Damage.

As could be expected, the folks in the [IRS] determinations unit on Main Street have had trouble concentrating this week. Number crunchers, whose work is nonpolitical, don’t necessarily enjoy the spotlight, especially when the media and the public assume they’re engaged in partisan villainy. “We’re not political,’’ said one determinations staffer in khakis as he [...]

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The record

I understand that the posts today have focused a lot on the political talk show circuit, and some of the material being covered has some cross-over elements to it, so I apologize for that. But this one really does deserve a hearing of its own, particularly given the new “gotcha” talking points being foisted on [...]

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Scandalmania.

Any hunches as to what’ll be front and center on this morning’s shows? Top Obama crony Dan Pfeiffer will appear on NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and probably the Food Network if they’ll have him to spin the IRS scandal, Benghazi, the DOJ’s Associated Press probe, Sebelius’s shakedown of health-industry execs, and whatever new scandal [...]

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Abuse.

So many people are sad about America and cynical about its government. They don’t expect anything good to happen. They think certain poisons have entered the system and nothing can be done about it. Leviathan will not be cut back or tamed, Leviathan will go on abusing the citizen. People are all too willing to [...]

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Trust.

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 [...]

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Plus ... "targeting" is bad, mm-kay?

As the New York Times’ Jonathan Weisman said 90 minutes into the hearing, this was one of the few really interesting revelations at today’s grilling of IRS Commissioner Steve Miller.  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 [...]

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"This is devastating."

An instant classic via NRO. If you’re tempted to pat him on the back for this sharp lurch back towards skepticism of government, consider two things. One: I don’t think he’s changed his mind on background checks, the IRS’s malfeasance notwithstanding. His complaint appears to be more rhetorical than substantive — i.e., it’s unfortunate that [...]

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"Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve kind of enjoyed it.”

No, really, Jay Carney would like to know.  Even though he only showed his face in the briefing room twice this week, and even though the White House press corps used him as a punching bag, Barack Obama’s press secretary wants you to know he’s really enjoyed having to address this avalanche of scandals.  Wait [...]

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"It would be a mistake to treat this as just one scandal."

The hearing was supposed to start at 9 ET in the House Ways and Means Oversight subcommittee, but it got started a little late. First up — former acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller, who just got forcibly retired about a month early. CBS News has a live embed for those wanting to follow along: CBS [...]

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Payback?

If it’s true, it would be the first time anyone has linked the issue in any way to the White House.  Lanny Davis writes in The Hill today that he’s heard White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler knew for “several weeks” without informing Barack Obama, and she needs to resign … if his sources are correct. So who [...]

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Politics.

Republicans must guard against the temptation to count on scandal to deliver election victories in 2014 and 2016. It is a lesson they should have learned in 1998.
 Republicans expected to make large gains in Congress that year but ended up losing five House seats and standing pat in the Senate. The problem was not [...]

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“Evasive and misleading from the start.”

Jeff Zeleny asks good questions of Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), who will chair the hearings in the Oversight subcommittee of Ways and Means into the IRS scandal.  Not coincidentally, Boustany was the person who asked then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman explicitly in March 2012 whether IRS agents were targeting conservative groups for extra scrutiny and harassment.  Boustany [...]

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"This administration has created a culture of intimidation.”

But – but – but – he fired a guy who was leaving next month anyway! Shouldn’t that count for something? Apparently not with Marco Rubio, who offered a few dot connections on Fox News this morning between the IRS and AP scandals — and hinted that more may be coming in the former: “The [...]

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Frightening, anyway.

Really? Was the IRS impotent when it blocked hundreds of applications from conservative groups for tax-exempt status over three years while allowing applications from progressive groups to sail through? Was the Department of Justice impotent when it seized the phone records from multiple Associated Press offices over a leak investigation?  Not exactly; the only impotence [...]

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Attacking free speech and religious liberty as far back as 2009?

The Inspector General of the Treasury reported this week that the IRS began applying extra scrutiny and conducting harassment of Obama administration opponents as early as March 2010. However, for at least two pro-life groups, that scrutiny appears to have started a year earlier. Joel Gehrke reports that one group was told its tax-exempt application [...]

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"They simply did what their bosses ordered."

Last night, Barack Obama tried to take control of the narrative on one of the scandals that have rocked his administration by announcing that IRS Commissioner Steve Miller had resigned by request of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.  As it turns out, Miller was leaving in a month anyway, but the outgoing IRS chief took the [...]

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Damage control.

More than 50 major media organizations on Tuesday sent a letter to the Department of Justice protesting the seizure of two months of The Associated Press’ phone records and calling for the department to “mitigate the damage it has caused.” In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney James M. Cole, the [...]

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Oof.

Of course a day like today — replete with the incoming details of administrative scandals fraught with authoritative overreach and corruption — could, for this guy, only end with one possible explanation for all of the complaints about President Obama’s governing prowess. When in doubt, revert to that ol’ progressive standby: Racism and white supremacy, [...]

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Motivation.

Actually, let’s give the first word on this subject to Politico’s editorial cartoonist Matt Wuerker, who as Joe Wiesenthal pointed out on Twitter is one of the few to capture the irony of the IRS targeting of the Tea Party: Now, er … what was that again at the Washington Post? The Internal Revenue Service’s decision [...]

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Preach.

During an interview on Fox on Tuesday night, Sen. Rubio some poignant thoughts about the wildly nefarious nature of the several scandalizing stories currently bleeding out of the Obama administration: Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com I can tell you that what’s become clearly apparent is a culture throughout the federal government — not just [...]

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"Part of being president is there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast."

Via NRO, I flagged this in the last thread but it needs its own post. How desperate are O’s cronies that they’re now willing to dance on this rhetorical and ideological landmine in the name of protecting him? Conn Carroll flags this passage from Politico’s piece today about the dangerous new narrative developing for The [...]

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"Now, my question isn't about who's going to resign."

Tough talk or real action?  John Boehner held a press conference earlier today that emphasized the IRS scandal’s potentially criminal nature.  Rather than wondering whether heads should roll, Boehner said the real question is whether butts should land in jail (video via Gateway Pundit): The admitted targeting of conservative groups applying for tax exempt status [...]

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Disqualifiers.

Politico reported earlier today that Washington DC has begun to turn against Barack Obama and his administration.  Thanks to Obama’s own arrogance, write Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, he has little good will inside the Beltway anyway, and that leaves him with few passionate defenders in the latest scandal cascade: The town is turning on [...]

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How ... meta.

In order to understand just how badly the White House may have fumbled this ball, let’s go back to last week.  Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard reported from Congressional sources on a White House-State Department e-mail string that made clear that the administration wanted the talking points on Benghazi massaged to protect sources and [...]

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Liberal groups got a lot more ... competence.

After the report from the Inspector General dropped yesterday in the IRS scandal, some media outlets seized on the analysis within it that incompetence and poor training led agents to target conservative groups for excessive scrutiny and harassment.  If so, an analysis by USA Today shows that to be a rather selective form of incompetence. [...]

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