Just a few over-eager, low-level number crunchers, you understand. Except, wait. Gee, it actually involved supervisors and execs lying to Congress.

That’s all against the law, of course. But the agency apologized. So, will the IRS now accept taxpayer apologies in lieu of back taxes?

Obama rushed to point out the IRS is an independent agency, which it isn’t. He called the tactics outrageous “if” the reports were true, which the Treasury agency had already admitted.

Then, Tuesday came word the FBI, in an alleged attempt to track down an old news leak, had secretly obtained telephone records for more than 100 media members. What’s wrong with that anyway? The Russian government does it all the time.

For someone who acts as if he knows everything, Harvard grad Obama certainly has admitted ignorance an awful lot in recent days.

He didn’t know there were any Benghazi scandal whistle-blowers being intimidated at the State Department. He didn’t know the IRS was harassing and intimidating opponents exactly as his local machine does back home in Chicago. And now given revelations of FBI snooping on more than 100 members of Obama’s media pack, his press pals may turn on him, for a while.

Additionally, 40 Obama White House aides still owe $333,000 in back taxes, which the IRS has not collected. But they’re not conservative.

A commander-in-chief can only admit ignorance once or twice before people ask what is he in command of anyway, besides his golf score and fundraiser schedule?

Tuesday Obama finally called the IRS report “intolerable and inexcusable.” And claimed to have ordered Treasury Secy. Jack Lew to bring any perps to justice, as he routinely does after every episode of bad news. To no particular end. Recall his promise to whack the murderers of those four Americans in Benghazi last fall, killers still wandering and plotting freely.

Meanwhile, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder ordered the FBI, which is probing news media phone calls, to investigate the IRS situation too. Holder, you’ll recall, is the fellow who squashed that old Black Panther voter intimidation probe and feigned ignorance of his own department’s deadly ‘Fast and Furious’ gun-running operation into Mexico.

Then, to not prove his innocence, Holder had Obama claim executive privilege to avoid turning over operational documents to congressional investigators.

This is a favored tactic of Obama. Remember in 2008 when published reports suggested Obama transition team members had worked with Obama pal and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on filling Obama’s vacant Senate seat? Blago is now in federal prison for attempting to sell that selection.

But an Obama team probe of the Obama team found no Obama team impropriety.What a relief that was, eh? Similarly, the Obama State Department probe of the Benghazi screw-up found some systemic problems but no one person to blame. Another relief all around.

We haven’t really had any probes of the billions in taxpayer dollars squandered on now-bankrupt green energy companies, many with connections to Obama’s top fundraisers. Probably coincidence. Chances are that investigation would end up like the FBI’s IRS probe will, with profound suggestions for bureaucratic tweaks. And that’s it.

“Unfortunately,” Obama told Ohio state grads, “you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems.”Why ever would that be?

Don’t forget the IRS is the agency expanding by 16,000 new agents to enforce ObamaCare’s thousands of new regulations. And they will prosecute a certain percentage of violators to be determined at the discretion of those IRS agents.

Now what, given the unfolding tawdry record of this Windy City gang, could possibly go wrong there? (IBD)

Pinnochio

Carney tried to explain why he and the president still insist on conditionally condemning the IRS’ actions, depending on “if” something inappropriate occurred.  Reporters from the AP and CNN both pushed back, noting that the IRS has already acknowledged wrongdoing and apologized.  Alas, it seems admissions of guilt still aren’t sufficiently dispositive for our fact-finder in chief

On Libya, a detailed examination of the record shows that the White House has had no consistent message on what happened on September 11. In fact, they changed their message from day to day — and it’s clear that the administration’s actions in the days and weeks after the Benghazi tragedy was all political maneuvering.

Benghazi was a terrorist attack.  The September 11th murders of 4 Americans in Libya wasn’t about some You Tube video and the Obama administration did apparently leave those people out there to die.  They did apparently conceal the truth and they did think we’d be stupid enough to believe them.

And anybody who thought things would be different is, quite frankly, an idiot.

Especially right before the Re-coronation of the King of All Media and your sovereign Lord of all Things, Barack Hussein Obama!

Nothing could be allowed to get in the way. Nothing.

The Agenda is The Agenda.

The Message is The Message.

Once again, it appears that we must parse a few presidential words. We went through this question at length during the 2012 election, but perhaps a refresher course is in order.

After all, we are talking about the King of the Orwellian Parse.

Notably, during a debate with Republican nominee Mitt Romney, President Obama said that he immediately told the American people that the killing of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya “was an act of terror.” But now he says he called it “an act of terrorism.”

Some readers may object to this continuing focus on words, but presidential aides spend a lot of time on words. Words have consequences. Is there a difference between “act of terror” and “act of terrorism”?

