May 18, 2013 — John Hinderaker

Bye, Bye Beretta

Featured image Beretta USA has been headquartered in Maryland for many years. But Maryland’s left-wing governor, Martin O’Malley, has just signed legislation that, among other things, bans the possession or use of average-capacity magazines. Beretta naturally views this as an insult to its products, its customers and its employees, and is looking for a new home. I like Beretta’s statement on the issue: The question now facing the Beretta Holding companies in »
May 18, 2013 — Scott Johnson

Nixon’s IRS

Featured imageOne of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon included his alleged misuse of the IRS. Article 2 of the Articles of Impeachment was carefully framed to charge that Nixon “endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, »
May 17, 2013 — John Hinderaker

Highlights of Today’s IRS Hearing

Featured imageFormer acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee today; Paul live-blogged his appearance. My friend Jeff Davis compiled this video of highlights of today’s proceedings. As usual, the highlights consist more of the Congressmen’s questions than Miller’s answers, but the video is nevertheless revealing. Miller comes across just as Paul described him: »
May 17, 2013 — John Hinderaker

What If the Obama Scandals Had Surfaced Last Fall?

Featured imageI was on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show last night, talking about the Benghazi talking point emails. Near the end of the segment, Hugh asked whether I thought the presidential election might have turned out differently if Obama and Clinton had not succeeded in covering up the truth about Benghazi. I was skeptical. The story of the election, I said, was the Obama campaign’s ability to turn out, once again, a »
May 17, 2013 — Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures, Scandalpalooza Edition

Featured imageI had to doublecheck the calendar this morning to make sure I hadn’t woken up back on April 1, for a couple of the front section headines in today’s Wall Street Journal had me wondering.  Such as: “As Hepatitis C Spreads, Scotland Steps In.”  Scotland?  Since when did it become the CDC?  Or how about this: “Berlin Leftists’ New Target: Barbie Dreamhouse.”  You can always count on the left for »
May 17, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Live-blogging the House IRS hearing

Featured imageSteve Miller, former acting Commissioner of the IRS, is testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee. Paul Ryan has just taken him to task for his prior testimony to Congress. Ryan demonstrated that Miller failed to meet his obligation to tell Congress the whole truth in his previous testimony. In prior testimony, Miller was asked what “targeting” of tax exempt groups was taking place at the IRS. At the »
May 17, 2013 — Scott Johnson

The Bulworth identity

Featured imagePeter Baker reports on President Obama’s frustrations in the New York Times: In private, [Obama] has talked longingly of “going Bulworth,” a reference to a little-remembered 1998 Warren Beatty movie about a senator who risked it all to say what he really thought. While Mr. Beatty’s character had neither the power nor the platform of a president, the metaphor highlights Mr. Obama’s desire to be liberated from what he sees »
May 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Meet the new oppressor, same as the old oppressor

Featured imageIf this were April 1, I’d bet that the following headline from ABC News is a joke: “IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office.” But the joke is on us. Here’s the story: Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the »
May 16, 2013 — John Hinderaker

Trust Me! Or Else…

Featured imageYesterday, Scott suggested that President Obama’s commencement speech at Ohio State, which was essentially a paean to big government, may have represented the high tide of Obamaism. In hindsight, Obama’s words were chilling: Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to »
May 16, 2013 — Steven Hayward

Nietzsche & Hayek, Gott im Himmel!

Featured imageWe take this brief time out from our ongoing Obama scandal coverage for a detour in the intellectual fever swamps of the left, in particular a bizarre article out in the current issue of The Nation by Corey Robin, author of The Reactionary Mind: From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin.  Nothing subtle about that title.  The Nation article, “Nietzsche’s Marginal Children: On Friedrich Hayek” attempts to discredit Hayek’s free market »
May 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Director of IRS Tax-Exempt Determinations Office Is Obama Donor

Featured imageEliana Johnson points out that the director of the Office of Rulings and Agreements, which oversees the determination of tax-exempt organizations, is a donor to Barack Obama. Holly Paz donated $2,000 to Obama’s 2008 campaign, according to Open Secrets, which maintains a database of individual political donations. Liberal Democrats comprise the vast majority of federal bureaucrats. For example, in the past two presidential races, roughly 85 percent of the money »
May 17, 2013 — Scott Johnson

MS. found in a boat

Featured imageCBS News reports: Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left a note claiming responsibility for the April 15 attack on the Boston Marathon, reports CBS News senior correspondent John Miller. Sources tell Miller that Tsarnaev wrote the note in the boat he was hiding in as police pursued him, and as he bled from gunshot wounds sustained in an earlier shootout between police and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It reads »
May 16, 2013 — Steven Hayward

Kevin Williamson, Stud

Featured imageI already thought National Review‘s Kevin Williamson, author of the fine new book The End Is Near And It’s Going to Be Awesome was a total stud, but after last night’s bravado performance in a New York theater, he’s a total heroic stud.  If you haven’t heard the story yet, check out how he dealt with cell phone rudeness during a performance: The lady seated to my immediate right (very »
May 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

The Hispanic vote in presidential elections

Featured imageA reader provided me with several useful comments on my post regarding the Republican share of the Hispanic vote in presidential elections since 1980. First, he says that the figure I used for George W. Bush’s share in 2004 — 43 percent — is an outlier: In 2004, NEP (National Exit Poll) reported 44% for Bush, the highest of all ten polls. That result was widely and immediately challenged. Pew »
May 16, 2013 — John Hinderaker

And Now, Back to Immigration

Featured imageLet’s put aside the Obama administration’s scandals for a moment, and return to an issue that will have a great deal more to do with America’s future: immigration. The proposed Gang of Eight bill will result in somewhere between 30 million and 57 million new immigrants over the next ten years. This is, in a nutshell, why the bill is so bad. The impact of such a mass influx of »
May 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Schumer not to blame for IRS scandal

Featured imageChuck Schumer easily makes my list of the ten politicians I dislike most. So my ears perked up when I heard that, in 2012, he signed a letter that, as it has been characterized, told the IRS to go after conservative groups. The other signers were Sens. Bennet, Whitehouse, Merkley, Udall, Shaheen, and Franken. The letter can be found on Schumer’s website. I don’t read it as calling on the »
May 16, 2013 — Scott Johnson

P.S. on the AP

Featured imageAccording to Eric Holder, Eric Holder is no more responsible for the investigation of the Associated Press than Barack Obama is for events in Benghazi according to Barack Obama. That was Holder’s theme in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, which I first read about yesterday in a post by Allahpundit at Hot Air. Looking around for a narrative account of Holder’s testimony this morning, I find the liberal »