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The Definition Of, “Not A Smidgen,” Revealed, When Democrats Shriek Witch Hunt

by Flyovercountry ( 159 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Corruption, Democratic Party, Eric Holder at April 11th, 2014 - 7:00 am

Political Cartoons by Henry Payne

Following the context of Barack Obama’s Millionth promise to get to the bottom of something, which for our purposes will be represented by the IRS targeting scandal, an activity that earned Richard Nixon a quarter of his ticket out of Washington D.C. via the torch and pitch fork express, we learned that his investigative skills are every bit as sharp as the rest of his freakishly thin resume. That is to say, it’s exactly what one might expect from a man who’d never so much as managed his very own lemonade stand during his formative years. The Zero’s digging turned up, “not a smidgen,” of evidence that systematic or even incidental wrongdoing was going one at the single most powerful government agency ever conceived of by man.

Shall we define, “smidgen?” I don’t know about you, but my definition would not be this, which is proof of felonious activity on the part of Lois Lerner, Elijah Cummings, Holly Paz, and the entirety of Cummings’ staff. This would be something more than a smidgen, as in one giant big honking sized smoking gun, complete with bloody finger prints, photo I.D.’s, and a signed confession.

We’ll clarify things here by including the Webster’s definition of the word, just to end some of the more legalistic debate likely to break out.

smid·gen
ˈsmijin/Submit
noun,informal
1.
a small amount of something.
“add a smidgen of cayenne”

This in fact is pretty huge, and if you’re about to ask how huge, I’ll be happy to show that as well.

On January 31, Paz sent True the Vote’s 990 forms to Cumming’s staff.

Up until this point, Rep. Cummings has denied his staff ever contacted the IRS about True the Vote and their activities during Oversight hearings. In fact, on February 6, 2014 during a Subcommittee hearing where Engelbrecht testified, Cummings vehemently denied having any contact or coordination in targeting True the Vote when attorney Cleta Mitchell, who is representing the group, indicated staff on the Committee had been involved in communication with the IRS. This was the exchange:
————————————————————————————–
Ms. Mitchell: We want to get to the bottom of how these coincidences happened, and we’re going to try to figure out whether any – if there was any staff of this committee that might have been involved in putting True the Vote on the radar screen of some of these Federal agencies. We don’t know that, but we – we’re going to do everything we can do to try to get to the bottom of how did this all happen.

Mr. Cummings. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Meadows. Yes.

Mr. Cummings. I want to thank the gentleman for his courtesy. What she just said is absolutely incorrect and not true.
————————————————————————————–
After the hearing, Engelbrecht filed an ethics complaint against Cummings for his targeting and intimidation of her organization.

Rep. Cummings has described the investigation into IRS targeting of conservative groups as a “witch hunt,” and has tried multiple times to put the investigation on hold.

My fellow gentle inhabitants of the Obama Worker’s Paradise, formerly known as the land of the free, the above screen cap is sufficient to convict all of the people I’ve listed above of some pretty damning felonies, and force them to take extended stay vacations at some of the nicest minimum security federal country clubs operated by our Federal Corrections Agency. It is an internal communication that verifies chatter between a sitting U.S. Congressman and an official of the IRS in which private information about a political adversary of the Congress Critter is being prepared for a report to be delivered to that same Congress Critter. Somehow, Barack Obama’s exhaustive investigation failed to turn this up. I know I’m shocked, with him being the smartest guy to ever wear big boy pants and all. By the way, by that last remark, I mean to say that Barack Obama is the least qualified person for any task in any room that he enters.

This next link is purely for the fun of adding insult to injury, and is somewhat extraneous to the topic at hand. Apparently, violations of the Hatch act, that law that demands that federal employees perform their duties professionally, sans partisan political considerations, is routinely ignored at the IRS. They are an arm of the Democrat Party, no matter who occupies the Executive Branch at the time. This one is scarier even than the first link for one key reason.

At some point during our past in this country, our Legislators and Executives got the bright idea to grant Federal Agencies the scope and authority of all three branches of government, with respect to their broadly defined charters. That is to say, the EPA for example, has the authority to define the Clean Air Act as it wishes, writing its own rules, making executive decisions as to how to enforce it, and to adjudicate those whom it accuses to be in non-compliance. The IRS has the same authority, as does every other Federal Creation. If nothing else scares you, that should do it.

What’s even worse than that however is the small fact that all, and by that I mean all, of these agencies have been so packed with partisan tools of one political party over the other, that we have been under the thumb of one party rule for decades now, if not longer. Basically, this represents every nightmare scenario that any of the most bizarre conspiracy theorists could ever come up with, all of it accepted as business as usual. We have self contained Federal Agencies which can now operate without the burdens of our checks and balances system, termed separation of powers by those smarter than average guys who wrote our founding documents. We have a clear identification of those working in these agencies with those who wield the reigns of power, and not with the people whom they serve. Most damning of all, we have clear proof that those Agencies as a whole are acting against the laws of the land to thwart the activities of any who oppose them.

