Bloodthirsty Liberal

We can’t make this stuff up:

Celia Roady, a lobbyist in the firm of Morgan Lewis, said she was called personally by Lois Lerner, the IRS head of the tax exempt division, on May 9.

“I received a call from Lois Lerner, who told me that she wanted to address an issue after her prepared remarks at the [American Bar Association] Tax Section’s Exempt Organizations Committee Meeting, and asked if I would pose a question to her after her remarks,” Roady said in a statement to U.S. News and World Report. “I agreed to do so, and she then gave me the question that I asked at the meeting the next day.

The Most Transparent Administration Evah!™, that was supposed to be 99.78% Lobbyist Free™, employed a lobbyist to stage a dog-and-pony show. These people don’t even know how to lie right. How I miss when the government was run by Halliburton and Big Oil!

Reps. Joe Crowley (D-Queens) and Sander Levin (D-Mich), top Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, on Friday demanded the resignation of Lois Lerner, head of the IRS division overseeing tax-exempt organizations.

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[S]he faces fire for failing to tell Congress about the problem, including at a hearing held just two days before she apparently used a planted question at a American Bar Association event to try to control news of the scandal.

Speaker Boehner recently asked who’s going to jail over this scandal. No offense to Ms. Lerner—I’m sure women’s prisons aren’t as bad as depicted in the movies—but I think we have our first perp.

I want you on top.

We noted a few days ago that the Church of Scotland (whose existence was news to us) had pretty much erased millennia of history, faith, and God’s will by declaring, in its opinion, that Jews had no right or claim to a Jewish homeland. I neglected to check the weather reports over Edinburgh for news of thunderstorms, but the storm of abuse has had its intended effect:

The Church of Scotland revised a paper it had published rejecting Jewish scriptural-based rights to the land of Israel after it caused waves of controversy among the Jewish community in the UK, BBC reported Friday.

The report entitled “The Inheritance of Abraham” was changed after a meeting with representative of the British Jewish community and was set to be discussed and voted on next week at the convening of the church’s general assembly, it was reported.

According to the Guardian, The church agreed to change the report’s introduction to reflect that it has never doubted Israel’s right to exist.

Controversy erupted over the original paper rejection of “claims that scripture offers any peoples a privileged claim for possession of a particular territory.”

I suppose I’m glad. But I sometimes prefer my antisemites to be this direct and honest. Spare me from those who claim they support Israel’s right to exist, but insist on a return to the “Auschwitz” borders of 1967, who declare Zionism is racism, who call for “proportionate” response to Arab terror, who fall for and repeat ever slander spewed forth by Arab propagandists and their enablers on the Left.

Boy, could I go on.

What they really mean is that they don’t support Israel’s right to exist at all. They may (if I’m being generous) not hate Jews (or all Jews), just those Jews who exercise self-determination. At least the Church of Scotland has the courage (had the courage) to come out and say it.

Now, if someone could tell me why Scotland has a right to exist (which it doesn’t, not independently), I’d be very grateful.

In Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount, it’s forbidden for Jews to pray. They can’t even move their lips in silent prayer. Even thinking about prayer is against the rules. If the Muslim guardians suspect you’re thinking about G-d, you’re out on your ass—often with the assistance of Israeli guards trying to keep the “peace”.

It’s not that different here:

Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee Friday, acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller was unable to answer whether it was appropriate for the IRS to inquire about the prayers of an organization seeking 501(c)(3) status.

Illinois Republican Rep. Aaron Schock pushed Miller for answers about some of the pro-life organizations the IRS reportedly targeted when the groups sought tax-exempt status. The Thomas More Society law firm has alleged that the federal tax collector pressed these organizations to reveal the content of their prayers.

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“A letter from the IRS office of exempt organization specialist in El Monte, California, specifically the Pacific Coast Division — I would note this is not in the Cincinnati division — to the Christian Voices for Life of Fort Bend County in Sugarland, Texas dated March 31, 2011, that I have here with me today. They were asked specifically, again this is a pro-life group, ‘In your educational program do you do education on both sides of the issues in your programs?’ Mr. Miller, your knowledge of the 501(c)(3) application, is that an appropriate question to ask?” Shock asked.

“Sir, I’m going to be honest and I’m not going to be able to speak to a specific development letter in a specific case I don’t know that I can do that under 6103,” Miller responded.

