No ordinary scandal
Peggy Noonan‘s latest WSJ blog post is a blistering attack on the Obama administration’s use of the IRS as a bludgeon to intimidate, censor, and silence political opponents. It is an essential read for anyone interested in policy and politics.
The IRS scandal has two parts. The first is the obviously deliberate and targeted abuse, harassment and attempted suppression of conservative groups. The second is the auditing of the taxes of political activists. …
This is not about the usual partisan slugfest. This is about the integrity of our system of government and our ability to trust, which is to say our ability to function.
Axelrod has (accidentally) sided with the Tea Party
This video is classic Chicago-style politics. Pass the buck, blame someone else, don’t look behind the curtain, just focus on the spin and everything will be fine.
Sad thing for David Axelrod is that he apparently doesn’t even realize he has just given the Libertarians and the Tea Party their winning 2014 election soundbite. Watch the video; you’ll see.
Yes, you did just hear Axelrod argue that that President Obama can’t possibly be to blame for the IRS scandal (and by logical extension – Benghazi, Fast & Furious, the Justice Department seizing two months of AP phone records, the brewing EPA scandal, etc., etc., etc.) because the government is “so vast” that it is impossible to track what happens in these diverse and sundry bureaucracies.
“So vast” were his words – e’nuf said.
But for those who might have missed the obvious … THAT”S THE WHOLE POINT!!! That’s exactly why supporters of limited government are pushing to have all of this addressed, taxes cut, the bureaucracy limited. Government has passed the point of accountability and effective, efficient, Constitutional service to “we the people.” By Axelrod’s own admission government has become a massive, gaping hole, where responsibility and accountability go to die – along with multiple trillions of our tax dollars.
When pro-big government socialists like Axelrod are openly admitting government is “so vast” that no one can know what it is doing, it really is time to cut budgets on a massive scale.
A seismic shift in the burden of proof from “tinfoil behatted” to the government
I posted yesterday about the gross miscarriages of justice by the “Justice” Department, the IRS, and the State Department. (Of course, I forgot to include the even more overt criminal acts carried out by the Justice Department as part of their Fast and Furious scandal where the federal government effectively supplied thousands of firearms to drug cartels. Those firearms were then directly involved in the death of US Border Guard, Brian Terry and hundreds of Mexican citizens.)
Today we are learning that the EPA routinely played politics in their handling of fee waivers for environmental groups and politically conservative groups. The Competitive Enterprise Institute noted today that,
It’s not just the IRS that treats groups on the right differently from the rest. According to documents obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Environmental Protection Agency is in on it too.
Public records produced by EPA in response to a lawsuit filed by CEI under the Freedom of Information Act illustrate a pattern of making it far more difficult for limited-government groups – in particular those who argue for more freedom and less EPA – to access public records. …
EPA routinely grants … fee waivers to its favored left-wing groups who demand a more intrusive and powerful EPA, but systematically denies waivers for groups on the right, according to research compiled by CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner, author of “The Liberal War on Transparency.”
In a review of letters granting or denying fee waivers granted at the “initial determination” stage from January 2012 to this Spring, Horner found green groups, such as the National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and EarthJustice, had their fees waived in 75 out of 82 cases. Meanwhile, EPA effectively or expressly denied Horner’s request for fee waivers in 14 of 15 FOIA requests over this same time.
It seems that many of the federal government bureaucracies are now infested with career employees who feel quite comfortable playing political games with citizens and taxpayers. The actions of these government employees necessarily lead reasonable people to believe that government is working hand in glove with left-wing political and environmental groups to further so-called progressive world views.
When even John Stewart is saying that the partisan, corrupt, and possibly even criminal behavior of these government employees is encouraging the very anti-government mindset that so many progressives have derided as lunatic fringe, you know that it is well past time for Congress to step in and clear up this mess.
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Barack Trek: Into Darkness | ||||
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Investigations, firings, fines/loss of pensions, and jail time need to become real possibilities for government employees and managers that refuse to follow the Constitution, legislation, and regulations.
Justice Department seizes AP phone records
I don’t care who you are, who you voted for, what you believe … etc. When you start adding these reports together, it’s time for reasonable people to start asking some serious questions about what is going on in our federal government.
The IRS has admitted to targeting conservative non-profits, and now this article indicates that the IRS may have released the unapproved applications from conservative groups to Propublica, a generally left-leaning news organization. Propublica admits to having published redacted examples of those applications.
