Could have?

HT: Fox Nation

For some weird reason I get the feeling he’s not being 100% truthful.

Via Weekly Standard:

Testifying today on Capitol Hill, Douglas Shulman, the former IRS commissioner, says he “can’t say” how the targeting of conservatives by the agency he once led happened.

Baghdad Jay must be getting desperate if he’s playing the birther card.

HT: WFB

If only we had a place that’s not in the U.S. where they could be tried in a military court.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say they have identified five men they believe might be behind the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year. The officials say they have enough evidence to justify seizing them by military force as suspected terrorists, but not enough proof to try them in a U.S. civilian court as the Obama administration prefers.

So the officials say the men remain at large while the FBI gathers more evidence. The decision not to seize the men militarily underscores the White House’s aim to move away from hunting terrorists as enemy combatants and toward trying them as criminals in a civilian justice system.

The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive briefings publicly.

Update: Hot Air’s Allahpundit makes a good point.

More on this story.

Via NRO:

A month after comparing the “activists” who died in the 2010 Gaza-flotilla raid to Americans killed in the Boston Marathon bombing, Secretary of State John Kerryreportedly met with Ahmet Dogan, whose son, Furkan Dogan, a Turkish-American dual citizen, was among those killed aboard the MV Mavi Marmara in 2010.

Hurriyet Daily News, a Turkish news agency, previously reported that Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, arranged to include Ahmet Dogan among the official members of the Turkish delegation that recently visited the White House. While Dogan apparently did not visit the White House, Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, tweeted news of the private meeting with the secretary of state, as well as a photograph of the three (Dogan is in the middle, pictured above).

Keep reading…

How delightful.

Via Twitchy:

Via Politico:

Discussions between the White House and the Treasury Department on the investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups focused on the possibility of public remarks from agency officials, White House press secretary Jay Carney confirmed Tuesday.

There was “discussion about the possibility of a speech” by Lois Lerner, who oversaw the IRS’s work on tax-exempt groups, Carney said, and conservation about testimony by the acting commissioner of the agency and “what he would say” if asked about the issue.

Keep reading…

Just a tad tone deaf.

No, it isn’t.

Via Daily Caller:

California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer blamed the tornado that devastated Oklahoma on global warming during a Senate floor speech Tuesday, using the opportunity to push her own plan to tax carbon dioxide emissions.

“This is climate change,” Boxer said. “This is climate change. We were warned about extreme weather: Not just hot weather, but extreme weather. When I had my hearings, when I had the gavel years ago — it’s been a while — the scientists all agreed that what we’d start to see was extreme weather.”

“Carbon could cost us the planet,” Boxer added, plugging her own carbon tax bill, co-sponsored by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. “The least we could do is put a little charge on it so people move to clean energy.”

Keep reading…

Nye has been a global warming propagandist for as long as I can remember.

Via The Blaze:

During CNN’s live coverage of the deadly Oklahoma tornado on Monday night, host Piers Morgan and Bill Nye speculated on the possible role of climate change in the disaster.

“As a scientist, when you hear about the size, scale, power, devastation of this tornado, what does it tell you about the ongoing debate about climate change?” Morgan asked his guest.

Nye said climate change has to be considered after a catastrophic weather event like the devastating tornado in Oklahoma. He also claimed 10 of the last 12 years are the “warmest years recorded.” [that's a lie -ed.]

Keep reading…

Here Nye gets pummeled with those pesky things known as “facts.”

@thescienceguyIts called Oklahoma. Look at facts will you. Major tornados on decrease, 2x people there than in 50s twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi…

— Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) May 21, 2013

Of course Planned Parenthood’s support for Obama had no factor in this.

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said Tuesday that a pro-life group in Iowa was told by an IRS agent that its application would not be approved until the group’s board of directors swore it would not protest Planned Parenthood.

“This comes directly from Iowa, one of my constituents attempted to establish 501(c)(3) charity called Coalition for Life of Iowa. She told my staff that an IRS agent told her ‘Your application’s ready to go. However, it will not be approved until you send a letter signed by your entire board under penalty of perjury saying that you will not protest at Planned Parenthood,’” Grassley said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups.

Keep reading…

Written by the same lib tool who publicly hoped the Boston bombers would be “white.”

Via Salon:

With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost.

Was the severe weather system culminating in yesterday’s Oklahoma City tornado intensified – or even created – by climate change? That question will almost certainly bebatted back and forth in the media over the next few days. After all, there is plenty of scientific evidence that climate change intensifies weather in general, but there remainlegitimate questions about how – and even if – it intensifies tornadoes in specific.

One thing, however, that shouldn’t be up for debate is whether or not we should be as prepared as possible for inevitable weather events like tornadoes. We obviously should be – but there’s an increasing chance that we will not be thanks to the manufactured crisis known as sequestration.

As the Federal Times recently reported, sequestration includes an 8.2 percent cut to the National Weather Service. According to the organization representing weather service employees, that means there is “no way for the agency to maintain around-the-clock operations at its 122 forecasting offices” and also means “people are going to be overworked, they’re going to be tired, they’re going to miss warnings.”

