Posted on May 17, 2013 by John Hinderaker in IRS, Obama Administration Scandals

Highlights of Today’s IRS Hearing

Former 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:

Posted on by Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures, Scandalpalooza Edition

I 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 frivolity.

Anyway, lots of good stuff piled up on the photo spindle since our midweek graphical update.  There’s a pretty clear theme here–even the media can spot it I think.

Heh.


I don’t know how I missed this when it came out, but here it is now:

And finally, for something different:

 

Posted on by Paul Mirengoff in IRS, Obama Administration Scandals

Live-blogging the House IRS hearing

Steve 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 time Miller, had been briefed about targeting. However, his answer did not divulge the targeting.

Even Democrats don’t seem to be buying Miller’s attempt to claim that this answer was the whole truth. Their approach is quickly to acknowledge wrongdoing by the IRS and then launch tirades against Citizens United.

The formula — 15 seconds of mock outrage; four minutes of speechifying about the evils of the campaign finance system, and 45 second of blaming Republicans for not giving IRS more resources. But more resources would create the danger of more politicized harassment.

Ryan also asked Miller whether the IRS used the terms “progressive” or “organizing” in identifying organizations to be scrutinized. Miller tried to avoid answering, but eventually acknowledged these terms weren’t used.

Miller nonetheless keeps denying that the IRS acted politically. But Pat Tiberi of Ohio has just shown the disparity between the treatment of liberal and conservative groups in Ohio. Conservative groups were left waiting years for approval while left-wing groups received it within months.

A conservative book club was required to identify the books its members read and to provide book reports to the IRS. You can’t make this stuff up.

Miller is about as disingenuous and slippery as he can be. He rejects the word “targeting” (used 16 times in the IRS Inspector General’s report, which Miller says he accepts) by claiming that there was no bad “intent.” So he is asked whether, intent aside, groups were treated differently based on their name.

Astonishingly, Miller says “no.” Thank God this sleaze is no longer in charge at the IRS. Given his lack of candor, Miller is lucky he’s not been held in contempt of Congress. He certainly is in contempt of its intelligence — and ours.

Miller acknowledges that he promoted Sarah Ingram, the IRS official in charge of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012, to director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office. Asked why, Miller responded that she is “an exemplary public servant.”

Even giving Ingram the benefit of all doubt (and why should we?), major wrongdoing occurred under her watch. Is this the modern bureaucracy’s idea of an exemplary public servant?

Miller goes on to say he does not know whether Ingram was what criteria the IRS was using to select groups for scrutiny. That’s hard to believe. But if it’s true, that’s not exemplary.

The Democrats’ defense of having Ingram in the position of director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office is that the IRS will not have access to medical records. That may be true if the IRS adheres to procedure. But the lesson of this scandal is that the IRS cannot be trusted to adhere to procedure.

Rep. Aaron Schock drives home just how improper IRS questioning of pro-life groups was. Christian Voices for Life was asked whether it provides education on abortion issues on both sides of the question. Miller refuses to comment on the propriety on this inquiry.

The Coalition for Life of Iowa was asked for the content of the prayers of its members. Miller finds this “unusual,” but goes no further.

IRS asked another pro-life group to detail the signs its members use when they assemble in front of Planned Parenthood facilities. Again, Miller fails to characterize in harsher terms than “unusual.”

It’s time for a pet peeve. Miller begins his answer to many questions with the word “so.” The word is clearly superfluous when used in this way. When did it become de rigueur for a certain type of person (often the pompous or ingratiating kind) to preface answers and remarks with this word? And why?

Miller begins a few more answers by saying “so.” That’s my cue to sign off.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Islam, Terrorism

MS. found in a boat

CBS 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 as part manifesto, part suicide note and part justification for the killing and maiming of innocent civilians.

The note — scrawled with a marker on the interior wall of the cabin — said the bombings were retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and called the Boston victims “collateral damage” in the same way Muslims have been in the American-led wars. “When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims,” Tsarnaev wrote.

Tsarnaev said he didn’t mourn older brother Tamerlan, the other suspect in the bombings, writing that by that point, Tamerlan was a martyr in paradise — and that he expected to join him there soon.

As for joining his brother soon, if only. As for the rest, we can count on President Obama to explain to Tsarnaev how he misunderstands his faith.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Barack Obama, Hollywood, Obamacare

The Bulworth identity

Peter 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 as the hindrances on him.

“Probably every president says that from time to time,” said David Axelrod, another longtime adviser who has heard Mr. Obama’s movie-inspired aspiration. “It’s probably cathartic just to say it. But the reality is that while you want to be truthful, you want to be straightforward, you also want to be practical about whatever you’re saying.”

