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MSNBC’s Bashir: When You Criticize Obama Over IRS Scandal, You’re Calling Him the N-Word (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

In an over-the-top attack on Republicans who have been insinuating Obama responsibility for the growing IRS scandal, MSNBC’s Martin Bashir suggests their criticism is grounded in racism:

“This strategy is nothing new, and it was explained way back in 1981 by Lee Atwater, who was Bush 41′s chief strategist. In a tape recording, Mr. Atwater revealed how Republicans evolved their language to achieve the same purpose. He said, ‘You start out in 1954 by saying ‘n-word, n-word, n-word.’ By 1968, you can’t say ‘n-word.’ That hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like ‘forced busing,’ ‘states rights,’ and all that stuff and you’re getting so abstract. Now you’re talking about cutting taxes. ‘We want to cut this’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘n-word, n-word.’

“So this afternoon, we welcome the latest phrase in the lexicon of Republican attacks on this president: ‘the IRS.’ Three letters that sound so innocent, but we know what you mean.”

A Double-Trouble Scandal for Obama

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Photo Credit: Reuters

The verdict is still out on how much political damage the current trio of scandals will inflict on the Obama White House. For now, the one that might hurt most is the one the public cares about least.

A new Quinnipiac poll shows President Obama’s job approval falling to 45%, but the survey also ranks the public’s focus on today’s Washington controversies. Nearly 45% of voters said the IRS scandal is most important, followed by 24% who picked Benghazi. A mere 15% thought the Justice Department’s seizure of press records was a big deal.

No surprise. The IRS is an agency that touches nearly every American, and both the IRS and Benghazi scandals revolve around the sort of big, breathless questions—Did the White House lie? Was the administration targeting enemies?—that rivet public attention. Most Americans don’t much care what happens to the press, and if anything wouldn’t mind seeing it get some grief.

What this verdict misses, however, is two important realities. The first is that—unlike the IRS and Benghazi scandals—the facts of the DOJ’s press intrusions are clear and uncontested. We know Justice has seized records of reporters, that Attorney General Eric Holder himself signed onto a warrant that suggested a journalist was a “co-conspirator” in a national-security leak. We also know that government has violated its own guidelines on probing journalists.

Read more from this story HERE.

Could the Obama Administration’s Next Scandal be Brewing at the EPA? (+video)

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Photo Credit: Free Enterprise

With the continued Benghazi investigation, IRS political targeting and DOJ press surveillance, could a scandal at the EPA be the next shoe to droop for the Obama administration?

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) been closely following the EPA’s misuse of private communication to conduct public business, and fees the agency has placed on conservative groups seeking information that they usual waive for media and watchdog groups. After successfully gaining access to former EPA Chief Lisa Jackson’s emails, CEI is now suing to gain access to the text messages of Gina McCarthy, the senior EPA official the President has nominated to now run the agency.

Read more from this story HERE.

Holder: Now Even Liberal Media, Democrats are Attacking Him (+video)

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The Republican criticism of Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department — first, over the failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation and now, the subpoena of reporters’ phone and email records — is growing to include outcry from liberal media outlets and Democrats.

“It seems to me clear that the actions of the department have in fact impaired the First Amendment,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said earlier this month. “Reporters who might have previously believed that a confidential source would speak to them would no longer have that level of confidence.”

The congresswoman has been joined in her concerns by Democratic commentators and the liberal-leaning Huffington Post, which recently ran a giant headline saying it’s time for Holder to go.

Read more from this story HERE.

Christie Continues Tight Political Embrace of Obama

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Photo Credit: Getty Images A post-Hurricane Sandy tour of the New Jersey coast line on Tuesday, gives the president a chance for a three-point play that can move him ahead of the recent controversies that have dogged the White House. With New Jersey’s Republican Gov. Chris Christie at Obama’s side, effective government, bipartisanship and economic opportunity will be the unmistakable message in the face of the coastal recovery.