“Okay, let me ask you about another letter that was received by a pro-life group, this one in Iowa. Their question specifically asks 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 appropriate question to a 501(c)(3) applicant? The content of one’s prayers?” Schock asked.

“It pains me to say I can’t speak to that one either. But that’s an —” Miller said

“You don’t know whether or not that would be an appropriate question to ask an applicant?” Schock interrupted Miller.

“Speaking outside of this case, which I don’t know anything about, it would surprise me that that question was asked,” Miller said.

I’m surprised they got that much of an admission out of him. The prayer question is the most outrageous, of course, but even the question about teaching both sides is pretty amazing. Did they ask it of abortion rights groups? One very much doubts it.

Let this be the epitaph on the gravestone of this administration, which had better start saying its prayers:

Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers.

[Shudder]

Sometimes the truth is known, but not acknowledged. It needs to be repeated, confirmed, lived with for a few days.

I first heard days ago that the reason the “Justice” Department hunted down AP reporters’ phone records was because the Obama regime was PO’d it got scooped. No national security risk—just resentment.

That’s its story, and the truth is sticking with it:

Americans were in danger.

That was the chief argument Attorney General Eric Holder tried to make this week for why Justice Department officials seized two months’ worth of phone records of reporters and editors at The Associated Press.

But the AP has strongly refuted from the start claims that it put the country in danger. The accusation that the news organization risked national security isn’t sitting so well with other journalists and lawmakers who have started pushing back on the claims.

“We held that story until the government assured us that the national security concerns had passed,” AP President Gary Pruitt said in a written response to the Justice Department’s claims.

A report from The Washington Post appeared to give more weight to the AP’s claims.

According to the Post, the AP had been sitting on a scoop about a failed Al Qaeda plot at the request of CIA officials for five days. The morning they were supposed to release the story, journalists were asked by government officials to wait another day, citing safety concerns.

However, the CIA officials who first cited the security concerns said they no longer had the same worries. Rather, the Obama administration was planning to announce the success of the counterterrorism project the following day, according to The Post report.

There was no longer any threat. It’s just that the regime wanted to maximize its PR. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

In Benghazi, there was a threat, indeed a very dire threat. But they denied it—buried it, even, under a cover story—for the very same reason: PR.

That ties those two stories together.

I heard an interesting theory about the IRS scandal: namely that as Hillary had been implicated by Benghazi, she (with the help and counsel of her husband) exacted revenge on the administration that has hung her out to dry. It’s a little sketchy as conspiracies go, but live with it for a few days. See if it grows into truth.

Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, doesn’t know:

If it takes a wise man to acknowledge what he doesn’t know, Eric “The Red” Holder is a freakin’ Solomon!

Not that you would want to, but here’s how.

Leave:

Wait! Take me with you!

Many residents of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula believe that the kidnapping of seven Egyptian security personnel near the city of Al-Arish on Thursday was “retaliation” by Bedouin tribesmen for heavy-handed security policies adopted by the interior ministry.

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Many Sinai residents seek to revenge themselves on security forces after years of heavy-handed security policies under Mubarak-era interior minister Habib El-Adly, who many accuse of failing to respect human rights and tribal traditions.

Mohamed El-Asati, who hails from Sinai’s Aleiqat tribe, told Ahram Online that interior ministry policies had left a painful legacy among local tribesmen, especially during the current rule of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

“The security apparatus did not respect tribal traditions or customs,” he said. “We have always been regarded as shepherds, drug traffickers or spies for Israel. So after the revolution, you will find psychological reasons for their desire for vengeance. ”

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“The interior ministry wants to return to its old ways,” said El-Asati. “But this is unacceptable after the revolution. The Bedouin have already paid a heavy price for the return of the land [the Sinai Peninsula] in the October 1973 War.”

“We also paid a heavy price in terms of our security and dignity in the Mubarak era. And after the revolution, we will not allow the interior ministry’s old brutal policies to return during the era of Muslim Brotherhood rule,” he added.

So, Mubarak was a thug, the Muslim Brotherhood is a pack of thugs… who were the good guys who ran the place before 1973? Anyone? I just can’t remember.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language, according to Ronald Reagan.

Remember the impromptu, extemporaneous apology given by Lois Lerner a week ago at a law conference for the targeting of conservative groups, an apology that at the same time tried to minimize the scope of the violations? Yeah, that was no accident:

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Jonathan Weisman @jonathanweisman

1 real revelation: Question to IRS’s Lois Lerner Fri at ABA that prompted apology was a plant, planned in advance. Not inadvertent release

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What does that say about IRS leadership’s honesty and credibility?