Baker somewhat cluelessly adds this comment:

The cinematic allusion seems striking given Mr. Obama’s rejection of Hollywood’s version of the White House, what one former aide calls “the Harry Potter theory of the presidency,” which suggests that he could wave a wand and make things happen. At the White House Correspondents Association dinner last month, he bristled at the idea that he should pattern himself after Michael Douglas’s assertive character in “The American President.”

Turning to Mr. Douglas, who was in the audience, he jokingly asked what his secret was. “Could it be that you were an actor in an Aaron Sorkin liberal fantasy?” Mr. Obama asked. He added later, “I get frustrated sometimes.”

I say cluelessly because Obama’s presentation of himself as a world-historic, transformative figure is perfectly consistent with his current frustrations. Indeed, if he has any friends, they should try to cheer him up. He’s gone a long way toward the “fundamental transformation” of the United States he promised just before he trounced John Mccain in 2008.

In case you need some help with the Bulworth reference, IMDb has compiled quotes from the film. When Bulworth begins to say what he really thinks, he adopts a black persona and lays his shtick down in rap, as in his praise of socialized medicine:

Bulworth: Yo, everybody gonna get sick someday / But nobody knows how they gonna pay / Health care, managed care, HMOs / Ain’t gonna work, no sir, not those / ‘Cause the thing that’s the same in every one of these / Is these mother******* there, the insurance companies!

Cheryl and Tanya: Insurance! Insurance!

Bulworth: Yeah, yeah / You can call it single-payer or Canadian way / Only socialized medicine will ever save the day! Come on now, lemme hear that dirty word – SOCIALISM!

There is a reason Bulworth is little remembered. It falls into a long line of lame liberal satire. But Baker’s report is really interesting. One wishes Baker’s curiosity weren’t so constrained. Dig a little deeper, man! What deep truths is Obama longing to share with the American people?

He’s already told us he prefers “single-payer or Canadian way,” to take the Bulworthian example above. He hasn’t gone so far as to give a shout out to “that dirty word – SOCIALISM,” but we can connect the dots from Obamacare to the “single-payer or the Canadian” way by ourselves. From the glories of the Canadian way (as Obama sees them) to “SOCIALISM” only requires a little generalization from a big example.

Perhaps in the Bulworth mode Obama would tell us what fools we were to believe his fake opposition to gay marriage, or his fake support for Israel. He would tell us friendship with Bill Ayers and his support for late term abortion/infanticide.

He would explain the virtues of the Muslim Brotherhood. He would unburden himself of the shame he felt having to disown Jeremiah Wright. He would tell us at long last of his profound feelings for the wisdom of Rashid Khalidi!

He would have a few choice words about Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, but he would also express his contempt for the Republican members of the Gang of Eight. He would express his deep gratitude to low information voters and the members of the media who kept them in that condition.

Whatever Obama would have to say in Bulworth mode might come as a slight surprise to low information voters, but for anyone who has been paying attention it would amount to an utterly superfluous postscript. The only thing close to humorous about it is Obama’s conceit that he has concealed his inner light.

Via Stanley Kurtz/NRO.

UPDATE: I had missed James Taranto’s inquiry: “What would Bulworth do?”

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Steven Hayward in Culture, Media

Kevin Williamson, Stud

I 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 close quarters on bench seating) was fairly insistent about using her phone. I asked her to turn it off. She answered: “So don’t look.” I asked her whether I had missed something during the very pointed announcements to please turn off your phones, perhaps a special exemption granted for her. She suggested that I should mind my own business.

So I minded my own business by utilizing my famously feline agility to deftly snatch the phone out of her hand and toss it across the room, where it would do no more damage. She slapped me and stormed away to seek managerial succor.

Who hasn’t longed to do exactly this.  Williamson has made a strong opening bid to be the Howard Beale of our time.  Apparently there is talk of criminal charges.  Against Kevin.  Power Line will be happy to contribute to the #FreeKevin defense fund.

Kevin is trending huge on Twitter right now, as this story shows.

Posted on by Paul Mirengoff in IRS, Obamacare

Meet the new oppressor, same as the old oppressor

If 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 director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.

Grant has been pushed out the door. Today he announced that he would retire on June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office on May 8, a week ago.

But Ingram remains in her post. Perhaps the administration believes that Obamacare is too important to be entrusted to an honest, non-overtly partisan bureaucratic.

Rep. Rep. Marlin Stutzman nailed it when he said today: “Obamacare empowers the agency that just violated the public’s trust by secretly targeting conservative groups. Even by Washington’s standards, that’s unacceptable.”

If only the Supreme Court had put Obamacare out of our misery.