I guess the good news in all of this is that about 23 States so far have officially filed their Article V Convention applications so far. The current situation is about as bad as it gets. If you make any political donations this year, outside of helping to defeat the Democrats at every level, make it the Article V Pacs. The only way we’re going to reign these jerks in is going to be a direct action that grants us authority to write our own changes.

Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.

The Process Is The Punishment

by Flyovercountry ( 134 Comments › )
Filed under Bill Clinton, Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, Marxism, Progressives at November 22nd, 2013 - 12:00 pm

Remembering back to the 1996 Democrat National Convention, Hillary Clinton, in an impassioned plea to defend the honor of her husband, a man with such obvious character and class, that when he had the 19 year old intern alone in his office, he penetrated her only with the tip of his expensive cigar and not with any actual part of his own anatomy. Hillary, in that shrill tone that only she and the mythical creature known as a banshee can achieve, alluded to something she labeled as, “The Mean Republican Attack Machine.” She also told tales of the, “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.” Being a member in good standing on the political right myself, I must say that I’ve not received my invitation to the secret meetings of the conspirators yet, and gentle persons, I would love to participate.

Against that backdrop, and to place context on this continuing labeling of all things right of center as either evil, stupid, senile, or crazy, remember what happened to Sarah Palin after the 2008 Presidential Election. Four people, none of whom had ever lived in Alaska prior to 2008, nor had even visited Alaska, moved in, and in January of 2009, filed so many ethics complaints against Governor Palin that she was forced to resign. Defending herself and her family against the sheer number of charges and complaints became a full time job in itself. when the dust settled of course, not one allegation was found to have had any basis in reality, and the four operatives of the Democrat Party promptly ended their residence in Alaska.

There are two things to note here. First, if Sarah Palin were really an idiot, as the game of categorize the Republican had labeled her, why the need to destroy her in this fashion? I should think the Democrats would have welcomed her with open arms as an adversary. Claire McCaskill as you’ll recall, actually donated large amounts of money and resources to the campaign of one Todd Aiken during his primary run for the Missouri Senate Seat in 2012. Secondly, the injury was not to Governor Palin alone. The injury also occurred to the people of Alaska who had their legitimate choice for their Governor vetoed by the Democrat Party. She was chased from her office because she dared to stand up and oppose their agenda. The rest of the nation also suffered an injury when this tactic proved successful, as it has served to encourage repeat of this behavior.

From the Wall Street Journal Article linked to above:

Americans learned in the IRS political targeting scandal that government enforcement power can be used to stifle political speech. Something similar may be unfolding in Wisconsin, where a special prosecutor is targeting conservative groups that participated in the battle over Governor Scott Walker’s union reforms.

In recent weeks, special prosecutor Francis Schmitz has hit dozens of conservative groups with subpoenas demanding documents related to the 2011 and 2012 campaigns to recall Governor Walker and state legislative leaders.

Copies of two subpoenas we’ve seen demand “all memoranda, email . . . correspondence, and communications” both internally and between the subpoena target and some 29 conservative groups, including Wisconsin and national nonprofits, political vendors and party committees. The groups include the League of American Voters, Wisconsin Family Action, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Americans for Prosperity—Wisconsin, American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, Friends of Scott Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

One subpoena also demands “all records of income received, including fundraising information and the identity of persons contributing to the corporation.” In other words, tell us who your donors are.

snip:

The kitchen-sink subpoenas deserve skepticism considering their subject and targets. The disclosure of conservative political donors has become a preoccupation of the political left across the country. In the heat of the fight over Governor Walker’s reforms, unions urged boycotts of Walker contributors and DemocraticUnderground.com published a list of Walker donors for boycotting.

The subpoena demand for the names of donors to nonprofit groups that aren’t legally required to disclose them is especially troubling. Readers may recall that the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent the tax-exempt applications of several conservative groups to the ProPublica news website in 2012.

The subpoenas don’t spell out a specific allegation, but the demands suggest the government may be pursuing a theory of illegal campaign coordination by independent groups during the recall elections. If prosecutors are pursuing a theory that independent conservative groups coordinated with candidate campaigns during the recall, their goal may be to transform the independent expenditures into candidate committees after the fact, requiring revision of campaign-finance disclosures and possible criminal charges.

snip:

Perhaps the probe will turn up some nefarious activity that warrants this subpoena monsoon and home raids. But in the meantime the effect is to limit political speech by intimidating these groups from participating in the 2014 campaign. Stifling allies of Mr. Walker would be an enormous in-kind contribution to Democrats. Even if no charges are filed, the subpoenas will have served as a form of speech suppression.

Mr. O’Keefe told us that the flurry of subpoenas “froze my communications and frightened many allies and vendors of the pro-taxpayer political movement in Wisconsin and across the country.” Even if no one is ever convicted of a crime, he says, “the process is the punishment.”

Evil does not begin to describe what is happening in Wisconsin. If you want to discuss voter suppression, here’s your chance. The voters in Wisconsin twice elected their current leadership within the last 3 years. This is the second time that the Democrats have gone after Scott Walker with this very tactic, and yet, the will of the Wisconsin electorate means nothing to them. Their vote in Wisconsin is worthy of nothing more than being suppressed. The unmitigated gall of those people, voting for someone other than the chosen Marxist apparatchiks selected to be their leaders by party central.