What honesty and credibility?

As I like to say, once you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.

This is about President Obama, but it’s bigger than him too. David Axelrod has been trying to excuse Obama by saying the government is too vast for him to have been behind this.

Which is what we’ve all been saying. And it certainly doesn’t augur well for the expansion of government—especially the IRS—under ObamaCare. Had you heard of Lois Lerner before this? Steven Miller? How many more liberal apparatchicks do you think there are infesting government? We already know the EPA waived fees for left-wing groups making FOIA requests, but never for conservatives (even when the conservatives won the waivers on appeal). We haven’t even scratched the surface.

PS: At least it’s not illegal!

WASHINGTON – The outgoing leader of the Internal Revenue Service drew audible “wows” from Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday for saying he doesn’t think what the agency did to tea party groups was illegal.

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Price: Is it illegal what they’ve done?

Miller: It is absolutely not illegal.

Price: It is not illegal what the IRS has done?

Miller: So let me understand the question. What is your statement as to what is illegal?

Price: Do you believe that it is illegal for employees of the IRS to create lists, to target individual groups and citizens in this country?

Miller: I think the [Department of] Treasury inspector general indicated it might not be, but others will be able to tell that.

Price: What do you believe?

Miller: I don’t believe it is. I don’t believe it should happen.

Price: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Miller: Please don’t get me wrong. It should not happen.

It depends on the meaning of “it”.

Don’t mention this to the NY Times…

- Aggie

When I was a kid, terrorists in Idaho meant white supremacists—Posse Comitatus or Aryan Nation.

Sigh… where have you done Joe DiMaggio?

An Uzbekistan national living in Idaho is expected to appear in federal court Friday on charges he conspired with a terrorist group on a scheme to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Federal agents raided the Boise apartment of 30-year-old Fazliddin Kurbanov (fahz-LIHD’-ehn kuhr-BAH’-nahf) Thursday after a grand jury issued a three-count indictment accusing him of federal terrorism charges.

The indictment alleges Kurbanov gave money, computer software and other resources to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan — a designated foreign terrorist group.

He’s also charged with helping prepare for the use of a weapon of mass destruction.

It was bad enough to learn that terrorist murders on “Tax Day”, Patriots Day, were Islamic-inspired. Now even Idaho—Neo-Nazi Valhalla—has gone jihad. I miss my youth.

The NY Times explains Obama’s innocence and Republican malevolence

Ever wonder how the Left will spin this? Your intrepid aid, Aggie, has gathered the information so you won’t be bothered.

When politicians want to turn scandals into metaphors, actual details of wrongdoing or incompetence no longer matter. In fact, the details of the troubles swirling around the White House this week are bluntly contradicting Republicans who want to combine them into a seamless narrative of tyrannical government on the rampage.

The Internal Revenue Service, according to an inspector general’s report, was not reacting to political pressure or ideology when it singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny in evaluating requests for tax exemptions. It acted inappropriately because employees couldn’t understand inadequate guidelines. The tragedy in Benghazi, Libya, never a scandal to begin with, has devolved into a turf-protection spat between government agencies, and the e-mail messages Republicans long demanded made clear that there was no White House cover-up.

The only example of true government overreach was the seizure of The Associated Press’s telephone records, the latest episode in the Obama administration’s Javert-like obsession with leakers in its midst.

Many of the Republicans who have added this action to their metaphor blender were also the ones clamoring the loudest for vigorous investigations of national security leaks. But reality simply isn’t solid enough to hold back the vast Republican opportunism on display this week. Whatever cranky point Republicans had been making against President Obama for the last five years — dishonesty, socialism, jackbooted tyranny — they somehow found that these incidents were exactly the proof they had been seeking, no matter how inflated or distorted.

And it drones on. If only, if only, if only… we could have similar articles during the Bush years. But the Bush administration wasn’t as corrupt and the NY Times was reduced to 40+ days above the fold coverage of Abu Ghraib, which was somehow all Bush/Cheney/Halliburton’s doing.

And read the comments! You can really learn a lot from the comments.

Update: The rest of us live in a parallel universe, as the Wall Street Journal demonstrates:

We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they’re seeing. The Justice Department assault on the Associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration’s credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don’t look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the president enjoyed is gone.

Something big has shifted. The standing of the administration has changed.