 

The Facts

Immediately after the attack, the president three times used the phrase “act of terror” in public statements:

“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”

— Obama, Rose Garden, Sept. 12

“We want to send a message all around the world — anybody who would do us harm: No act of terror will dim the light of the values that we proudly shine on the rest of the world, and no act of violence will shake the resolve of the United States of America.”

— Obama, campaign event in Las Vegas, Sept. 13

“I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished. It will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America.”

— Obama, campaign event in Golden, Colo., Sept. 13

Here’s how we assessed those words back in October:

    Note that in all three cases, the language is not as strong as Obama asserted in the debate. Obama declared that he said “that this was an act of terror.” But actually the president spoke in vague terms, usually wrapped in a patriotic fervor. One could presume he was speaking of the incident in Libya, but he did not affirmatively state that the American ambassador died because of an “act of terror.”

    Some readers may think we are dancing on the head of pin here. The Fact Checker spent nine years as diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, and such nuances of phrasing are often very important. A president does not simply utter virtually the same phrase three times in two days about a major international incident without careful thought about the implications of each word.

The Fact Checker noted last week that this was an attack on what essentially was a secret CIA operation, which included rounding up weapons from the very people who may have attacked the facility.

Perhaps Obama, in his mind, thought this then was really “an act of war,” not a traditional terrorist attack, but he had not wanted to say that publicly. Or perhaps, as Republicans suggest, he did not want to spoil his campaign theme that terror groups such as al-Qaeda were on the run by conceding a terrorist attack had occurred on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Whatever the reason, when given repeated opportunities to forthrightly declare this was an “act of terrorism,” the president ducked the question.

For instance, on Sept. 12, immediately after the Rose Garden statement the day after the attack, Obama sat down with Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes and acknowledged he purposely avoided the using the word “terrorism:”

KROFT: “Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word ‘terrorism’ in connection with the Libya attack.”

OBAMA: “Right.”

KROFT: “Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?”

OBAMA: “Well, it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans. And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other.”

Eight days later, on Sept. 20, Obama was asked at a Univision town hall whether Benghazi was a terrorist attack related to al-Qaeda, after White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that “it is self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”

QUESTION: “We have reports that the White House said today that the attacks in Libya were a terrorist attack. Do you have information indicating that it was Iran, or al-Qaeda was behind organizing the protests?”

OBAMA: “Well, we’re still doing an investigation, and there are going to be different circumstances in different countries. And so I don’t want to speak to something until we have all the information. What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.”

(It is unclear whether Obama is ducking the “terrorism” question or answering one about al-Qaeda.)

Finally, during an interview on ABC’s “The View” on Sept. 25, Obama appeared to refuse to say it was a terrorist attack:

QUESTION: “It was reported that people just went crazy and wild because of this anti-Muslim movie — or anti-Muhammad, I guess, movie. But then I heard Hillary Clinton say that it was an act of terrorism. Is it? What do you say?”

OBAMA: “We are still doing an investigation. There is no doubt that the kind of weapons that were used, the ongoing assault, that it wasn’t just a mob action. Now, we don’t have all the information yet so we are still gathering.”

So, given three opportunities to affirmatively agree that the Benghazi attack was a terrorist attack, the president obfuscated or ducked the question.

In fact, as far as we can tell from combing through databases, Monday was the first time the president himself referred to Benghazi as an “act of terrorism.”

Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House national security council, said in the case of “The View,” “the point of the question what about what happened, not what to call it.”

She also noted that President George W. Bush used the phrase “act of terror” while visiting victims of the Sept. 11 attacks in the hospital, and critics such as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) have used that phrasing as well in speaking about terrorist attacks. (She provided citations.) “I don’t really accept the argument that we are somehow unique in that formulation,” she said.

Administration officials repeatedly have insisted that this is a distinction without much difference. “There was an issue about the definition of terrorism,” Carney said on October 10. “This is by definition an act of terror, as the President made clear.”

The Pinocchio Test

During the campaign, the president could just get away with claiming he said “act of terror,” since he did use those words — though not in the way he often claimed. It seemed like a bit of after-the-fact spin, but those were his actual words — to the surprise of Mitt Romney in the debate.

But the president’s claim that he said “act of terrorism” is taking revisionist history too far, given that he repeatedly refused to commit to that phrase when asked directly by reporters in the weeks after the attack. He appears to have gone out of his way to avoid saying it was a terrorist attack, so he has little standing to make that claim now.

Indeed, the initial unedited talking points did not call it an act of terrorism. Instead of pretending the right words were uttered, it would be far better to acknowledge that he was echoing what the intelligence community believed at the time–and that the administration’s phrasing could have been clearer and more forthright from the start.

