HotAir Daily Express 05/17/2013



Woodward: Don’t dismiss Benghazi as a scandal 5/17/2013 10:01:59 AM  Ed Morrissey 40 Comments We heard from one half of the Watergate-exposing journalistic duo this week on the AP scandal, and now the other half weighs in on the supposedly waning Benghazi debate.  The White House released 100 pages of e-mails that went around the administration More... Open thread: IRS hearings open on Capitol Hill, with live embed 5/17/2013 9:16:39 AM  Ed Morrissey 112 Comments 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 More... Lanny Davis: Did WH counsel know IRS was targeting conservatives? 5/17/2013 8:41:55 AM  Ed Morrissey 78 Comments 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 More... Russia sending anti-ship cruise missiles to Assad 5/17/2013 8:01:50 AM  Ed Morrissey 57 Comments Last week, rumors began to swirl that Russia would sell Bashar al-Assad missile systems that would allow Syria to fight any NATO or US attempt to impose a no-fly zone.  Russia immediately denied it, which of course means that that’s exactly what More... DO YOU OPPOSE OBAMACARE? If you´re part of the 75% that does??? if you believe in personal liberty, free markets and small government… then stand with House Republicans and Capitol Hill Daily as we take one last all-out stand for the full repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act.  Don???t wait one more second to SIGN THE PETITION. Quotes of the day 5/16/2013 10:41:45 PM  Allahpundit 619 Comments 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 More... Reports: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev note found in boat points to mystifying motive we may never truly understand 5/16/2013 10:01:28 PM  Mary Katharine Ham 88 Comments CBS’ John Miller broke the story this morning of a note written in pen on the inside of the boat where Tsarnaev lay wounded before he was captured by police: “Basically the note says that he does not mourn his brother Tamerlan, that Tamerlan was a More... IRS official in charge during Tea Party targeting now runs agency’s Obamacare office 5/16/2013 9:21:01 PM  Mary Katharine Ham 163 Comments The second IRS guy who got the boot in this scandal? He’s been in his position for a week. Before that, it was Sarah Hall Ingram: The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea More... Good news: John Edwards is returning to the speaking circuit 5/16/2013 8:41:11 PM  Mary Katharine Ham 56 Comments Let the rehabilitation begin! The former U.S. senator and 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee from North Carolina is scheduled to appear June 6 at a private retreat in Orlando, Fla., for lawyer clients of the marketing firm PMP… Edwards has More... Sharyl Attkisson on Benghazi: “The media’s not always consistent in the vigor that they use to pursue a given topic” 5/16/2013 8:01:39 PM  Allahpundit 105 Comments Via the Brody File, here’s big-media’s most dogged Benghazi reporter confirming, as tactfully as she can, that she too thinks the press is in the tank. Lest you doubt her conclusion about a certain, shall we say, curious incuriosity among her More... Pelosi: These Republicans are too consumed with “evasions” to worry about the real issue, which is … jobs 5/16/2013 7:21:21 PM  Allahpundit 100 Comments Via Mediaite, I don’t know what to say, guys. Actual quote: “This president — they make so much of these issues because this president is such a great president,” Pelosi told reporters during her weekly press briefing. “They will use talking points More... CNN: US updates plan for “capture or kill” mission in Libya over Benghazi attack 5/16/2013 6:41:02 PM  Ed Morrissey 66 Comments Ahem. Didn’t Barack Obama warn American news agencies that all your phone records are belong to us if they published leaks about US intel and military efforts?  Oh, wait — that apparently doesn’t apply to stories that make the White More... ABC: Yes, it’s true, the acting IRS commissioner was preparing to leave in a few weeks anyway; Update: Second IRS official to step down; Update: Was promoted last week? 5/16/2013 6:01:21 PM  Allahpundit 55 Comments We already knew last night that he was planning to leave, rendering O’s big IRS scalp-taking a joke, but what we didn’t know for sure was whether the White House was aware that Miller was inching towards the exit. Answer: Yep, they were. His More... Obama to Marines: Hey, come here and hold an umbrella over me and Erdogan, will you? 5/16/2013 5:21:17 PM  Allahpundit 360 Comments Via Greg Hengler, I’m sure this has been done before by other presidents, simply because the optics are sufficiently bad that Team O wouldn’t have tried it without precedent to cite in its defense. Free advice to future administrations, then: More... Uh oh: Second appeals court invalidates Obama’s questionable “recess” appointments 5/16/2013 4:41:06 PM  Mary Katharine Ham 70 Comments Remember that time in 2012 when President Obama unilaterally declared the Senate in recess so he could make “recess” appointments? During the “recess,” he appointed three people to the National Labor Relations Board and More... Devin Nunes’s office clarifies: No, the DOJ didn’t wiretap the cloakroom in the House of Representatives 5/16/2013 4:01:53 PM  Allahpundit 60 Comments Duane Patterson’s Greenroom transcript of Nunes’s chat with Hugh Hewitt was accurate, but Nunes’s claims were not. Which seemed likely at the time: If the GOP was sitting on a scoop about Eric Holder’s deputies bugging More... WH: Golly, if we had a shield law, we wouldn’t have broken the other laws in AP records scandal, or something; Update: SPJ not buying it 5/16/2013 3:21:44 PM  Ed Morrissey 64 Comments More than a few people have claimed that the lack of a press shield law allowed the Department of Justice to seize phone records by the bushelful from the Associated Press.  