Obama Snubs Billy Graham Funeral

It should come as no surprise the World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer has no plans to attend the funeral service for the late evangelist Billy Graham. The best he could muster was a tweet for the fallen spiritual leader.

Contrary to his claims of sharing the faith of Americans, he showed his contempt by referring to working-class voters as, “bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

His administration engaged in an eight-year-long campaign of political payback and heavy-handed bullying and intimidation by the IRS that specifically targeted their political enemies.

One of its enemies was America’s pastor.

The IRS sent agents to review the tax-exempt status of Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in the fall of 2012 because they purchased newspaper ads urging voters to support candidates "who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel."

Billy Graham’s son, Franklin, sent a letter to President Obama outlining how Samaritan's Purse and the BGEA were the subjects of an IRS probe during the 2012 campaign season.

"In light of what the IRS admitted to on Friday, May 10, 2013, and subsequent revelations from other sources, I do not believe the IRS audit of our two organizations last year was a coincidence─or justifiable. I am bringing this to your attention because I believe that someone in the Administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us. This is morally wrong and unethical─indeed some would call it 'un-American.'"

Soon after, Attorney General Eric Holder stated the Federal Bureau of Investigation would look into what was happening at the IRS during the 2012 election season.  Holder failed to conduct a criminal investigation of the IRS or enforce the contempt citation issued against Lois Lerner by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

According to a published report by Forbes, “Congressional leaders fumed when sources indicated no criminal charges would be filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation following a lengthy investigation into tax exempt organization scandal. Reportedly, investigators never found evidence of political bias or "enemy hunting" that are considered to be criminal. No criminal charges were ever filed against any IRS employee or official related to this scandal.”

The report continues, “The DOJ advised Congress that it was closing its investigation and confirmed it would not recommend criminal charges against Lois Lerner or any IRS official. The investigation found ‘substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted them based on their political viewpoints’ inside IRS. ‘Poor management,’ said Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, ‘is not a crime.’"

Personally, I’m elated Obama will not attend.  As his legacy edges ever closer to the dust bin of history, his attendance would only show how weak and insignificant a man he is.  If he wonders why our nation is so divided he need only remember his role in those divisions.

Livestreaming House Oversight Committee DOJ Testimony In Lost IRS Emails

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We Has Nothing To Apologizes For!

John Koskinen

Cross posted at Proof Positive

#BarackTology: Millennials Rank The Top Obama Scandals

Students on the campus of George Mason University picked the NSA collection of data, the president’s lie that “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” and the IRS targeting of conservatives as the top Obama scandals in a parody bracket released Friday.

Campus Reform asked students to fill out a scandal-based bracket ranging from Benghazi and Fast and Furious to the IRS targeting of conservatives and the NSA’s collection of data.

“It’s pretty incredible actually, I didn't realize how many scandals were going on,” said one student.

Another millennial advanced the IRS scandal because “that’s probably how [Obama] got into office.”

The “Elite Eight” choices are:

1. Benghazi

2. Obama’s “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” promise

3. DOJ spying on AP reporters

4. The Fast and Furious gun-running scandal

5. IRS targeting conservative groups

6. The botched rollout of Healthcare.gov

7. Obama bypassing Congress to delay elements of Obamacare

8. NSA collection of citizens’ email and phone data

Tweet your picks @CampusReform, #BarackTology

CNN Cheerleaders Devastated; Snowballing Scandals Begin To Manifest Themselves

We learned today that a CNN poll is showing that the errand boy sent by grocery clerks cannot be trusted.  He’s dishonest, untrustworthy, a liar.

57% of those polled disagree with his views on the size and power of the federal government and 53% say he cannot manage the government effectively.  No shit, Dick Tracy.

This poll, coming from the same people that have habitually showed better presidential approval numbers than any other pollster, reveals that this remarkably absent president is at his lowest rating in more than a year-and-a-half.

The CNN/ORC International survey released Monday morning comes as the White House has been reacting to controversies over a massive U.S. government surveillance program; the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups who applied for tax-exempt status; the administration's handling of last September's attack in Benghazi that left the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans dead; and the Justice Department's secret collection of journalists' phone records as part of a government investigation into classified leaks.

