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Don’t Fool Yourselves, the Media will Always Love Obama

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Some conservatives think that the elite media are finally turning on Barack Obama and his administration.

The argument goes like this: The trio of scandals that have burst forth in the last couple of weeks—the events before, during, and after the deadly attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi; the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups; and especially the Department of Justice’s secret subpoenas of Associated Press phone records and targeting of Fox News reporter James Rosen as a potential co-conspirator in a leak investigation—will mark an inflection point. From here on out, journalists will apply far more scrutiny to President Obama. His free ride is over.

Don’t believe it.

In saying this, we don’t mean to suggest that journalists won’t ask tough questions or say critical things about the administration from time to time. But sooner or later they will—with a few impressive exceptions—revert to their ways. We are, after all, dealing with deeply ingrained habits and ideological commitments.

Take the New York Times. On May 17, in a story about how President Obama is trying to move beyond his current problems, the Times declared, “In the last few days, the administration appears to have stopped the bleeding. The release of internal e-mails on Benghazi largely confirmed the White House’s account.”

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White House Misleads Again: IRS Misconduct Didn’t End in 2012

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Photo Credit: National Review ‘The misconduct had stopped in May of 2012,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Monday about the IRS’s improper targeting of conservative groups. Not so, say two D.C. attorneys, each representing a number of conservative groups that — after years of waiting and countless rounds of invasive questions — have yet to receive recognition from the IRS.

The American Center for Law and Justice, headed by chief counsel Jay Sekulow, plans to file suit in federal court in the coming weeks on behalf of more than two dozen conservative groups that claim their harassment at the hands of the nation’s tax authority continued long past the White House’s purported end date — and, for a number of them, continues still. Of the 27 organizations the ACLJ has represented to date, ten still have not received approval, two years after applying. Two others gave up.

Take the Albuquerque Tea Party. In December 2009, it applied for 501(c)(4) status, which would exempt the group from corporate taxes but does not make donations tax deductible). Its application is still pending — and the group received a letter from the IRS promising its status was “currently being reviewed” just one month ago.

Linchpins of Liberty, a Tennessee-based conservative leadership-development organization, applied to the IRS for tax-exempt status in January 2011. Two years later, their application is still pending as well — and the IRS sent its most recent dilatory letter on May 6 of this year, four days before the agency admitted its political targeting and a full year after the White House claimed the activity had ceased.

Says Sekulow, “Without question, the IRS misconduct of harassing and abusing our clients was still in high gear from May 2012 through May of this year. . . . To suggest this tactic ended a year ago is not only offensive, but it is simply inaccurate as well.”

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Tea Party Gets a Bump After Being Targeted by IRS

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Photo Credit: APThe Tea Party movement is showing signs of a resurgence following the revelation that the IRS targeted groups and other politically conservative organizations for the past several years.

A recent poll shows Americans have a more favorable opinion of the less-government, anti-tax groups. And one of the biggest groups in the grassroots movement told FoxNews.com this weekend that fundraising and donations have increased since news of the IRS targeting broke earlier this month.

However, one of the biggest remaining questions is whether the Tea Party can take the momentum in the 2014 elections.

The movement started in 2009 as a reaction to the federal government’s multibillion-dollar bank bailouts in the recession and played a major role in the 2010 midterm elections by backing conservative candidates who helped Republicans take control of the House. However, critics during the 2012 election cycle repeatedly argued the movement had become less relevant.

“We’re definitely seeing a spike in both interest and contributions,” Sal Russo, co-founder of the California-based Tea Party Express, told Fox on Saturday.

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‘Conservative’ Virginia Now Embracing Homosexual Marriage

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Photo Credit: Matt WuerkerWelcome to the gay rights battleground of Virginia.

Yes, you read that right. In the 2013 off-year elections, a state that once leaned solidly to the center-right has become the newest focal point in the national debate over same-sex relationships. A gubernatorial race already defined partly along culture-war lines has grown even more contentious since last weekend, when Virginia Republicans nominated as their lieutenant governor candidate a firebrand minister who has called gays “very sick people psychologically” and suggested a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia.

Remarkably, in a New South battleground where Democrats have traditionally won by carving out independent, non-partisan reputations, it’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe who’s most eager to keep gay rights on the political front burner.

When McAuliffe first ran for governor in 2009, he ran a conventionally cautious Democratic campaign, endorsing civil unions for gay couples but warning that Virginia would be unlikely to accept gay marriage. After all, it was only a few years earlier – in 2000 – that Republican George Allen ridiculed then-Democratic Sen. Chuck Robb for representing “Vermont values,” after his vote against the Defense of Marriage Act.

This year, McAuliffe fully supports same-sex marriage.

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Daily Show Co-Creator: Oklahoma Tornado ‘Ordered to Only Target Conservatives’

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller With a massive tornado devastating the Oklahoma City area Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead took to Twitter to claim that the tornado was targeted at conservatives.