David Ignatius made that claim in his lament over the impotence of a federal More... The Ed Morrissey Show: Guy Benson, Steven Crowder 5/16/2013 2:51:39 PM  Ed Morrissey 20 Comments Today on The Ed Morrissey Show (4 pm ET), Guy Benson brings us up to date on the goings-on inside the nation’s capital, and Steven Crowder returns to discuss his latest video efforts. Bring an umbrella! The Ed Morrissey Show and its dynamic More... Boustany: “A culture of rot going on at the IRS” 5/16/2013 2:41:09 PM  Ed Morrissey 61 Comments 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 More... WaPo: CIA asked AP not to expose Yemen terror plot bust until White House was ready to crow about it publicly 5/16/2013 2:01:45 PM  Allahpundit 137 Comments The whole point of Holder’s presser on Tuesday, I thought, was to stress that the DOJ had to take extraordinary action in subpoenaing the AP’s phone records because the leak itself was so extraordinary. The clear impression was that the More... Great news: US has misplaced two former Witness Protection Program participants “known or suspected as terrorists”; Update: Failed to update no-fly lists? 5/16/2013 1:21:55 PM  Ed Morrissey 125 Comments The good news for the White House?  Thanks to the current scandals, this may not even get noticed.  Jake Tapper has the scoop from yet another IG bombshell: The U.S. Marshal Service has been “unable to locate” two former participants in the federal More... Rubio: Obama “doesn’t have clean hands” in IRS scandal 5/16/2013 12:41:02 PM  Ed Morrissey 156 Comments 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 More... Ignatius: Big government “frighteningly impotent” 5/16/2013 12:01:32 PM  Ed Morrissey 72 Comments 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 More... Oops: IRS’s rationale for scrutinizing tea partiers debunked by nonprofit application data 5/16/2013 11:21:42 AM  Allahpundit 112 Comments Good work by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, although we could have guessed that this was the case. Here’s what Lois Lerner said in her initial statement last week copping to the agency’s malfeasance: “We get about 60,000 applications for tax More... IRS to pro-life group: Send letter pledging not to protest Planned Parenthood to get your tax exemption 5/16/2013 10:41:45 AM  Ed Morrissey 190 Comments 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 More...

HotAir Daily Express 05/16/2013



Holder on the way out? 5/16/2013 10:01:03 AM  Ed Morrissey 35 Comments Given that Eric Holder has served the longest on Barack Obama’s Cabinet, it’s not exactly unusual that rumors would arise in a second term that the Attorney General might head out to pasture sometime soon. In fact, even Eric Holder wondered More... Schieffer: “Is anybody home?” 5/16/2013 9:21:02 AM  Ed Morrissey 72 Comments “It’s very, very disturbing what we’re seeing here,” Bob Schieffer tells Charlie Rose and Norah O’Donnell on CBS This Morning, but he’s not talking about the scandals — at least not directly.  Instead, Schieffer More... The amazing, shrinking Benghazi talking points 5/16/2013 8:41:01 AM  Ed Morrissey 89 Comments The White House finally released the e-mail string that led to the creation of the talking points for the Benghazi terrorist attack that somehow completely missed the fact that it was a terrorist attack.  Did that succeed in having the Obama More... Video: IRS scapegoats not exactly taking it lying down 5/16/2013 8:01:57 AM  Ed Morrissey 107 Comments 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 More... Quotes of the day 5/15/2013 10:41:54 PM  Allahpundit 492 Comments 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 More... The New Republic: Hey, didn’t Tea Parties kinda bring this on themselves by trying really hard to follow the law? 5/15/2013 10:11:08 PM  Mary Katharine Ham 91 Comments The IRS itself admitted wrongdoing, and President Obama declared today, “it should not matter what political stripe you’re from — the fact of the matter is, is that the IRS has to operate with absolute integrity.” But that doesn’t mean More... Womp: Eurozone dragging into its sixth straight quarter of recession 5/15/2013 9:21:24 PM  Erika Johnsen 25 Comments With no signs of recovery in sight for many of the eurozone’s member countries, the currency bloc’s collective economy has hit a new low with depression-esque conditions percolating across part of the region and Germany’s number-one More... Chris Matthews: “White supremacy” is a pretty big part of all of this opposition to Obama 5/15/2013 8:41:39 PM  Erika Johnsen 209 Comments 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 More... Document dump: White