Four Pinocchios (WP)

 

Never Lies

President Obama told donors like Jessica Biel, Justin Timberlake (who was wearing hipster glasses), and Tommy Hilfiger that Washington gridlock is pretty much Rush Limbaugh’s fault on Monday evening at a fundraiser at Harvey Weinstein’s house in New York’s Greenwich Village. Obama admitted that his theory — that after the 2012 election, the Republican “fever” would break, and they’d decide to co-sign some of his agenda — was wrong. “My thinking was when we beat them in 2012 that might break the fever, and it’s not quite broken yet,” Obama said, according to the White House pool report. This is because of a certain corpulent radio host. “I genuinely believe there are Republicans out there who would like to work with us but they’re fearful of their base and they’re concerned about what Rush Limbaugh might say about them. And as a consequence we get the kind of gridlock that makes people cynical about government.

Wow!, now that’s cognitive dissonance (not to mention arrogance)….Always have to have a demonizing figure to galvanize the faithful, don’t you Big Brother!

2014 Totalitarianism or Bust!

WP: “The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism.”

— President Obama, remarks at a news conference, May 13, 2013

As we have noted before, the Benghazi scandal is boring.- The Atlantic

Thomas Sowell: There can be honest differences of opinion on many subjects. But there can also be dishonest differences. Last week’s testimony under oath about events in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 makes painfully clear that what the Obama administration told the American people about those events were lies out of whole cloth.

What we were told repeatedly last year by the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and the American ambassador to the U.N., was that there was a protest demonstration in Benghazi against an anti-Islamic video produced by an American, and that this protest demonstration simply escalated out of control.

This “spontaneous protest” story did not originate in Libya but in Washington. Neither the Americans on duty in Libya during the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, nor officials of the Libyan government, said anything about a protest demonstration.

The highest American diplomat on the scene in Libya spoke directly with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by phone, and told her that it was a terrorist attack. The president of Libya announced that it was a terrorist attack. The C.I.A. told the Obama administration that it was a terrorist attack.

With lies, as with potato chips, it is hard to stop with just one. After the “spontaneous protest” story was discredited, the next claim was that this was the best information available at the time from intelligence sources.

But that claim cannot survive scrutiny, now that the 12 drafts of the Obama administration’s talking points about Benghazi have belatedly come to light. As draft after draft of the talking points were made, e-mails from the State Department pressured the intelligence services to omit from these drafts their clear and unequivocal statement from the outset that this was a terrorist attack.

Attempts to make it seem that Ambassador Susan Rice’s false story about a “spontaneous protest” was the result of her not having accurate information from the intelligence services have now been exposed as a second lie to excuse the first lie.

Despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s loudly proclaimed question “What difference, at this point, does it make?” the difference is between an honest mistake and a calculated lie to deceive the American people, in order to win an election.

Barack Obama’s election campaign oratory had proclaimed the death of Osama bin Laden as an accomplishment of his administration, as part of a general defeat of Al-Qaeda and other terrorists. To admit that these terrorists were still in action, and strong enough to kill an American ambassador and three other Americans in a well-coordinated military style attack, would be a politically devastating admission during the election campaign.

Far better, politically, to come up with a story about a protest demonstration that just got out of hand. This could be presented as an isolated, one-time event, rather than part of a continuing pattern of terrorism by groups that were still active, despite President Obama’s spin suggesting that they were not.

The problem with telling a lie, or even a succession of lies, is that a very small dose of the truth can sometimes make the whole thing collapse like a house of cards. The State Department’s own foreign service officer Gregory Hicks was in Libya during the attack, so he knew the truth. When threats were not enough to silence him, it was then necessary to try to discredit him.

After years of getting glowing job evaluations, and awards of honors from the State Department for his work in various parts of the world, Mr. Hicks suddenly began to get bad job evaluations and was demoted to a desk job in Washington after he spoke with a Congressman about what he knew. The truth is dangerous to liars.

The Obama administration’s excuse for not trying to get help to the Americans in Benghazi while they were under attack — namely, that it would take too long — is as shaky as its other statements. A small fighting unit in Tripoli was ready to get on a plane to Benghazi when they were ordered to “stand down.” Other fighting units located outside of Libya are designed precisely for fast deployment — and nobody knew how many hours the attack would last.

But it will take more investigations to determine who gave the order to “stand down,” and why. How many new lies that will generate is another question.

But Big Brother Never Lies. Big Brother always tells you the truth. You just have to trust Big Brother. He’s always looking out for you.

And anyone says differently needs to be re-educated because they are a dirty liar!

Ignore the IRS at your Door, the drone outside your house or the Justice Department listening to everything you say and everything you type. You’re perfectly safe….

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!

 

Is

The U.S. still employs more than 2.5 million fewer people than when the recession began. At 180,000 jobs a month, it will take until the middle of 2014 to close that gap. Adjust for population growth, and it will take nine more years to return to the prerecession level of employment at the current rate of growth, according to the Brookings Institution.