For Obama, the tour helps him continue redirecting the political conversation after two weeks of dealing with the fallout over the administration’s response to terror attacks last September in Benghazi, Libya, the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department’s review of journalist phone records as part of a leak investigation.

The visit occurs as Congress is away for a Memorial Day holiday break, a week-long recess that likely will silence the daily attention lawmakers, particularly Republicans, had been paying to the three political upheavals. It also comes just days after Obama started seeking to change the subject in Washington with a speech defending his controversial program of strikes by unmanned drones and renewing his push to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility.

On Sunday Obama traveled to Oklahoma to view damage from the recent tornado and console victims of the deadly storm.

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Pushes for Independent Investigations of DOJ, IRS

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Photo Credit: J. Scott ApplewhiteSenators say Holder can’t ‘review’ himself on news media snooping

By David Eldridge. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s direct involvement in the Justice Department’s decisions to spy on the press should disqualify him from heading any review of the unfolding controversy, Republicans said Sunday.

Questions have been raised about the attorney general’s role in two Justice Department investigations of leaks, one involving a massive seizure of Associated Press phone records and another an aggressive probe of Fox News reporter James Rosen’s private emails.

According to multiple media reports, Mr. Holder personally approved targeting Mr. Rosen. He earlier told Congress that he had recused himself from the decision to seize AP phone records.

President Obama, responding to critics from both parties who say the Justice Department is undermining press freedoms, said Thursday he has directed Mr. Holder to lead a “review.” That idea has been flatly rejected by Republicans, several of whom voiced their objections on Sunday’s political talk shows.

“A total conflict of interest,” Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, said Sunday on CBS‘ “Face the Nation.” Read more from this story HERE.

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GOP reiterates push for independent IRS investigation

By Valerie Richardson. Republicans ramped up calls Sunday for an independent investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups for special scrutiny.

“This really does call for a special counsel,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, on “Fox News Sunday.” “The culture of going after tea party groups that were on the president’s case about ‘Obamacare’ did not accidentally happen. I think it comes from the top with the tone.”

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, reiterated his call for a special counsel to investigate the scandal, warning that President Obama risks losing his “moral authority” as the nation’s leader unless he shows that he’s taking the problem seriously.

“I think the constellation of these three scandals ongoing really takes away from the president’s moral authority to lead the nation,” Mr. Paul said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Nobody questions his legal authority, but I think he’s really losing the moral authority to lead this nation. And he really needs to put a stop to this. I don’t care whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat; nobody likes to see the opposite party punishing you for your political beliefs, using the power of government to do so.”

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, defended a letter he wrote to the IRS in October 2010 asking the agency to look into the tax-exempt status of Crossroads GPS, a group founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s DOJ’s Orwellian Workplace Guidance on LGBT: “Silence Will Be Interpreted as Disapproval”

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Photo Credit: National Assembly For Wales / Cynulliad CymruThe only thing this Obama White House seems to generate is scandal. Well, here’s yet another to add to the growing list. In addition to the Benghazi cover-up, IRS targeting of political dissenters and the illegal seizure of media phone records, whistleblowers within DOJ have contacted Liberty Counsel to express grave concerns over this administration’s latest attack on freedom.

Our sources have provided Liberty Counsel an internal DOJ document titled: “LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers.” It was emailed to DOJ managers in advance of the left’s so-called “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month.”

The document is chilling. It’s riddled with directives that grossly violate – prima facie -employees’ First Amendment liberties:

* “DON’T judge or remain silent. Silence will be interpreted as disapproval.”

* “DO assume that LGBT employees and their allies are listening to what you’re saying (whether in a meeting or around the proverbial water cooler) and will read what you’re writing (whether in a casual email or in a formal document), and make sure the language you use is inclusive and respectful.”

* DO “Attend LGBT events sponsored by DOJ Pride and/or the Department, and invite (but don’t require) others to join you.”

* DO “Display a symbol in your office (DOJ Pride sticker, copy of this brochure, etc.) indicating that it is a ‘safe space.'”