House releases 100 pages of Benghazi e-mails 5/15/2013 8:01:08 PM  Allahpundit 194 Comments Jake Tapper has all of them in PDF form. Click the link and let’s start crowdsourcing. This one’s the standout so far: “FBI says AQ (not AQIM) was involved and they are pursuing that theory.” AQIM is “Al Qaeda in the More... By the way, the feds also pushed super-broad speech codes for campuses this week 5/15/2013 7:21:25 PM  Mary Katharine Ham 78 Comments Bad news, kids, you could already be a harasser, according to the new definition. Perhaps nowhere in the nation is speech more potentially dangerous than on a college campus. Reason TV offers a great explanation: Mona Charen gives some history on this More... Holder to Issa: Your conduct as a member of Congress is really pretty shameful, you know 5/15/2013 6:41:29 PM  Erika Johnsen 151 Comments Well, this is rich. The guy who happens to be in contempt of Congress for unresolved questions and stonewalling over a deadly gunwalking scandal, and whose department is currently under investigation for tapping into a wide swath of AP journalists’ More... Open thread: Obama to address IRS scandal at 6 p.m. ET; Update: More than 75% of donations at Cincinnati IRS office went to Democrats; Update: Acting IRS commissioner resigns; Update: Was resigning anyway? 5/15/2013 5:47:00 PM  Allahpundit 485 Comments Here’s all you need to know, really: Obama to deliver statement on IRS mess at 6pm ET, will feign outrage on behalf of conservative groups he’s demonized for 5 years. — Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) May 15, 2013 While we wait, More... Media Matters: We’re not defending letting the DOJ sift through reporters’ phone records, but Media Matters is 5/15/2013 5:21:12 PM  Allahpundit 50 Comments I’m conflicted about calling them out on this, if only because some media types seem to be treating it as a betrayal of principle. Why? Carrying water for Democrats is the point of the organization. Of course they’d be apoplectic if a More... Of course: Keystone pipeline decision probably won’t be ready until early 2014 or so 5/15/2013 4:41:15 PM  Erika Johnsen 32 Comments The Obama administration has repeatedly assured the public that they were just a hop, skip, and a jump away from making a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, seeing as how its gone through years of environmental impact reviews from various sources and More... IRS commissioner: Hey, turns out it was mainly just two “rogue” employees who targeted tea partiers 5/15/2013 4:01:07 PM  Allahpundit 214 Comments Via Mediaite, it took a few days but at last we have some fall guys. It’s ludicrous, of course, to think the problem was limited to two people — the IG report last night specifically blamed ineffective management and, as Guy Benson reminds More... WaPo wonders: Could IRS scandal re-ignite the Tea Party? 5/15/2013 3:21:07 PM  Ed Morrissey 140 Comments 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 … More... The Ed Morrissey Show: Matt Lewis, Mary Katharine Ham 5/15/2013 2:53:53 PM  Ed Morrissey 1 Comments Today on The Ed Morrissey Show (4 pm ET), the Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis joins us to discuss the emerging theme of President Passerby, and whether Tom Ridge was an enabler of Kermit Gosnell. Mary Katharine Ham join me today to discuss the latest in More... Holder: I can’t remember when I recused myself from the AP investigation, and I know I didn’t do it in writing 5/15/2013 2:41:53 PM  Allahpundit 244 Comments Sounds legit. AG Holder says he did not inform WH he recused himself in @ap case, did not do so in writing and cannot say when he did so. — Kelly O’Donnell (@KellyO) May 15, 2013 Twitter is blowing up over this right now. Stand by for More... Great news: Government salt intake guidelines useless, may even be dangerous 5/15/2013 2:01:16 PM  Ed Morrissey 49 Comments Alternate headline: Nanny state hardest hit.  After years of government warnings that Americans must lower sodium levels in their diet to avoid heart disease and strokes, a new study commissioned by the CDC finds that the 1500-mg level long championed by More... Rubio: These are the kinds of scandals you see in the third world 5/15/2013 1:21:10 PM  Erika Johnsen 134 Comments 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 More... Axelrod: How could Obama know what his underlings were doing when the government’s so big? 5/15/2013 12:41:45 PM  Allahpundit 182 Comments 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 More... Boehner: IRS scandal question is “who’s going to jail?” 5/15/2013 12:01:23 PM  Ed Morrissey 170 Comments 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 More... Today’s meme: Obama’s too passive and disinterested to have had a direct role in these scandals 5/15/2013 11:21:46 AM  Allahpundit 226 Comments I had the same thought as Matt Lewis when reading through the news this morning. There’s too much smoke now from the IRS, DOJ/AP, and Benghazi scandals to pretend there’s no fire. If you’re sympathetic to O, it’s time to shift More... NYT, WaPo, USA Today editorial boards blast Obama over seizure of AP phone records 5/15/2013 10:41:25 AM  Ed Morrissey 137 Comments 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 More...