For what ever reason, they are fighting harder and more vigorously in Wisconsin than anywhere else. These are the lengths that they are willing to go to in order to seize power, and God help us all if they are successful in seizing any more than what they currently have. Those of us on the right have a goal that is to convince people that we are right, and to win that battle in the arena of ideas. The goal of the political left is to destroy any and all competing view points and to do away with any semblance of an opposition party. Either we figure out a way to unite and save our country, and do this quickly, or our nation will have been fundamentally transformed into something that no longer has any chance of resembling the bastion of free enterprise and self determination that we have all known and wish to see again.

Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.

Ed Morrissey still the master of the insanely stupid question.

by Guest Post ( 75 Comments › )
Filed under Blogmocracy, Guest Post, Republican Party at July 18th, 2013 - 6:35 pm

Guest Blogger: Doriangrey


Ed Morrissey today went out of his way to prove that he is still the absolute master of the sublimely stupid question. Opening up a “Open Thread” over at HotAir today with the following title.

Open thread, live video: Can Issa connect the dots in IRS hearing today?

posted at 10:41 am on July 18, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

According to Carl Cameron’s report of a conversation he had with Darrell Issa yesterday, today’s hearing in the House Oversight Committee will connect the dots in the IRS scandal all the way to the White House. That’s hardly a great strategy in setting expectations — unless Issa really knows he can deliver on that promise. Starting at 11 am, we’ll soon find out (via Common Cents and Gateway Pundit):

The star of today’s show will almost certainly be Carter Hull. When his name first popped up, it seemed that Hull might have been at the BOLO nexus, and possibly the key to the scandal. His testimony in depositions didn’t disappoint, either. Instead of being a driver of the effort, Hull told investigators that he had been placed in the “demeaning” position of having his approval authority stripped on Tea Party cases, which went to Washington and the IRS chief counsel’s office rather than concluded positively for the applicants, as he would have determined.

Expect Issa and Republicans to spend a lot of time with Hull, drawing him out on those points, and with Elizabeth Hofacre as well. She has been a gold mine of information on the lower-level operations, and will likely serve to rebut Democrats’ attempts to show equivalence between treatment of conservatives and progressives in the tax-exempt unit. That will balance out the efforts of Democrats on Oversight to pillory J. Russell George for not providing them that equivalence in the first place.

The fireworks should be spectacular today, with the hearing shifting from a veneer of bipartisanship earlier this summer to a full-fledged partisan battle to control the IRS scandal narrative now.

Darrell Issa is the consummate master of advancing the financial and political future of Darrell Issa and only Darrell Issa. If Darrell Issa isn’t personally profiting then nobody will profit, his words and actions become to quote William Shakespeare, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Anyone foolish enough to expect anything else from Darrell Issa deserves the disappointment that they will certainly receive at the end of today’s hearing. Just as they deserved that disappointment for expecting Issa to deliver on the “Fast and Furious” hearings, and the “Benghazi” hearing or any other damned hears that Issa has held.

In the end, the conclusion of today’s hearings is about Darrell Issa selling the American people out for whatever he can, just as he always has.

(Cross Posted@The Wilderness of Mirrors)

Eight Minutes That Should Change The United States For The Better.

by Flyovercountry ( 115 Comments › )
Filed under government, IRS, Progressives, Tea Parties, The Political Right at June 5th, 2013 - 8:00 am

Take both a good look and a good listen to this woman. This is the woman, personally identified by our President during one of his State of The Union Addresses as a domestic terrorist. She was considered by the Department of Homeland Security as a potential enemy of our nation, (being involved with one of those nefarious Tea Party groups and all,) and singled out by the IRS specifically so that her First Amendment Rights would be abridged. They accomplished this by abusing the full scope of their authority, not only through leveling an extra layer of scrutiny with her organization’s 501(c)4 application, but with personal audits of her and her husband, audits of members of their group, and invasive demands for personal disclosures considered in and of themselves illegal.

Congressman Jim McDermott(D) Mars, made a statement in response to this impassioned statement that can only be described as an evil worthy of the worst punishments imaginable by an angered mob. He basically said that it was the fault of those singled out by a bureaucracy enamored with its own power, for being singled out. According to Representative McDermott(D) somewhere further than mars, an overworked IRS, (which one would expect to have less time for witch hunts if they were indeed overworked,) was merely following through on their Constitutional Duty, by investigating every single Conservative group who made application to the IRS, while completely ignoring or expediting all those applications made by groups left of center.

McDermott’s ability to suggest this with a straight face tells me that this man has the ability to remain coherent after consuming massive quantities of alcohol, enough perhaps to jeopardize the lives of any actual normal people attempting to drink that much. My hope here of course is that when he is hospitalized for the liver transplant he’ll undoubtedly need in the future, he’ll face a Death Panel headed Kathleen Sebilius herself, under the terms of that monstrous health care plan, for which he undoubtedly voted yes.

Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.