If All You See…

By William Teach May 22, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…is a super wonderful bridge for trains, which Other People should use instead of fossil fuels for travel, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post on the State Dept’s weapons program.

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And…Lois Lerner Did Plead The 5th

By William Teach May 22, 2013 – 11:03 am

As pointed out yesterday, this was expected

(Fox News) The director of the IRS division that singled out conservative groups refused to answer questions Wednesday at a House hearing on the program, as a Democratic lawmaker warned there would be “hell to pay” if the agency stonewalls Congress on its investigation.

The IRS official, Lois Lerner, invoked the Fifth Amendment Wednesday as she declared she would not testify or answer questions on the advice of counsel.

“I will not answer any questions or testify about the subject matter of this committee’s meeting,” she said.

However, her statements prompted confusion in the hearing room, as she delivered a brief opening statement in which she claimed she had done nothing wrong. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said that given her other remarks, she may have “effectively waived” her rights.

She has every right to take the 5th, but, the thing about the 5th is that it is meant to protect citizens from self-incrimination, not so that people can immediately infer that there is no assumption of guilt. Though, people shouldn’t necessarily jump to the conclusion that the person did something wrong. While in a courtroom. In the justice system.

Ms. Lerner should also expect to be recalled to the Hill to testify (and probably take the 5th), and possibly face charges, both criminal and for contempt of Congress. A Blaze reader, Fellow_Citizen, makes an interesting point

Try this stunt when the IRS is investigating YOU. Your assets would be gone, your house and business would be gone, and you would be in jail.

Also, Issa brought the humor

Apparently the IRS provided some documents to Democrats, but not Republicans.

Oh, and apparently no heads are going to roll.

Read: And…Lois Lerner Did Plead The 5th »

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Milbank: “Government Makes Criminals Of Reporters”

By William Teach May 22, 2013 – 9:10 am

It’s nice to see reporters and professional opinion writers employed by media outlets finally understanding the lawlessness of this administration. It’s a shame that it took a flagrant abuse of the 1st Amendment to some of their own, “which it seems is the only way these days to get the jaded, Obama loving media off their f***ing arses and back to doing actual reporting”. Here’s the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank

There are various reasons you might not care about the Obama administration’s spying on journalist James Rosen and labeling him a “co-conspirator and/or aider and abettor” in an espionage case.

Liberals may not be particularly bothered because the targeted journalist works for Fox News. Conservatives may not be concerned because of their antipathy toward the news media generally. And the general public certainly doesn’t have much patience for journalists’ whining.

On one point, Milbank shouldn’t conflate Conservative antipathy towards the news media as not caring: yes, we find them to be highly partisan and biased towards the Democrat/Liberal/Progressive side, but, first, those of us who blog or read blogs depend on them for material (just not always in the way they expect), and, more importantly, we want them to act as the watchdogs of the Government, as the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, along with discussion papers pre-Constitution/BORs, wanted them to be, and not just when Republicans are in charge. The American people depend upon the Press to do their jobs and expose wrong-doing. Anyhow

But here’s why you should care — and why this case, along with the administration’s broad snooping into Associated Press phone records, is more serious than the other supposed Obama administration scandals regarding Benghazi and the Internal Revenue Service. The Rosen affair is as flagrant an assault on civil liberties as anything done by George W. Bush’s administration, and it uses technology to silence critics in a way Richard Nixon could only have dreamed of.

To treat a reporter as a criminal for doing his job — seeking out information the government doesn’t want made public — deprives Americans of the First Amendment freedom on which all other constitutional rights are based. Guns? Privacy? Due process? Equal protection? If you can’t speak out, you can’t defend those rights, either.

And Mr. Milbank has a good point: if the DOJ is going to go after The Press in these manners, a Press which is given an extra exemption in the 1st Amendment, what about coming after you? The DOJ even went after the phone records of James Rosen’s parents. This should be chilling for all, whether you are left, middle, or right politically. As Milbank writes

If the administration is spying on reporters and accusing them of criminality just for asking questions — well, who knows what else this crowd is capable of doing?

That’s what we’ve been saying for a long time. Perhaps The Press will now decide to go full bore on investigation and asking questions, instead of just a few, like Sharyl Atckinson and Jake Tapper, instead of acting as White House employees.

Read: Milbank: “Government Makes Criminals Of Reporters” »

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IRS Scandal: Stage Managed To Leave President Obama In The Dark

By William Teach May 22, 2013 – 8:37 am

Those who’ve read my blog posts know that I always refer to him as Obama or (NMP) Obama (not my president). When I refer to Obama as President Obama I do it to make a point. Case in point, per this McClatchy article at the Raleigh News and Observer

With Obama in the dark, administration planned how to stage-manage news of IRS scandal

Weeks before the world – and apparently President Barack Obama himself – heard about the details of the Internal Revenue Service scandal, top people in his administration started planning how to stage-manage the release of the information.