HotAir Daily Express 05/15/2013



Video: Jon Stewart notably unimpressed with Obama’s executive ability 5/15/2013 10:01:22 AM  Ed Morrissey 43 Comments Has the narrative begun to turn on Barack Obama? Jon Stewart reacted last night to the string of scandals buffeting the White House over the past week, and the incredibly weak response they have generated. Both Barack Obama and Jay Carney have insisted More... Did the White House selectively leak e-mail to distort Benghazi timeline story? Update: Axelrod: Release all the Libya e-mails 5/15/2013 9:21:57 AM  Ed Morrissey 56 Comments 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 More... Selective “incompetence” in IRS scandal 5/15/2013 8:41:55 AM  Ed Morrissey 120 Comments 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 More... Holder: “I’m not sure” how many times I’ve approved seizing reporter phone records 5/15/2013 8:01:14 AM  Ed Morrissey 112 Comments Yesterday, Jay Carney held a news briefing in which he repeatedly claimed that the White House really has no idea what happens in executive branch agencies, which certainly stoked all sorts of confidence in Barack Obama’s executive abilities.  At More... Gold & Silver IRA > Start with this NO-COST Guide Obama for 4 more years. The debt continues to soar. And the Fed continues to print Dollars. Dollar loss disaster appears imminent. Learn how to protect your retirement savings today: Request this comprehensive 16-page "Insider's" Guide today — at ZERO COST or obligation. Discover how Gold and Silver safeguard from a falling dollar and protect in times of uncertainty. Start Now Before It's Too Late >> "Send Me a NO-COST Info Guide!" Quotes of the day 5/14/2013 10:41:26 PM  Allahpundit 315 Comments “For fear of stating the obvious,” Kuhnhenn began, “the White House right now is confronting a confluence of issues: Benghazi talking points, IRS reviews of political groups, Justice Department’s review of journalists’ phone records, and in every More... Video: Jon Stewart blasts Obama on IRS scandal 5/14/2013 10:01:47 PM  Mary Katharine Ham 126 Comments In which the host of “The Daily Show” expresses pretty much my entire political philosophy after suddenly realizing, hey, maybe there’s something to this whole skepticism of the federal government thing. “This has, in one seismic More... Sen. Boxer’s latest take on Benghazi: “Mirror, mirror, who cut the funding for diplomatic security”? 5/14/2013 9:21:01 PM  Erika Johnsen 140 Comments On the Senate floor earlier today, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) took a moment to try her darndest to throw the still-unfolding Benghazi saga back in the oh-so-hyper-partisan Republicans’ faces: Now, there’s a lot of talk going on about, More... Oh, lovely: Iran to preside over United Nations arms-control forum later this month 5/14/2013 8:41:55 PM  Erika Johnsen 27 Comments Every year, the oh-so-august body of international leaders at the United Nations put on a Conference on Disarmament — “established in 1979 as the single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum of the international community” — More... No, the Obama admin still isn’t charging wind companies for killing eagles 5/14/2013 8:01:57 PM  Erika Johnsen 32 Comments When it comes to enforcing the environmental laws concerning certain species of federally-protected birds, the Obama administration and their environmentalist allies have been impressively diligent in charging oil companies, coal plants, and power More... More Carney: I’m sure people in the White House were aware tea-party groups were complaining about the IRS 5/14/2013 7:21:15 PM  Allahpundit 70 Comments And no one there picked up the phone to find out from the IRS if it was true, even though Obama himself called the agency’s behavior “outrageous” yesterday, huh? The money line in the clip comes at 46 seconds in, when Carney talks about More... Limbaugh: “I live rent-free” in President Obama’s head 5/14/2013 6:41:06 PM  Erika Johnsen 115 Comments While the news of the several latest scandalous abuses of administrative authority was crashing wave-on-wave upon the White House on Monday afternoon, President Obama was otherwise occupied with wining and dining at big-money DNC fundraisers in New York More... Report: IRS targeted more conservative groups than thought 5/14/2013 6:01:38 PM  Allahpundit 342 Comments Lois Lerner’s now infamous conference-call remark about not being good at math came in the course of an exchange where she claimed that 300 or so groups had been singled out by the IRS for special scrutiny, a quarter of which had “tea More... Gosnell spared death penalty after waiving appeal 5/14/2013 5:21:47 PM  Allahpundit 84 Comments Was this a quid pro quo? I’m surprised that the court would allow a prosecutor to hold a death sentence over a defendant’s head to pressure him into giving up his right to appeal. Maybe it wasn’t: Dr. Kermit Gosnell was convicted Monday More... Former NAACP chair: It’s legit for the IRS to look at the tea party, “the Taliban wing of American politics” 5/14/2013 4:41:55 PM  Allahpundit 256 Comments Via NRO, he concedes that the IRS’s behavior has been “heavy-handed” but I’m not sure why. Can the government’s hand ever really be too heavy when targeting a Taliban-esque movement that’s “admittedly More... Carney unsure IRS did anything wrong, but positive White House, campaign had no involvement 5/14/2013 4:01:35 PM  Mary Katharine Ham 71 Comments You keep using that word “if.” I do not think it means what you think it means. The White House revealed an interesting new threshold today for determining whether a wrongdoing has occurred. In the case of the IRS scandal, an admission and More... What does the scandal cascade teach us about trust in government power? 5/14/2013 3:21:41 PM  Ed Morrissey 220 Comments Let’s step back a bit and take a longer view of the scandals erupting in Washington over the past week.  