Furthermore, the Obama administration abandoned consulate staff in Benghazi and then repeatedly edited their reports and talking points about the Benghazi attack for several weeks, prompting House investigations into their actions. Those investigations are ongoing, while the Obama administration claims they are politically motivated “circus.”
To top off the questionable performance of this current administration, we learned today that the Justice Department secretly collected two months of phone records for more than 20 separate Associated Press telephone lines last year.
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.
In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.
Of course no one should miss the sick irony of this all coming to light a short time after the President told Ohio State students that they should “reject the voices” that warn of government tyranny.
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 do their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.
On statism
The worst of this ever growing cancer of Statism is its moral effect. The country is rich enough to stand its frightful economic wastage for a long time yet, and still prosper, but it is already so poverty-stricken in its moral resources that the present drain will quickly run them out.
A brigand or an emperor
Set aside justice, then, and what are kingdoms but great bands of brigands? For what are brigands’ bands but little kingdoms? For in brigandage the hands of the underlings are directed by the commander, the confederacy of them is sworn together, and the pillage is shared by law among them. And if those ragamuffins grow up to be able enough to keep forts, build habitations, possess cities, and conquer adjoining nations, then their government is no longer called brigandage, but graced with the eminent name of a kingdom, given and gotten not because they have left their practices but because they use them without danger of law. Elegant and excellent was that pirate’s answer to the great Macedonian Alexander, who had taken him; the king asking him how he durst molest the seas so, he replied with a free spirit: “How darest thou molest the whole earth? But because I do it only with a little ship, I am called brigand: thou doing it with a great navy art called emperor.”
Polar spirits
This video brings back lots of memories of the time that I lived in Fort Nelson, BC (in the far north of British Columbia). We used to get northern lights shows like this on a regular basis. We would sit out in the field at the end of Airport Dr./Cessna Way (on the home pads) and watch them for hours.
Fort Bliss Announces Military’s Largest Solar Power Project
Here’s a recent PSR News article that I prepared after sitting in on an April 5 Fort Bliss press conference. Photos are copyright 2013 PSR News, by Robert Cunningham. Originally published on PSRNews.com.
By: Jason Hayes, Editor-in-chief PSR News Intl. (www.psrnews.com)
Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard discusses the planned development of a 20MW solar array at Fort Bliss – Copyright 2013 PSR News Intl. Photo by Robert Cunningham
If Army Major General Dana Pittard seemed to show just a hint of pride as he opened his April 5th press conference, he undoubtedly had reason. Pittard that day had the honor of announcing the Army’s historical move to build the largest single renewable energy installation in the U.S. military.
Pittard led off the announcement of the planned $120 million, 20 MW solar array at Fort Bliss, Texas by recounting the 10 km run he had enjoyed with soldiers and members of the surrounding community earlier that morning. Pittard noted that the solar project was intimately linked with a base wide initiative to improve the health and well being of his soldiers and to lead the country as the “most fit, healthy, and resilient community in America.” Continue reading
A political standard of right and wrong
“There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong…. In fact it is only reestablishing under another name and a more specious form, force as the measure of right.”
–James Madison, letter to James Monroe, 1786
Dr. Os Guinness: “A Free People’s Suicide”
Powerful words on the well-being of the American experiment. We are faltering because we have forgotten what made us unique and successful. We have embraced libertinism and a post-modernistic refusal to accept responsibility for our actions. We can remain successful if we return to our founding ideals.
Dr. Os Guinness: “A Free People’s Suicide” from Socrates in the City on Vimeo.
Rep. Andy Harris questions head of CDC over vaccination cuts
This testimony from the head of the CDC demonstrates clearly how brazenly this White House and senior administration officials will use the health and welfare of children to advance their political goals.
In his questions to the head of the CDC, Rep. Andy Harris demonstrates that President Obama’s suggested budget projected spending cuts in the CDC’s 317 program of over $58 million. The CDC believed that, despite those cuts, they would be able to maintain current levels of vaccination. However, cuts of $30 million, brought on by sequestration-based spending limitations, caused CDC officials to state that they would have to cease providing vaccinations to over 2,000 children in the state of Maryland.
I’ll restate in simpler language so the math-deficient among us can understand. The CDC says it could weather a $58 million cut, if President Obama was the one making the cut. However, since the Obama administration wants to reinforce the idea that sequestration cuts are the Republican’s fault and that they are going make the sequestration as painful as possible for the average person on the street, Obama administration employees in the CDC were willing to let $30 million in sequestration cuts decimate Maryland’s vaccination program.
So, which side is playing politics with the health of children?