“This tornado is in Oklahoma so clearly it has been ordered to only target conservatives,” Winstead tweeted in an apparent attempt at humor, trying to apply the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservatives to the tornado bearing down on Oklahoma…

When she received push-back on Twitter she responded “If Its not OK to YOU for me to combine news stories to point out hypocrisy AND Im not making fun of victims u shld Unfollow.”

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Of Course Obama Knew About IRS Targeting

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Photo Credit: Beverly & PackThe standard police warning about con men applies to politicians, as well: When they tell you something that sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

So it goes with the White House claim that it knew nothing — nothing! — about the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service.

Of course the White House knew. And we already have the first piece of evidence.

The Friday hearing on what amounted to political profiling of anti-Obama groups took a huge step toward demolishing White House efforts to distance itself from the scandal. The agency’s inspector general testified that he told his bosses at the Treasury Department in June 2012 about his ongoing audit of public claims that the IRS was engaging in blatantly unfair treatment of conservatives. One of those he told at Treasury was Tim Geithner’s top deputy.

To believe the deputy, Neal Wolin, didn’t tell Geithner about such abuses, in the middle of a presidential campaign no less, is to believe they were all too busy to focus on politics. And to believe that Geithner didn’t warn the White House is to believe the IRS agents just made honest mistakes that coincidentally helped the incumbent president.

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She’s Back! Conservative Favorite Mia Love Announces 2014 Bid for Congress

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesSaratoga Springs mayor and conservative favorite Mia Love, who unsuccessfully ran against Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson in Utah’s 4th Congressional District in 2012, announced over the weekend that she will be running for Congress once again in 2014.

Having lost by fewer than 1,000 votes last time around, Love said at the Republican State Convention that she and the public “some unfinished business with Rep. Jim Matheson.” She’ll be running for the same seat.

Twitter/@MiaBLove

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Alaska Conservatives Respond After IRS Commissioner Ousted (+video)

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The head of the Internal Revenue Service was ousted amidst controversy that the agency had targeted certain political groups. According to the U.S. Treasury, the IRS delayed processing applications for groups tea party-affiliated groups. Those groups are already very critical of the federal government. Those CBS 11 talked to say firing the head of the agency does little to ease their fears about federal bias.

Since 2010, the Treasury Inspector General said, the IRS has not been fair in processing applications from certain groups seeking tax-exempt status. President Barack Obama addressed Americans in a press conference where he called the scandal an “outrage.”

He announced the resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, but former Alaska tea party candidate Joe Miller said that’s not enough. “The people that made that decision, they need to be prosecuted. The house needs to be cleaned. The IRS [needs] to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Mark Fish is one of the founding members of Alaska’s tea party movement. He said government scrutiny is exactly why his tea party group in Alaska opted not to file tor tax exempt status. “You know, with current events, it looks like some of those fears have been founded.”

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Congressmen Demand End to EPA’s IRS-Like Bias Against Conservative, State/Local FOIA Requestors

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner Two powerful congressional Republicans want to know more – a lot more – about why and how Environmental Protection Agency officials have for several years erected multiple obstacles to conservative think tanks, media outlets and non-profit activists filing Freedom of Information Act requests with the agency.

“According to documents obtained by the Committees, EPA readily granted FOIA fee waivers for liberal environmental groups – effectively subsidizing them – while denying fee waivers and making the FOIA process more difficult for states and conservative groups,” said Sen. David Vitter and Rep. Darrell Issa in a letter today to EPA’s acting administrator, Bob Perciasepe.

“This is a clear abuse of discretion. Consequently, the committees request that you immediately take necessary steps to ensure that such manipulation of the FOIA process does not occur in the future,” Vitter and Issa wrote.

Reproduction fees covering multiple documents can easily run into the thousands of dollars, which is why Congress included a liberal waiver provision in the original FOIA it approved in 1966 and which remains in the law today.

Issa, a California Republican, is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, while Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, is the ranking minority member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

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Obama Says He Didn’t ‘Know Anything’ About Probe into IRS Targeting

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Photo Credit: APPresident Obama insisted Thursday that he knew nothing about the internal investigation into the IRS’ practice of singling out conservative groups for special scrutiny before it was made public, as he moved to name a new director for the embattled agency.

“I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the (inspector general) report” beforehand, Obama said Thursday.

The president, though, did not say whether he was previously aware of the IRS’ actions, which allegedly started as early as 2010, well before the inspector general’s office began to investigate. Republican lawmakers were inquiring about the alleged targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS more than a year ago.

Obama, who spoke during a press conference alongside the Turkish prime minister, focused his remarks specifically on the IG report, noting that he wouldn’t have caught wind of that report since those investigations are typically kept under wraps. He reiterated that he found the agency’s actions “unacceptable” and sought to fix the problem “the minute” he found out about it.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has previously said no one in the White House knew about the practice. The comments were the latest effort by the White House to tamp down the controversy.

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