We have a hat trick of them emerging and growing, from the attempt to paper over the al-Qaeda connection to the Benghazi consulate attack, the More... The Ed Morrissey Show: Andrew Malcolm 5/14/2013 2:51:56 PM  Ed Morrissey 1 Comments Today on The Ed Morrissey Show (4 pm ET), my friend Andrew Malcolm joins us as always on today’s TEMS at 4 pm ET! The Prince of Twitter and I will discuss the DoJ’s seizure of AP phone records, the IRS scandal, and all of the hot political More... Walker, Jindal: IRS case needs a special prosecutor 5/14/2013 2:41:33 PM  Ed Morrissey 62 Comments It may not be the only case, or even the most pressing case, in need of an independent investigation, but there’s little doubt the targeting of White House opponents by the IRS needs a lot more sunlight than the Obama administration has thus far More... GOP probing Sebelius’s fundraising push: “Clear appearance of a conflict of interest” 5/14/2013 2:01:03 PM  Erika Johnsen 169 Comments Lest we forget amidst the several other scandals currently blowing up in the Obama administration’s face (it is rather difficult to keep up), last Friday we learned that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been hitting up More... Breaking: Holder recuses himself from DOJ investigation of AP phone records; Update: Already recused? 5/14/2013 1:21:13 PM  Allahpundit 177 Comments A formal presser is coming at 1:30 ET. It was supposed to start at 1 p.m. but was pushed back for unknown reasons. Hmmmm. Attorney General Eric Holder is recusing himself from the investigation into leaks made to The Associated Press, Fox News has More... Issa: No way we’re going to let Obama administration investigate the IRS by itself 5/14/2013 12:41:23 PM  Ed Morrissey 192 Comments Yesterday, Barack Obama tried to get ahead of the IRS scandal by promising a full investigation into the policy of targeting the administration’s opponents for extra scrutiny and harassment when applying for tax-exempt status for their groups. More... Report: EPA followed double standard for conservative groups too? 5/14/2013 12:01:52 PM  Allahpundit 175 Comments Don’t worry. The media will be all over this two years from now, when the head of the EPA finally comes clean. Time to add one more to the scandal scorecard? FOIA is clear that public interest groups who, by trade, obtain and broadly disseminate More... Video: These IRS and DOJ scandals are among the worst excesses I’ve seen, says … Andrea Mitchell 5/14/2013 11:21:57 AM  Allahpundit 153 Comments Via Newsbusters, if you’ve got reporters now saying stuff like this on the air at Obama TV, you’ve got something. I’m pleasantly surprised that she named two different scandals as big deals, as there seems to be a developing strategy More... IRS also targeting Jewish groups for extra scrutiny? 5/14/2013 10:41:37 AM  Ed Morrissey 117 Comments Duane linked an earlier report on the travails of the pro-Israel lobbying group Z Street and the IRS in the Green Room, but now Politico has also picked it up as part of the expanding IRS scandal.  Unlike the Tea Party/conservative targeting where More...

HotAir Daily Express 05/14/2013



Watergate reporter blasts White House for attack on media 5/14/2013 10:01:02 AM  Ed Morrissey 14 Comments It’s difficult to keep up with Scandal-o-Rama these days, isn’t it? Let’s bring in a seasoned hand in analyzing government corruption and intimidation.  Carl Bernstein appeared on Morning Joe earlier today, declaring the conduct of the More... Four Pinocchios for Obama on Benghazi terror claim 5/14/2013 9:21:45 AM  Ed Morrissey 62 Comments Yesterday, Barack Obama tried to shrug off another of the burgeoning scandals in Washington during a joint press conference with UK PM David Cameron.  Allowing the US press just one question, Obama called on the AP’s Julie Pace, and probably More... Russia arrests American diplomat in Moscow for espionage 5/14/2013 8:41:45 AM  Ed Morrissey 23 Comments Coming as it does amid tensions sparked between the US and Russian security services by the Boston Marathon bombing, this should get a big hmmmmm.  Russia took the unusual step of arresting an American attache to the US Embassy in Moscow for More... WaPo: IRS targeting of Tea Party, conservative groups also in Washington office 5/14/2013 8:01:20 AM  Ed Morrissey 191 Comments The story told by Lois Lerner in Friday’s IRS apology continues to fall apart faster than Al Capone’s audit defense.  Last night, the Washington Post revealed that the effort to target opponents of the Obama administration was not limited to More... Quotes of the day 5/13/2013 10:51:54 PM  Allahpundit 553 Comments Attorney Dan Backer, whose client TheTeaParty.net has been trying to obtain tax-exempt status since 2010, said an IRS analyst mentioned the alleged working group during a phone conversation about one of Backer’s other client organizations. “More than a More... What has the IRS been leaking on conservative groups? 5/13/2013 10:11:45 PM  Mary Katharine Ham 137 Comments In the flood of stories popping up in the wake of the Obama administration’s IRS scandal, a couple suggest the IRS has been leaking information about conservatives and conservative groups in addition to putting them through the wringer for More... WaPo on reforming food aid: Time to end the special-interest hostage-taking 5/13/2013 9:31:40 PM  Erika Johnsen 22 Comments The Obama administration is once again reviving a years-long and recurring effort to reform the way the United States delivers food aid abroad, but unfortunately, it’s a very uphill battle against some highly specially interested parties and the More... As scandal swirls, Obama focuses on the real cause of cynicism about government: Rush Limbaugh 5/13/2013 8:51:32 PM  Allahpundit 309 Comments We’ve got four separate scandals exploding right now, each one arguably bigger than the last: Benghazi, Sebelius extorting health-care execs