Senior aides in the White House, the Treasury Department and the IRS debated the best way to tell the public what surely would ignite a storm of criticism, the coming report that the IRS earlier had targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny. The plan eventually chosen: the “incredibly bad idea” of secretly planting a question in the audience when an IRS official spoke on May 10. (snip)

While White House officials insisted that aides and advisers deliberately kept Obama in the dark about the coming report, they said they and the Treasury Department started debating the best way to inform the country.

And, as we all know, President Obama stated that he first heard about this from watching the news. Now,I dearly love how McClatchy simply takes this all for granted, forgoing any sort of investigative journalism, but, then, perhaps Obama really was kept in the dark.

Which begs a question: why are any of these people, at least at the senior officer position, still employed? In any company in the world, if senior underlings engaged in this behavior they would have already been “promoted to customer”, as we say in the sales world. The same applies to most governments in the world. No leader, especially a head of a company or a government, wants to be bushwacked by a scandal, especially in politics. They always want to get ahead of the game so they can be prepared. Certainly, if the story makes it the White House chief of staff, this is something that President Obama needed to know. Why didn’t he?

Conversely, this could be the exact thing Obama wants, either because he has a stated policy or because this is the atmosphere he creates, namely that no one tells him about Bad Things. Which shows a dereliction of duty and an unwillingness to be President. It would validate what Conservatives have said for a long time, that “Obama likes to BE president; he doesn’t like to DO president.” Any leader who created an atmosphere or told his underlings “don’t tell me” would be terminated along with the underlings.

Of course, in order to cover what is sheer incompetence and what are surely mule fritters talking points (we all know that no one withheld this from Obama, he surely knew, at least back in April), we get talking points from various Obama sycophants

(USA Today) “Some matters are not appropriate to convey to him, and this is one of them,” spokesman Jay Carney said.

“You do not intervene in an independent investigation,” Carney said. “There was nothing we could have or should have done about it.”

(Fox News) Pfeiffer defended Obama’s statement that he didn’t know anything about the incidents or the investigation until he heard about them in the press.

“No president would get involved in an independent IRS investigation,” Pfeiffer said. “It would be wholly inappropriate.”

That’s cute, where they conflate being informed with “getting involved”. Obama didn’t seem to have a problem yapping his mouth, getting involved, when it came to the Trayvon Martin situation, arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. (saying the Boston PD “acted stupidly” and his beer summit), and a host of other issues.

But, I’ll say it again: if President Obama, the guy whose desk the buck is supposed to stop at, is being kept in the dark by “employees”, why are they still employed? The answer to that question should tell us that Obama knew.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: IRS Scandal: Stage Managed To Leave President Obama In The Dark »

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Lois Lerner To Plead 5th At IRS Hearing

By William Teach May 21, 2013 – 7:13 pm

As Ace points out, the LA Times originally buried their own scoop way down on the page. They’ve moved it up near the top as of my looking at it, and is now showing on the National page of their Droid app

A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the 5th Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups.

Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, won’t answer questions about what she knew about the improper screening — or why she didn’t disclose it to Congress, according to a letter from her defense lawyer, William W. Taylor III. Lerner was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

“She has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course,” said a letter by Taylor to committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Vista). The letter, sent Monday, was obtained Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times.

Perhaps not, but as a government official with Power she should provide details as to exactly what happened, and why she failed to disclose these details to Congress before, which, unless I miss my guess, is considered “lying to Congress”, obstruction, and perhaps a few other charges.

Meanwhile, her lawyer is saying “hey, since she’s pleading the 5th, there’s really no point in Congress having her testify, so, why bother?” Somehow, I doubt Darrell Issa is going to let her go get ice cream.

Read: Lois Lerner To Plead 5th At IRS Hearing »

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Climate Change Charts And Graphs

By William Teach May 21, 2013 – 2:45 pm

John wanted a few, here we go (Any “click larger” applies to the preceding graphic). Data from various sites, including Real Science, C3 Headlines, UN IPCC AR1, and others. I’m creating a new Page for all these, which I will add on over time.

photo 6a010536b58035970c01543563f4be970c_zpsd71bc0ed.png

Click larger

(click the more tag to see rest)

Read More »

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If All You See…

By William Teach May 21, 2013 – 1:00 pm

…is a planet killing dog causing seas to rise and flood all the land, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is All American Blogger, with a post on plausible deniability.

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Gov. Cuomo Attempted To Silence Sheriffs Over Gun Law

By William Teach May 21, 2013 – 11:37 am

Is it any wonder Conservatives worry about tyrannical government?

(Times Union) The sheriffs thought they were being summoned to the Capitol to discuss ideas for changes to New York’s gun control law, the SAFE Act. Instead, Gov. Andrew Cuomo told them to keep quiet.

In January, the New York State Sheriffs’ Association wrote Cuomo with an analysis, and later suggested tweaks.

Cuomo invited its leaders to the Capitol last month, people briefed on the meeting said. The group included Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Peter Kehoe and Chemung County Sheriff Christopher Moss.