* “DO use inclusive words like ‘partner,’ ‘significant other’ or ‘spouse’ rather than gender-specific terms like ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ (for example, in invitations to office parties or when asking a new employee about his/her home life).”

* “DO use a transgender person’s chosen name and the pronoun that is consistent with the person’s self-identified gender.”

Read more from this store HERE.

IRS’s Lerner Had History of Harassment, Inappropriate Religious Inquiries at FEC (+videos)

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott ApplewhiteBy Mark Hemingway. Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency’s growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS harassed hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups for over two years, Lerner has been criticized for a number of untruths—including the revelation that she apparently lied about planting a question at an American Bar Association conference where she first publicly acknowledged IRS misconduct…

[P]rior to joining the IRS, Lerner’s tenure as head of the Enforcement Office at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was marked by what appears to be politically motivated harassment of conservative groups.

Lerner was appointed head of the FEC’s enforcement division in 1986 and stayed in that position until 2001. In the late 1990s, the FEC launched an onerous investigation of the Christian Coalition, ultimately costing the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours in lost work. The investigation was notable because the FEC alleged that the Christian Coalition was coordinating issue advocacy expenditures with a number of candidates for office. Aside from lacking proof this was happening, it was an open question whether the FEC had the authority to bring these charges.

James Bopp Jr., who was lead counsel for the Christian Coalition at the time, tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD the Christian Coalition investigation was egregious and uncalled for. “We felt we were being singled out, because when you handle a case with 81 depositions you have a pretty good argument you’re getting special treatment. Eighty-one depositions! Eighty-one! From Ralph Reed’s former part-time secretary to George H.W. Bush. It was mind blowing,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Lois Lerner: ‘I have not done anything wrong’ at IRS

By Susan Ferrechio. The head of the Internal Revenue Service division that targeted conservative groups told a congressional committee Wednesday that she did nothing wrong and is not to blame for the wrongdoing, but then invoked her Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and refused to answer lawmakers’ questions.

Lois Lerner was a witness lawmakers hoped would help finally answer the fundamental questions about who authorized the IRS to target the Tea Party and other conservative groups opposed to President Obama ahead of last year’s election.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., dismissed Lerner from the hearing after she invoked the Fifth Amendment. He said he may recall Lerner to testify at a future hearing, saying she may have waived her Fifth Amendment rights when she first delivered an opening statement proclaiming her innocence. To force Lerner to return and testify, Issa refused to adjourn the hearing at the end of the day, instead gaveling it into recess.

“I am looking into the possibility of recalling her,” Issa said. Read more from this story HERE.

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Rep. Gowdy Grills Former IRS Commissioner

When Did We Vote to Become Mexico?

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Photo Credit: Town HallAt first I thought the IRS scandal was leaked to distract from the Benghazi scandal. But that didn’t make sense because the IRS scandal is a more obvious abuse of power than the White House lying about the murder of four Americans in Libya.

Before I had resolved which scandal was distracting from which, we found out the Department of Justice was spying on The Associated Press — not to protect national security, but to prevent the AP from scooping the White House. Then, this week, it broke that the Department of Justice was also spying on Fox News for reasons that remain unexplained.

Meanwhile, Sens. Marco Rubio, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and John McCain are working feverishly to turn the country into Mexico.

So now I think all the scandals are intended to distract from Rubio’s amnesty bill.

For decades, Mexicans have been about 30 percent of all legal immigrants to the United States, while only a smidgen more than 1 percent come from Great Britain. Is that fair? Granted, their food is better, but why is it the norm is to have nearly 30 times as many Mexican as British immigrants?

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrat: There Will be “Hell to Pay” if IRS Doesn’t Stop Stonewalling (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeAt a House Oversight Committee hearing today, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass) said that, if IRS officials continue to dodge questions, the committee have no choice but to get a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of the scandal.

Rep. Lynch warned that, if that’s the case, there “will be hell to pay.”

Read more from this story HERE.