to fund ObamaCare, the DOJ harvesting reporters’ phone records to see who they’re talking to, More... Harry Reid “troubled” by IRS scandal, Rubio and McConnell want resignations 5/13/2013 8:11:44 PM  Mary Katharine Ham 59 Comments Still not troubling to Harry Reid: A Senate leader using an unnamed source on someone’s private IRS documents to scurrilously suggest a public figure had paid no taxes for 20 years in order to slime a candidate of the opposition during an election More... Interior Dept: Sequestration is going to mean less firefighting, you know 5/13/2013 7:31:37 PM  Erika Johnsen 39 Comments Just in case you thought the administration had finished drumming up frightening reasons for why Congress really needs to get their stuff together and undo sequestration, never fear. The past few summers, we’ve watched some truly catastrophic More... Detroit emergency manager: We’re flat broke and can’t borrow any more 5/13/2013 6:51:23 PM  Ed Morrissey 72 Comments In other words, Kevyn Orr has reached the same conclusion as just about everyone else, outside of Detroit’s entrenched bureaucracy and political establishment.  In a report to be delivered to Michigan’s Treasurer today, the city’s More... Breaking: IRS admits current Commissioner knew of targeting … a year ago; Update: ProPublica: Same office leaked files to us 5/13/2013 6:11:50 PM  Ed Morrissey 282 Comments The Associated Press, via the Washington Post, runs this breaking story about the exploding IRS scandal.  It turns out that while outgoing IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress twice in March 2012 that the agency wasn’t targeting More... Top CBS, ABC, CNN execs all have relatives working as advisors for White House 5/13/2013 5:31:57 PM  Allahpundit 77 Comments Not just any execs and not just any advisors, either. Watch as Ric Grenell floats a possible explanation for some of the Benghazi coverage, especially vis-a-vis rumors that CBS is unhappy with Sharyl Attkisson’s dogged reporting. Would the media More... Breaking: DOJ secretly seized two months of Associated Press phone records? 5/13/2013 4:51:30 PM  Erika Johnsen 546 Comments What the heck? From the Associated Press: WASHINGTON (AP) — 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 More... Video: The (mostly) unknown history of the “separation of church and state” 5/13/2013 4:01:08 PM  Ed Morrissey 47 Comments Actually, I’d guess that most Hot Air readers know most of John Eastman’s lesson for Prager University on the history of religion and liberty in the US.  For those of you looking for extra credit, here’s a course to audit — and More... Obama on Benghazi: “There is no there there” 5/13/2013 3:21:23 PM  Erika Johnsen 160 Comments If Republicans’ insistence on getting to the bottom of the terrorist attack on Benghazi last September is really a “sideshow” borne of “political motivations,” that’s only the case because of Democrats’ clownish More... The Ed Morrissey Show: Katie Pavlich, Dean Wright 5/13/2013 2:51:07 PM  Ed Morrissey 3 Comments Today on The Ed Morrissey Show (4 pm ET), Katie Pavlich starts us off with a review of the scandals erupting in Washington over the Benghazi terrorist attack and the IRS’ targeting of conservatives — for a lot longer than they admitted on More... Breaking: Verdict reached in Gosnell trial; Update: Guilty of 1st-degree murder for 3 of 4 babies 5/13/2013 2:26:48 PM  Allahpundit 529 Comments Fox News and CNN are on alert as I write this: Per @cnn‘s @davidariosto: “The jury in the Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell case has reached a verdict on all 263 counts.” — Jason Seher (@jhseher) May 13, 2013 Stand More... Obama: I found out Friday that the IRS was targeting conservatives 5/13/2013 2:01:48 PM  Allahpundit 153 Comments Via Mediaite, am I understanding this correctly? The IRS began singling out tea partiers for special nonprofit scrutiny nearly three years ago, with senior agency officials aware of the practice in 2011, and no one gave the White House a heads up in all More... White House: Well, the conduct “of a small number of IRS employees may have fallen short…” 5/13/2013 1:21:32 PM  Erika Johnsen 105 Comments No need to be quite so modest here, White House — as to the most ‘recent media reports,’ we already learned this weekend that high-up agency leaders knew this tea-party targeting had been going on was going on for at least a couple of More... Gosnell jury hung on two counts … out of more than 200 5/13/2013 12:41:36 PM  Ed Morrissey 42 Comments The jury for the trial of Kermit Gosnell has told the judge that the panel is deadlocked on two counts in the trial.  However, since the jury had to consider more than 200 counts against Gosnell and a co-defendant, this may be an indication that the jury More... Draft IG report: Managers involved March 2010 forward in IRS focus on conservative groups 5/13/2013 12:01:28 PM  Ed Morrissey 69 Comments The timeline from the draft Inspector General report on IRS political targeting of conservative groups has been obtained by ABC News, and it tells a more disturbing story than Lois Lerner tried to push in her strange press conference on Friday.  First, More... Actual NYT headline: “IRS Focus on Conservatives Gives GOP an Issue to Seize On” 5/13/2013 11:21:17 AM  Allahpundit 100 Comments Ed flagged this earlier in an update but I want to make sure people see it. You know this routine by now: If it’s a scandal involving Republicans, the story is the scandal. If it’s a scandal involving Democrats, the story — or at least More... Open thread: Obama press conference with David Cameron 5/13/2013 10:41:52 AM  Ed Morrissey 527 Comments Talk about bad timing! UK Prime Minister David Cameron is paying a long-scheduled visit to Washington DC, and protocol for such a visit requires a joint press conference.  Barack Obama will have to face the press just as two scandals are erupting, one More...