Summarizing the problem, the American Institute of Physics put it bluntly: “The government runs the risk of significantly increasing forecast error and, the government’s ability to warn Americans across the country about high impact weather events, such as hurricanes and tornadoes, will be compromised.”

He is forced to concede this wasn’t the case:

The good news is that the National Weather Service station in Norman, Oklahoma had a warning in effect for 16 minutes before the most recent Oklahoma City tornado hit. That’s better than the 13 minute average, so thankfully, more people probably had more time than usual to evacuate or find safe shelter.

HT: NRO

I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of this bogus talking point.

The White House claim of ‘doctored e-mails… to smear the president’ — WaPo

“That’s a very serious offense that happened where Republicans on the Hill, we voluntarily provided these e-mails to, took one of them, doctored it and gave it to ABC News in an attempt to smear the president.”

— White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” May 19, 2013

“I think one of the problems that there’s so much controversy here is because one of the e-mails was doctored by a Republican source and given to the media to falsely smear the president.” 

— Pfeiffer, on Fox News Sunday, May 19

“They received these e-mails months ago, didn’t say a word about it, didn’t complain … And then last week a Republican source provided to Jon Karl of ABC News a doctored version of a White House e-mail that started this entire fear. After 25,000 pieces of paper are provided to Congress they have to doctor e-mail to make political hay, you know they’re getting desperate here.”

— Pfeiffer, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” May 19

When a White House aide uses the same word — “doctored” — on three television shows, you know it is a carefully crafted talking point. On top of that, he says that this was done to “smear the president.”

These are strong words concerning the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the death of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. But is this a case of the White House communications chief taking liberties with the facts? [...]

The Pinocchio Test 

It has long been part of the Washington game for officials to discredit a news story by playing up errors in a relatively small part of it. Pfeiffer gives the impression that GOP operatives deliberately tried to “smear the president” with false, doctored e-mails.

But the reporters involved have indicated they were told by their sources that these were summaries, taken from notes of e-mails that could not be kept. The fact that slightly different versions of the e-mails were reported by different journalists suggests there were different note-takers as well.

Indeed, Republicans would have been foolish to seriously doctor e-mails that the White House at any moment could have released (and eventually did). Clearly, of course, Republicans would put their own spin on what the e-mails meant, as they did in the House report. Given that the e-mails were almost certain to leak once they were sent to Capitol Hill, it’s a wonder the White House did not proactively release them earlier.

The burden of proof lies with the accuser. Despite Pfeiffer’s claim of political skullduggery, we see little evidence that much was at play here besides imprecise wordsmithing or editing errors by journalists.

Three Pinocchios

HT: Fox Nation

Obama pander? That’s crazy talk!

Via College Fix:

It’s not uncommon for African Americans to criticize President Barack Obama’s job performance, and the latest example of that comes on the heels of his commencement speech at Morehouse College on Sunday.

During his keynote address at the historically black, all-male college in Georgia, Obama called for better family values among the black community and personal responsibility over complaints about racism.

During his speech, Obama told the grads to “recognize the burdens you carry with you, but resist the temptation to use them as excuses.”

“That’s what being an American is about. Success may not come quickly or easily. But if you strive to do what’s right; if you work harder and dream bigger; if you set an example in your own lives and do your part to help meet the challenges of our time, then I am confident that, together, we will continue the never-ending task of perfecting our union.”

But some African Americans on Monday called that message tired and insulting, saying it was rhetoric meant to pander to white people.

“Trevor Coleman thinks it’s time for President Obama to get a new speech for black audiences,” The Washington Post reports. “The personal responsibility finger-wagging, delivered most recently Sunday at Morehouse College’s commencement, is getting old. … Coleman, a former speechwriter for former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, said … he was disappointed that Obama almost always defaults to the clean-up-your-act message when talking to predominantly black audiences.”

The Post goes on to quote Leola Johnson, an associate professor and chair of the Media and Cultural Studies Department at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn.,  who said Obamas’ speeches “are actually not aimed at black people.”

“They’re actually for white people, liberals especially,” she said.

Keep reading…

Everyone reading this already knows Attkisson has been relentless in her pursuit of the Fast And Furious and the Benghazi scandals.

Via Politico:

Sharyl Attkisson, the Emmy-award winning CBS News investigative reporter, says that her personal and work computers have been compromised and are under investigation.

“I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months but I’m not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today as I’ve been patient and methodical about this matter,” Attkisson told POLITICO on Tuesday. “I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public.”

In an earlier interview with WPHT Philadelphia, Attkisson said that though she did not know the full details of the intrustion, “there could be some relationship between these things and what’s happened to James [Rosen],” the Fox News reporter who became the subject of a Justice Dept. investigation after reporting on CIA intelligence about North Korea in 2009.