The poll indicates that for the first time in Obama’s presidency, half of the public says they don't believe he is honest and trustworthy. And Americans are split on the controversial National Security Agency anti-terrorism program to record metadata on U.S. phone calls, but they support the NSA program that targets records of Internet usage by people in other countries. That doesn't mean they necessarily like what is going on: Just over six in 10 believe that government is so large and powerful that it threatens the rights and freedoms of ordinary Americans.

Gee, I hope this news doesn’t hurt his chances for reelection.  I kid.

Old McBama’s Farm Of Scandals

On Friday, May 31, 2013 Sen. Rand Paul brought the funny while he outlined his vision for the growth of the Republican Party to a sold-out crowd at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

Moments after taking the podium, he began drilling the Obama Administration over the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny last year.

“You know, I hardly know where to start. It’s kind of like Old MacDonald’s farm of scandals,” said Paul. “Here a scandal, there a scandal, everywhere a scandal.”

(My apologies to artist Grant Wood for parodying his 1930 American Gothic painting.  I simply couldn’t resist.)

Hearing from some top Hill sources that IRS scandal about to explode. Low-level agency workers miffed at being blamed. About to return fire.
— Joseph Curl (@josephcurl) June 3, 2013

The Art Of Deceit And The Paid Liar

There was an interesting exchange between House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and CNN’s R2DoubleD2 today on the cable new channel’s “State of the Union” program.

Issa’s bluntness was uplifting.  The scandal surrounding the IRS’s decision to target Tea Party groups was, he believes, “mostly likely the employees in the Cincinnati IRS offices were acting on orders from Washington, DC.

Issa said, “The administration is still—their paid liar, their spokesperson, picture behind, he’s still making up things about what happen[ed] and calling this local rogue.” [Emphasis mine.]

“The reason that Lois Lerner tried to take the Fifth [Amendment] is not because there’s a rogue in Cincinnati,” he added. “It’s because this is a problem that was coordinated. in all likelihood, right out of Washington headquarters.”

On May 21, Carney said: “I think that the tenor of the president’s public comments about it, both in his statement Tuesday night and his public comments the next day reflect his feelings upon learning about the apparent conduct by our IRS officials in Cincinnati.” A day earlier, Carney discussed “matters involving the office in Cincinnati” in an exchange about when the White House learned of the episode.

IRS officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. So, the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati, where IRS official Lois Lerner initially said actions were undertaken by “front-line people.”

An IRS employee was asked if the scandal could be the work of a few local rogue agents. "It's impossible," the employee said. "As an agent we are controlled by many, many people. We have to submit many, many reports. So the chance of two agents being rogue and doing things like that could never happen."

The interrogator then asked: "With respect to the particular scrutiny that was given to Tea Party applications, those directions emanated from Washington, is that right?"

"I believe so," the IRS employee said.

See also:  A smoking gun on IRS scandal? An IRS takeover of health care?

Rumpswab Who Is Not Good At Math Also Not Good At Law

On Friday, May 10, 2013 Lois Lerner, head of the IRS Tax-Exempt Unit, apologized for targeting conservative groups by improperly delaying and scrutinizing their applications for tax-exempt status at a conference held by the American Bar Association.

The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty and Zachary Goldfarb noted, “The IRS’s subsequent conference call with reporters was clumsily handled. At one point, Lerner attempted to do arithmetic on the phone and blurted out: ‘I’m not good at math.’”

The following Wednesday, Lerner gave an opening statement before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in which she lied about lying about having done nothing wrong.

 

“I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee,” Lerner said.

Upon the advice of her attorney she then invoked her constitutional right to plead the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination and declined to testify.

Trey Gowdy, who sits on committee dealing with the IRS scandal objected saying, “Mr. Issa, Mr. Cummings just said we should run this like a courtroom, and I agree with him. She just testified. She just waived her Fifth Amendment right to privilege. You don't get to tell your side of the story and then not be subjected to cross examination. That's not the way it works. She waived her Fifth Amendment privilege by issuing an open statement. She ought to stand here and answer our questions.”

The fact that she restated some of the same answers she gave the inspector general during his investigation prompted the panel’s chairman Darrell Issa to remark, “At this point, I believe you have not asserted your rights, but have effectively waived your rights.”

And the stench we are smelling is from the collective pants-shitting of the regime.

On next year's 1040, I'm gonna scrawl "I'M ON ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE" in crayon.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 23, 2013

Photoshop™ Of The Day: Drunk With Power