HotAir Daily Express 05/08/2013

Gallup poll shows gun violence still among lowest priorities for Americans
5/8/2013 10:01:50 AM  Ed Morrissey
2 Comments
And there is, of course, a rational reason for this — even according to the Department of Justice, gun violence has dropped by 39% over the last twenty years.  Despite the media attention that gets fixed on gun crimes such as Sandy Hook and Aurora
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Cheney on Benghazi: “I cannot understand why they weren’t ready to go”
5/8/2013 9:21:46 AM  Ed Morrissey
33 Comments
This should provide a kick-start to the hearings today in Washington, as the House Oversight Committee takes testimony from three whistleblowers about the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi and its aftermath.  The Daily Mail‘s David
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Video [fixed]: Late-term abortionist says “It’s like putting meat in a crock pot”
5/8/2013 8:41:10 AM  Ed Morrissey
107 Comments
Not just any late-term abortionist, either, but LeRoy Carhart, one of the most celebrated of his profession.  Carhart has been featured in pro-abortion literature and film and appeared on television — or at least he used to make those appearances,
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SC to Dems: Money can’t buy you love, or offices
5/8/2013 8:01:56 AM  Ed Morrissey
68 Comments
In general, it’s difficult to learn too many lessons from special elections, or so most think.  The ad hoc nature of the contests, the lack of competition from other races, and the brief campaign time all contribute to an exceptionality that keep
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Why some gold investments could soon be worthless

For the past 10 years, Porter Stansberry has been working to expose what he calls "the greatest scam in U.S. history."

If you've invested in gold, you'll want to check this out. In this shocking presentation, Porter explains why any gold investments you may have could soon be worthless… Click here for the full details.

Quotes of the day
5/7/2013 10:41:23 PM  Allahpundit
448 Comments
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s whereabouts and activities during the attack in Benghazi are similarly mysterious. Clinton’s State Department repeatedly rejected requests for enhancing security at Benghazi, even as Ansar al-Sharia’s power in the
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And now, an important message from Gov. Jerry Brown about infrastructure: “S*** happens.”
5/7/2013 10:01:35 PM  Mary Katharine Ham
81 Comments
Let me offer a quote from Leslie Knope, fictional city councilwoman of the city of Pawnee, IN, in the sitcom, “Parks and Recreation.” She’s in a budget fight with libertarian Parks & Rec Director Ron Swanson over whether to fund a
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Ted Cruz on being a “schoolyard bully”: I do so appreciate Harry Reid’s candor
5/7/2013 9:21:37 PM  Erika Johnsen
190 Comments
Heh. For a quick addendum to Mary Katharine’s earlier post chronicling the continuing Senatorial drama with the indignant claims of procedural “bullying” that Majority Leader Harry Reid is leveling at Sen. Ted Cruz, you know Cruz
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Rand Paul: I hate to say it, but the immigration bill is a little bit like ObamaCare right now
5/7/2013 8:41:35 PM  Erika Johnsen
40 Comments
During a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Sen. Paul made a comparison between the Gang of Eight’s proposed immigration bill and ObamaCare which, on its face, might be considered fightin’ words betwixt
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Could the weight loss backfire on Christie in 2016?
