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“Arise and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.” Winston Churchill
“Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof.” Inscription on the Liberty Bell
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Did Lois Lerner waive her Fifth Amendment protection?
William Taylor III, the lawyer Lois Lerner selected to represent her before the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, is part of a firm that’s about as tight with the Obama administration as it could be. According to Washingtonian Magazine, the firm, a boutique litigation shop called Zuckerman Spaeder, has sent a higher percentage of partners into the Obama administration than any other law firm. But did Lerner’s lawyer do »
Investigate reporters, but only when there’s something to investigate
The emerging conservative line on the Obama administration’s aggressive investigations of journalists is that national security leaks should be dealt with by going after the leaker, not the reporter. I’ve heard this line from a number of conservative commentators, most notably Karl Rove. I couldn’t disagree more. Reporters are not above the law. And, as John has explained, the law (per the Espionage Act, 18 US Code Section 793) prohibits »
Obama keeps hands off Benghazi terrorists while lawyers build criminal case
We’ve always viewed the Benghazi scandal in terms of (1) the Obama administration’s failure to provide requested security before the attack, (2) its conduct, or lack thereof, during the attack, and (3) its cover-up after the attack (along with, as we recently learned, its retaliation against those who didn’t feel comfortable about the cover-up). But there’s always been a fourth element — the administration’s failure to bring the attackers to »
The Great Liberal Death Wish, London Edition
There’s an old saying in journalism—a story just “too good to check out.” You can tell the media’s bias not only from what they won’t check out, but what they won’t even consider checking out, let alone reporting. News item: a deranged young man, James Holmes, shoots up a Denver theater last summer killing 12, and ABC News’s Brian Ross goes on the air to note that there’s a “James »I Think They’re Trying to Tell Us Something
One of my favorite adages goes like this: Any damn fool can learn from his own experience, what you want to do is learn from other people’s experience. Actually, you could say that the ability to learn from other people’s experiences is the only thing that makes human progress possible. The Europeans have had a lot of bad experiences. A few of them we have learned from; most, sadly, we »On IRC section 1203
A reader with a long background of employment at the IRS writes on an aspect of the IRS scandal that hasn’t received much attention and that draws on his experience at the agency: I’m a fan and regular reader. Thanks for your yeoman’s work on the IRS scandal. I’m also retired from a 35-year law enforcement career, 22 of which were at the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, so I have »Live-blogging the latest IRS hearings
The House Oversight Committee hearing on the IRS scandal is underway. I missed the beginning because I was appearing on Chuck Morse’s radio program. I’m tuned in now and will do a bit of live-blogging. I understand that, as expected, IRS official Lois Lerner has invoked the Fifth Amendment and, after saying she would answer no questions, has been dismissed from the hearing. I caught the end of the questioning »NR on Watergate
Writing from memory yesterday morning, I recalled the role George Will had played as National Review’s Washington columnist during Watergate. I was faithfully reading the magazine in 1973 and 1974, and I think I was remembering Will’s NR columns accurately, but I was also recalling an inside account written, I thought, by William Buckley or NR senior editor Jeffrey Hart. I couldn’t find what I was thinking of in Buckley’s »A Crack in the IRS Dam
The dam protecting the IRS scandal began to crack today when Lois Lerner, the IRS official who announced, and apologized for, the improper singling out of conservative-leaning organizations by IRS employees under her command, announced through her criminal defense lawyer that she will not testify as scheduled tomorrow before the House Oversight Committee. Rather, she will assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. This marks a milestone in the IRS »The common thread in the Obama adminstration scandals
John Yoo identifies the common thread in the major Obama administration scandals: Add up all the recent scandals and the message is clear: the Obama administration is showing that it cannot be trusted with the basic functions of government: law enforcement (surveillance of reporters), taxation (IRS scandals), and national security (Benghazi). How, then, can we trust the administration when it comes to immigration — an area in which it already »Rand Paul Stands Up Against Government Greed
The Senate Subcommittee on Investigations is holding a hearing this morning on Apple’s tax avoidance strategies. Rand Paul set the ringmasters back on their heels with an opening statement that questioned the whole rationale for the hearing. Here is Paul’s opening statement: For those who lack the patience to watch it (that often describes me when it comes to videos), here is the transcript, supplied by Paul’s office: I am »Green Weenie of the Week: Tornado Alley Edition
Now I know what you’re thinking: the obvious Green Weenie winner should be that former congresscritter who liked to tweet his big banana and who announced yesterday that he’s going to run for mayor of the Big Apple, to the audible squeals of delight from within the soundproof walls where Daily Show writers work. And Anthony Weiner certainly qualifies for a Green Weenie, as it turns out he was in »Advancing the IRS story
My daughter Eliana has a carefully reported piece at NRO on the IRS scandal that was posted late yesterday afternoon. The piece is titled “Oversight from Washington, all along.” I hesitate to highlight or praise the work of my own daughter, but Hugh Hewitt is under no such inhibition. Hugh praises the work of Eliana as well as that of his Townhall colleague Carol Platt Liebau as “The real reporting »Media alert
I will be on the nationally syndicated radio show “Chuck Morse Speaks” tomorrow morning at 10:00 Eastern Time. I am scheduled to be on for an hour. We will discuss Ted Cruz as a possible presidential candidate and, to the extent I can do so intelligently, whatever else the host wants to talk about. »Community organizing, Obamacare style
A subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform held a hearing today on the government’s Obamacare “outreach” program. Obamacare authorizes the government to provide information to the uninsured, and to assist them in obtaining insurance, through the use of “navigators.” Today’s hearing addressed concerns of Republican committee members about how this process will work in practice. The only witness was Gary Cohen, deputy administrator of the Department »A New Front in the Administration’s War on Journalism?
The two most honest and independent reporters in Washington are, I think, Jake Tapper, now of CNN, and CBS’s Sharyl Attkisson. I’m probably forgetting someone, but those are the two that come to mind. Ms. Attkisson reported on Fast and Furious more fearlessly and effectively than any other reporter. Today she disclosed that her personal and work computers have been “compromised.” The circumstances are being investigated: “I can confirm that »Live from the Upper Midwest Employment Law Institute
At the moment I am listening to the ostentatiously liberal Judge Mark Bennett of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa summarize the Supreme Court’s employment law decisions of the past year. Judge Bennett wants us to know that he has got his mind right (i.e., left), and how. I understood that from his disparagement of the conservative Supreme Court justices as “the usual suspects.” That »