As always it comes down to trust. Do you trust the president’s answers when he’s pressed on an uncomfortable story? Do you trust his people to be sober and fair-minded as they go about their work? Do you trust the IRS and the Justice Department? You do not.

The president, as usual, acts as if all of this is totally unconnected to him. He’s shocked, it’s unacceptable, he’ll get to the bottom of it. He read about it in the papers, just like you.

But he is not unconnected, he is not a bystander. This is his administration. Those are his executive agencies. He runs the IRS and the Justice Department.

A president sets a mood, a tone. He establishes an atmosphere. If he is arrogant, arrogance spreads. If he is to too partisan, too disrespecting of political adversaries, that spreads too. Presidents always undo themselves and then blame it on the third guy in the last row in the sleepy agency across town.

So we have reality, represented by The Wall Street Journal and that long river in Egypt, Denial, represented by the NY Times. And since the two groups don’t socialize, or work together, or read the same newspapers, each side is mystified and pissed-off by the other.

- Aggie

Blue moons or hen’s teeth, Palestinian Arab elections are rare indeed:

The Palestinians haven’t elected a president since 2005, but now they are finally getting a chance to do so – virtually – thanks to a hit reality TV show.

“The President” is broadcast weekly on Maan TV, a popular independent Palestinian TV station. It offers contestants a chance to address the Palestinian people on what they would do on a variety of subjects if elected president.

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Thousands of young Palestinians who applied to take part in the show have been whittled down to 15. A winner will be crowned in the finale scheduled for late June and get to travel the world as a mock Palestinian ambassador – and perhaps win a car as well.

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In their 20 years of limited self-rule, the Palestinians have had just two presidential elections. In 1996, longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was elected for a five-year term. He ruled without another election until he died in 2004. The following year, Mahmoud Abbas was elected for a four-year term. He’s been in power ever since with no elections in sight.

Critics accuse Abbas of planning on following Arafat’s example, planning to rule until he dies. Abbas has no deputy, and his popular prime minister, Salam Fayyad, recently resigned in a power struggle with the president.

Abbas says he is willing to conduct elections, but first he needs to end the internal split between his government, based in the West Bank, and the Islamic militant Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip. Talks have been going on for years without any significant progress. Abbas hopes to establish an independent state that includes both territories.

No significant progress? What do you call this?

A reconciliation is in sight between the divided factions governing the Palestinians, as Hamas announced it has reached a deal with rival Fatah regarding the formation of a new unity government within three months.

Hamas’s deputy politburo chief, Musa Abu Marzook, spoke with the Palestinian news agency Ma’an and claimed that representatives from both sides have decided to go forward with the deal in wake of the talks held in Cairo.

Abu Marzook described the talks as “positive” and clamed the two Palestinian factions succeeded in finalizing the reconciliation agreement between them, as well as agreeing on its implementation until July.

See? “Positive” talks! All of you doubters just wait till July comes along. The Arabs of Gaza, Judea, and Samaria will be so “reconciled”, there will be mixed bowling leagues, camping trips, and pot luck dinners sooner than you think.

Elections are overrated anyway. The so-called Palestinians have done just fine with two in 20 years. Look what we in America do to ourselves with our biannual mess. ObamaCare and the IRS do not argue well for representative democracy.

IRS plays CYA:

The IRS official who led the tax-exempt organizations unit when Tea Party groups were targeted is now in charge of the IRS office responsible for ObamaCare, two Capitol Hill sources tell Fox News.

The acknowledgement fueled criticism of the agency and led one prominent Republican senator to call for the IRS to be blocked from implementing the health care law.

In a statement from Texas Sen. John Cornyn touting his plan to block the IRS from receiving money to implement part of the health care law, he said “now more than ever, we need to prevent the IRS from having any role in Americans’ health care.”

Sarah Hall Ingram had been serving as commissioner of the office responsible for tax exempt organizations from 2009 to 2012, and has since left to serve as director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act division. While still the commissioner of the Tax-Exempt and Government Entities Division, she was assigned to head the implementation of ObamaCare at the IRS in 2010 after the law was enacted. It is not clear when she stopped being the head of the tax-exempt office or how active her role was there while she was implementing ObamaCare.

But the official who succeeded her, Joseph Grant, is now leaving the agency in the wake of the scandal. His retirement was announced Thursday, even though he only took the job May 8.

Panic. I understand why, but absolute panic. But then this whole administration has been like spinning plates. Things were bound to come crashing down eventually.