5/7/2013 8:01:04 PM  Allahpundit
67 Comments
>From a health standpoint, he’s got every reason in the world to drop the weight. From a political standpoint, though? Nonsense, says Harry Enten, and I agree. Christie’s 2016 problem isn’t that he’s “husky,” it’s
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“Very junior senator” Ted Cruz really getting under skin of very senior Sen. Harry Reid
5/7/2013 7:21:37 PM  Mary Katharine Ham
154 Comments
This is the second very similar attack, by name and name-calling, on the Senate floor in two days. It begins to look a little overwrought on the part of Sen. Harry Reid, who used to be known for boasting of his pugilism prowess and ducking booby-trap
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Obama: We have a moral obligation to end the slaughter and ensure a stable Syria
5/7/2013 6:41:08 PM  Allahpundit
111 Comments
Via Greg Hengler, we’re a little late on the “ending the slaughter” part, no? As of last month, the death toll stood at 70,000 and counting. He says we’ve been “active.” What sort of body count would
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Open thread: Mark Sanford vs. Elizabeth Colbert Busch in SC-1 special election; Update: Sanford wins
5/7/2013 6:01:11 PM  Erika Johnsen
404 Comments
In the final test tonight, the voters of South Carolina’s first Congressional district will decide whether or not to indeed award former and formerly disgraced Republican governor Mark Sanford with another shot at political office, or to act
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Zero tolerance: Virginia school strikes blow for gun safety by suspending five-year-old for using a pencil or something
5/7/2013 5:21:06 PM  Allahpundit
221 Comments
Via Legal Insurrection. Per the clip, in the school’s defense, the kid’s clearly firing a pencil machine gun. If he had taken Biden’s advice and stuck with a shotgun instead of an assault pencil, he wouldn’t have to worry about
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Two new studies: Gun crime has dropped dramatically over last 20 years — and most Americans have no idea
5/7/2013 4:41:00 PM  Allahpundit
88 Comments
Behold the power of this fully armed and operational propaganda machine. First, from the Bureau of Justice Statistics: Firearm-related homicides declined 39 percent and nonfatal firearm crimes declined 69 percent from 1993 to 2011, the Justice
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It’s come to this: Solar installer now suing the government for more money
5/7/2013 4:01:21 PM  Erika Johnsen
29 Comments
This is where the path of relentlessly determined government subsidization of politically-preferred, rather than free-marked-selected, fledgling technologies has brought us: A troubled global solar industry awash in oversupply and rent-seeking, and
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Good news from Sheila Jackson Lee: The Constitution implies a right to health care and education
5/7/2013 3:21:40 PM  Allahpundit
155 Comments
Laugh if you must but it’s no goofier than the idea that “due process” implies a substantive right to kill a baby in the womb but not five minutes later, after it’s emerged. Besides, Jackson Lee’s been consistent on this.
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The Ed Morrissey Show: Andrew Malcolm
5/7/2013 2:51:12 PM  Ed Morrissey
0 Comments
Today on The Ed Morrissey Show (4 pm ET), my friend Andrew Malcolm joins us as always on today’s TEMS at 4 pm ET! The Prince of Twitter and I will discuss the upcoming Benghazi hearings, the absence of media curiosity about the attack over the last
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Schumer: It’s time to go after the 3-D printable guns
5/7/2013 2:41:03 PM  Allahpundit
109 Comments
An inevitable follow-up to last night’s item about “the Liberator,” the schematics for which have already been downloaded more than 50,000 times in just a day online. The good news for Schumer and other gun-grabbers? The feds already
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Former SC Dem chair: I meant to say that Nikki Haley should go back to a dress store
5/7/2013 2:01:43 PM  Ed Morrissey
84 Comments
Old and busted: Some Democrats are latent racists.  New hotness: Some Democrats are latent sexists. And one of them is apparently both.  At the very least, the outgoing chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party has proven that he never learned the
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Pentagon: Let’s get real here — a lot of this cyber espionage is coming from the Chinese military
5/7/2013 1:21:03 PM  Erika Johnsen
34 Comments
We were all very clearly already thinking it, but the U.S. Department of Defense has taken the administration’s stance to official-status with their annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments. Real talk, via the NYT: The Obama
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Obama administration retreating from contraception mandate?
5/7/2013 12:41:03 PM  Ed Morrissey
30 Comments
At least in one instance, and it’s an important one.  Last November, Tyndale House Publishers won a third injunction against the Department of Health and Human Services to block enforcement of the HHS mandate, while the Obama administration took
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MN legislature schedules same-sex marriage vote for Thursday
5/7/2013 12:01:16 PM  Ed Morrissey
290 Comments
In November, a referendum to add the current statutory definition of marriage to the Minnesota state constitution narrowly lost, 47/53, in a presidential election featuring a large turnout for Barack Obama.  The Democrats took control of the state
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Jeff Flake hints: I’ll support expanded background checks in return for changes on Internet sales
5/7/2013 11:21:42 AM  Allahpundit
108 Comments
A week ago, he noted on his Facebook page that his poll numbers after voting no on Toomey/Manchin put him somewhere south of “pond scum.” Today, this. He won’t face the voters again for five and a half years, but he shares a home state
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Libya defense minister quits as “militias” blockade gov’t offices
5/7/2013 10:41:40 AM  Ed Morrissey
29 Comments
While the House Oversight Committee prepares to hear testimony from three whistleblowers that may expose a cover-up in the Obama administration, the Libyans have their own problems after the “liberation” provided by Barack Obama and
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