On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that the Justice Dept. had searched Rosen’s personal e-mails and tracked his visits to the State Dept. The court affadavit described Rosen as “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator” of his government source, presumably because he had solicited classified information from that source — an argument that has been heavily criticized by other journalists.

Keep reading…

So they rubber stamped liberal groups and made in nearly impossible for conservative groups to get non-profit status and that’s not politically motivated?

Via TPM:

At a hearing Tuesday, Senate Finance Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-UT) went after Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller for failing to recognize or admit that it had targeted conservative groups back when Republicans sent them letters asking as much last year.

“That’s a lie by omission,” Hatch said. “There’s no question about that in my mind. It’s a lie by omission. … Why did you mislead me and my colleagues?”

“Mr. Hatch, I did not lie,” Miller responded.

“Frankly,” Miller said, “the concept of political motivation here — I did not agree with that in May. I do not agree with that now. We were not politically motivated in targeting conservative groups.”

Well done, IRS.

Via Washington Examiner:

Internal Revenue Service officials not only wanted a wide variety of information from the Albuquerque Tea Party’s application for non-profit status, it also wanted to know what contacts it had with people from other political organizations too.

That included an 83-year-old great-grandmother who was once held in a World War II internment camp, New Mexico Watchdog has discovered.

“I’ve always paid my taxes and everything,” Marianne Chiffelle told New Mexico Watchdog. “What I do think is, it doesn’t surprise me…because of this government we have at the moment.”

According to a review of documents conducted by the online news organization Politico, (in a story headlined “The IRS wants YOU — to share everything”), the IRS asked the Albuquerque Tea Party about connections to other groups, including “Marianne Chiffelle’s Breakfasts.”

That prompted us to do some digging.

It took New Mexico Watchdog less than an hour to learn that “Marianne Chiffelle’s Breakfasts” is not some restaurant chain, but a reference to the volunteer work of Chiffelle, a retiree who helps organize informal 9 a.m. meetings for members of the Bernalillo County Republican Party.

The group meets on Fridays at a Golden Corral restaurant. “We’ve had these meetings for a long time,” Chiffelle said. “It’s not a business.”

Chiffelle is a naturalized American citizen who was born in what was then called the Dutch East Indies, now known as Indonesia. Her father was an executive for Shell Oil and when World War II broke out Chiffelle was sent to a Japanese internment camp where she spent four years, from age 12 to 16.

After the war, she moved to the Netherlands and in 1960 she and her late husband immigrated to the United States.

Keep reading…

Four Americans killed is a “laughable joke?”

HT: NRO

Inspiring.

More pics here…

Obviously these people are racists.

Via The Hill:

A majority of Americans believe that the Obama administration is trying to cover up the facts about the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. installation in Benghazi and the administration’s immediate response, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

The survey, by ABC News and the Washington Post, found that 55 percent of Americans believe the Obama administration is actively attempting to cover up the facts of the Benghazi attack. By contrast, only a third say the White House is honestly disclosing what it knows.

At the same time, respondents were split on whether the Republican criticism of the Obama Administration’s handling of the attack was rooted in legitimate concerns. While 44 percent say that the GOP had asked legitimate questions, 45 percent say that Republicans are just engaging in political posturing.

Giddy up!

Via PJ Media’s Roger Simon:

More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with PJ Media Monday afternoon.

These whistleblowers, colleagues of the former diplomats, are currently securing legal counsel because they work in areas not fully protected by the Whistleblower law.

According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really transpired in Benghazi that are potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Keep reading…

Including a majority who say what the IRS did is illegal.

Via The Hill:

A new poll finds that a majority of Americans believe the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal was an intentional effort to harass conservative political groups.

In a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday, 56 percent said the IRS use of higher scrutiny on Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status was a deliberate move, with 31 percent calling it an “administrative mistake.”

A strong majority, 74 percent, said the IRS moves were inappropriate to 20 percent who said they were appropriate. Fifty-one percent also said they believe those actions were illegal to 44 who said they were inappropriate but not against the law.

A plurality also believe the administration is not being forthcoming about the targeting scandal. Forty-five percent said the administration is trying to cover up facts, with 42 percent saying the White House has honestly disclosed what they know.

Via Guns Save Lives who has the full story.

HT: Guitar Mark

But… but… but… Obama heard about it in the news, or something.

Via Pew Research

The left’s version of the American Dream.

Via Washington Times:

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Monday to allow illegal immigrants who get legal status to begin collecting tax-welfare payments, as the panel spent a fourth day working through amendments to the massive immigration bill and party-line splits began to emerge.

In one major change, the committee voted 17-1 to make a third drunken-driving conviction a deportable offense for the newly legalized immigrants if at least one of those offenses occurs after they are approved for legal status.

But immigrant-rights groups called that a rollback of due-process rights for the immigrants and said a drunken-driving incident shouldn’t cost someone a chance at citizenship.

“We cannot and will not support hard-line proposals that take away discretion and limit an individual’s ability to pursue the pathway to citizenship,” said Paromita Shah, associate director of the National Lawyers Guild’s National Immigration Project.