Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Obama's Scandals Pile Up

There are just too many to write about, but here are the headlines:

For Those Shocked By The Obama Scandals – Remember When Valerie Jarrett Said THIS…


Gov't probe obtains wide swath of AP phone records

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 a hundred journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.
The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt status was pending.

Is This the End of Eric Holder's Tenure at the Justice Department?

Benghazi, the IRS, and now the AP phone-records bombshell: If Obama wants a symbol of accountability in a time of scandal, the attorney general is the only one left to fire.

IRS, Benghazi, AP: Obama Severely Wounded by Scandal

President Obama found himself in the unusual position on Monday of echoing GOP outrage over revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted Tea Party groups, while slamming his adversaries for creating “a sideshow” for reviving a long simmering imbroglio over his administration’s response to last year’s attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Libya.

By the end of the day on Monday, the administration found itself battling yet another potential crisis as lawyers for the Associated Press charged that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for the AP in what the news agency called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.

Holder Begs Court To Prevent Public From Seeing Obama’s “Executive Privilege” Records Relating To “Fast And Furious”...

Attorney General Eric Holder and his Department of Justice have asked a federal court to indefinitely delay a lawsuit brought by watchdog group Judicial Watch. The lawsuit seeks the enforcement of open records requests relating to Operation Fast and Furious, as required by law.

Judicial Watch had filed, on June 22, 2012, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking all documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious and “specifically [a]ll records subject to the claim of executive privilege invoked by President Barack Obama on or about June 20, 2012.”

The administration has refused to comply with Judicial Watch’s FOIA request, and in mid-September the group filed a lawsuit challenging Holder’s denial. That lawsuit remains ongoing but within the past week President Barack Obama’s administration filed what’s called a “motion to stay” the suit. Such a motion is something that if granted would delay the lawsuit indefinitely.

CIA Agents Confirm Obama Told Them Not To Aid Ambassador Chris Stevens

– The White House Disinformation Campaign on Libya

BREAKING: ABC SAYS WHITE HOUSE AUTHORIZED IRS-GATE POLITICAL ENEMY SCANDAL

The Benghazi lies/scandal should alone be enough to initiate significant pressure on Congress to deal with Obama via their constitutional process of impeachment. The IRS scandal, however, should seal the deal. Especially if the following is true.

Trey Hardin: “I will tell you this on the IRS front. I’ve worked in this town for over 20 years in the White House and on Capitol Hill and I can say with a very strong sense of certainty that there are people very close to this president that not only knew what the IRS were doing but authorized it. It simply just does not happen at an agency level like that without political advisers likely in the West Wing certainly connected to the president’s ongoing campaign organization.”

Hardin didn’t say it was the President specifically, but if this is the office of the President directly involved in the IRS political enemy scandal then we have serious problems that need serious punishment.

IRS official Lerner speedily approved exemption for Obama brother’s ‘charity’

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.

According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval.

Lerner also appears to have broken with the norms of tax-exemption approval by granting retroactive tax-exempt status to Malik Obama’s organization.

IRS Won’t Say If It Will Comply With Congressional Demand for All Communications and Names Involved in Discriminating Against Tea Party Groups

The Internal Revenue Service has given no indication to the House Ways and Means Committee about whether it will respond to the committee’s demand, delivered in writing last Friday, that the agency hand over copies of all internal communications containing the words “tea party,” “patriot,” or “conservative” and the names and titles of all IRS officials involved in discriminating against tea party and conservative groups when they submitted applications for tax-exempt status.

IRS spokesmen also did not respond to repeated emailed and telephone inquiries that CNSNews.com made between Friday afternoon and Tuesday morning asking if the IRS intended to comply with the committee’s demand--and if not, why not.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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