That would be the middle of President Hilary Clinton’s Second term and very good for her hand picked successor.

“Headwinds and tailwinds are canceling each other out,” said Lou Crandall of the economic research firm Wrightson ICAP.

The longer that stalemate continues, the worse the long-term damage will be. Already, millions of unemployed Americans have given up looking for jobs; many will likely never work again.

Youth unemployment stands at 16.1% and would be a Europe-like 22% if more than 1.5 million young people hadn’t dropped out of the labor force; economic research suggests their early-career woes will leave lasting scars. The slow pace of growth leaves the economy more vulnerable to an unexpected shock—meaning a flare-up in Europe’s debt crisis or surge in oil prices could send the U.S. back into crisis mode. (WSJ)

Never let a Crisis go to Waste!

Obama has 3 fundraisers in New York along in next week. It’s not like he’s got anything to worry about…

“I would love nothing better than an effective, loyal opposition that is willing to meet us halfway and move the country forward (and do whatever I want them to) — because that’s what the American people are looking for (but since they won’t do everything I want when I want I’ll just blame them for everything). The economy is growing but there is still a lot of folks out there who are struggling; still way too many people who are unemployed; (I’m focused like a laser beam on jobs! not campaigning or covering up) people who haven’t seen a raise in a decade (unlike Congress); people whose homes are still underwater; people who when they see $4-a-gallon gas  (it was less than$2 when you became President-but I’m sure that’s the evil oil companies you’ve been trying to destroy’s fault!) know that that is money that’s coming straight out of their pockets or their retirement funds and is going to be very hard to make up. (And ObamaCare will certainly help!) And they’re hoping that we can do some governing (why break the trend!) . And that’s what I intend to do this year, and the year after that and the year after that,” Obama told the group. (Translation: Campaign!)

“But I would be dishonest if I didn’t say that it would be a whole lot easier to govern if I had Nancy Pelosi as Speaker.” (WS)

Yeah, the last time we got Stimulus Spending and a year-and-half mud fight cramming ObamaCare down our throats. That was progress.

But yes, it would be so much easier if their was no opposition to The Agenda and they could just do whatever they wanted, when they wanted, and because they wanted. And they could thumb their noses at the peons and peasants who objected to their high and mighty superiority.

Hope

“And I want her once again as a fully empowered partner for us to be able to move our agenda forward.”

Campaign Mode Overdrive: Engaged!

BY-Partisanship is our goal!

2014 totalitarianism or bust!

IRS UPDATE: At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials targeted nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general.

On Jan. 15, 2012 the agency decided to target “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement.,” according to the appendix in the IG report.

And next year they get to enforce ObamaCare. Doesn’t that just fill you with hope & glee.

BENGHAZI UPDATE

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

Removed: Al-Qaeda , CIA warnings, and terrorism.

Over the course of about twenty-four hours, the remarks evolved from something specific and fairly detailed into a bland, vague mush.

State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points:

“The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya.  These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.”

In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?  Concerned …”

The paragraph was entirely deleted. (ABC)

Nothing to see here, move along…

The CIA draft included: The draft went on to specifically name  the al Qaeda-affiliated group named Ansar al-Sharia.

Instead we got the Internet Video storyline.

Democrats will argue that the editing process wasn’t motivated by a desire to protect Obama’s record on fighting Al Qaeda in the run-up to the 2012 election. They have a point; based on what we’ve seen from Karl’s report, the process that went into creating and then changing the talking points seems to have been driven in large measure by two parts of the government—C.I.A. and State—trying to make sure the blame for the attacks and the failure to protect American personnel in Benghazi fell on the other guy.

And the White was trying to avoid it altogether!

But the mere existence of the edits—whatever the motivation for them—seriously undermines the White House’s credibility on this issue. This past November (after Election Day), White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

Remarkably, Carney is sticking with that line even now.

So it makes you go hmmmmm….

The only edit made by the White House or the State Department to those talking points generated by the C.I.A. was a change from referring to the facility that was attacked in Benghazi from “consulate,” because it was not a consulate, to “diplomatic post”… it was a matter of non-substantive factual correction. But there was a process leading up to that that involved inputs from a lot of agencies, as is always the case in a situation like this and is always appropriate.

This is an incredible thing for Carney to be saying. He’s playing semantic games, telling a roomful of journalists that the definition of editing we’ve all been using is wrong, that the only thing that matters is who’s actually working the keyboard. It’s not quite re-defining the word “is,” or the phrase “sexual relations,” but it’s not all that far off, either. (NY)

Depends on your definition of what is, is… What IS editing… What IS Terrorism…What IS a cover-up….

If it smells like a duck, and quacks like a duck, IS it a duck?