“We didn’t get a response (to the analysis) from him, but we could tell after the budget was passed that none of those recommendations were taken into consideration,” Moss said. “When we got there, we never got to the contents of the letter.”

Instead, Cuomo pushed the sheriffs to stop publicly speaking out against the act, Moss said.

One person briefed on the meeting said Cuomo threatened to remove sheriffs from office, a little-used power afforded the state’s chief executive under the state constitution. Moss would not confirm this. He did say the meeting was heated at times, but overall he described it as “cordial.”

Progressives are very intolerant towards Constitutionally guaranteed Free Speech and other 1st Amendment Rights.

Via Steven Goddard, who notes that something similar happened in his home state of Colorado.

Read: Gov. Cuomo Attempted To Silence Sheriffs Over Gun Law »

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NY Times Publishes Op-Ed Supporting The Justice Dept. Going After Reporters

By William Teach May 21, 2013 – 9:28 am

Most in the press are taking a position similar to Brit Hume’s

(Mediaite) “That places this administration in the position of saying normal news gathering activities are criminal. That is chilling.”

Juan Williams, who likes to tick off both sides, said something earlier on Fox News about 20 minutes ago. Others are saying similar things. Former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs says Team Obama needs to explain this (they won’t. Expect them to engage in their typical behavior, circling the wagons, obfuscation, denial, deflection, and casting blame. Oh, and their newest one “we don’t know”). Even Chris Matthew, Mr. Thrilling Up My Leg, has lost patience.

But not the NY Times, which publishes an op-ed by William P. Barr, Jamie “wall between law and intelligence” Gorelick, and Kenneth L. Wainstein

Stop The Leaks

FOLLOWING the disclosure that the Justice Department obtained the telephone records of Associated Press journalists, The A.P. and other news organizations have sharply criticized the action as investigative overreaching and unwarranted interference with the ability of journalists to report on government operations.

As former Justice Department officials who served in the three administrations preceding President Obama’s, we are worried that the criticism of the decision to subpoena telephone toll records of A.P. journalists in an important leak investigation sends the wrong message to the government officials who are responsible for our national security.

Oh, noes, those poor gubmint officials!!!! How are they going to do their jobs with that pesky 1st Amendment in their way. Hitler, Staling, Chavez, and many other dictators would be proud of these three nincompoops.

While we cannot know all of the facts and considerations that went into the department’s decision, we do know that prosecutors were right to try to find out who gave this damaging information to The A.P. They were right to pursue the investigation with “alternative investigative steps” for eight months first. And ultimately, they were right to take it to the next stage when they still needed more to make a case against the leaker. If the Justice Department had not done so, it would have defaulted on its obligation to protect the American people.

So, these three do not have any facts, but, hey, let’s investigate the Press, which was doing its job. Which is funny, considering that the NY Times was all for publishing serious national security information and programs when Bush was president and protecting reporters. Remember what they called “domestic wiretapping” (which wasn’t)? How about the monitoring of Islamist bank data? The White House begged the Times not to publish this program, as it would cause serious problems and endanger people. And leaking the name of a CIA interrogator. Running the stolen Wikileaks information. And many, many others. The Times loved the Abu Ghraib story, which wasn’t really secret, the DoD just hadn’t released information on what happened because they were engaged in an on-going criminal investigation. The Times found out through a leak.

It was just May 9 that another op-ed contributor, Margaret Sullivan, wrote about the danger of suppressing the leaks. Now, Gorelick et all say something different. They do have a point, that government should protect against leaks. True. But the Government should not attack the 1st Amendment and the Press because the government is incompetent. This op-ed essentially calls for trashing the 1st Amendment because government has “acted stupidly”.

More: Even Eugene Robinson, a hugely huge ObamaZombie, is upset, writing that the “Obama admin mistakes journalism for espionage”.

Read: NY Times Publishes Op-Ed Supporting The Justice Dept. Going After Reporters »

Posted in 1st Amendment, Current Affairs, Wonky Media | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Despicable Liberals Use Bodies Of Dead Children To Push “Climate Change”

By William Teach May 21, 2013 – 8:48 am

It’s like clockwork: there’s some event, be it a holiday or breaking news, and Liberals use it to push one of their unhinged belief sets. If it’s bad weather they push “climate change”. Here’s disgusting and abhorent Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

(Daily Caller) “So, you may have a question for me,” Whitehouse said. “Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings and disgrace ourselves? I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. We are stuck in this together. When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms. It hits Oregon with acidified seas, it hits Montana with dying forests. So, like it or not, we’re in this together.”

There’s no point in providing any scientific evidence that shows Whitehouse is bat guano crazy, Warmists will never believe real facts, they have a political position to push, one which gives The Government more and more power over citizens and the private sector.

Posted in Current Affairs, Democrats, Global Warming, Unhinged Tools | 2 Comments | Trackback URL
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