Obama Has To Change Strategy Of Passive Prez

From the Associated Press:

Obama aims to halt perception of passive president

By Julie Pace | May 16, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — Faced with a trio of controversies, President Barack Obama is trying to halt a perception spreading among both White House opponents and allies that he has been passive and disengaged as unexpected developments consume his second term.

The new strategy, underscored in a flurry of new White House actions, signals an Obama team anxious to regain control amid controversies that have emboldened Republicans and threatened to plunge the president’s second term into a steady stream of congressional investigations.

You see? Obama wasn’t in control. None of this is his fault.

On Wednesday, Obama released a trove of documents related to the Benghazi attacks amid revived pressure from Republicans.

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Report: IRS Denied Tax Exemption To Pro-Lifers

From the Washington Examiner:

Report: IRS denied tax-exempt status to pro-lifers on behalf of Planned Parenthood

By Joel Gehrke | May 15, 2013

IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status to two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election.

[The law firm, The Thomas More Society, announced today:] “In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s signatures stating that, under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood.

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Holder Won’t Appoint Benghazi Special Counsel

From Breitbart:

Exclusive: Holder Says ‘No’ to Special Counsel to Investigate Benghazi

By AWR Hawkins | May 15, 2013

Breitbart News has obtained an exclusive video of Attorney General Eric Holder flatly rejecting the idea of appointing a special counsel to investigate Benghazi.

Filmed on May 15 and provided to Breitbart News by Special Operations Speaks, the video shows Holder emerge from his car and walk towards the Rayburn House Office Building for hearings on the IRS scandal. Holder is clearly asked, "Mr. Holder, will you appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Benghazi?"

In equally clear tones, Holder answers, "No," and disappears into the building.

Again, lest we forget, there was a Special Counsel appointed under Bush for the non scandal of the non outing of the non spy, Valerie Plame.

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Benghazi Emails Contradict White House Claims

From the vindicated Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard:

Benghazi Emails Directly Contradict White House Claims

By STEPHEN F. HAYES | May 16, 2013

The White House on Wednesday released 94 pages of emails between top administration and intelligence officials who helped shape the talking points about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that the CIA would provide to policymakers in both the legislative and executive branches.

It looks like the White House decided to ‘flood the zone,’ by putting these emails out while there is so much other news going on, there will be little coverage of the details. Oh, and Obama’s claims to the contrary, ‘there is a lot of there, there.’

In fact, at the very least it shows that Jake Tapper at CNN was wrong, and Steve Hayes and Jonathan Karl at ABC were right.

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Head Of IRS Tax Exempt Office Is Obama Donor

From the National Review:

Director of IRS Tax-Exempt Determinations Office Is Obama Donor

By Eliana Johnson | May 15, 2013

The director of the Office of Rulings and Agreements, which oversees the determinatons 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…

Paz heads the office in which the wrongdoing is said to have occurred. National Review Online reported earlier today that agency officials are currently copying the hard drives of every employee on Paz’s watch. That data will be made available to investigators working on a second IG investigation focusing on the potential criminal activity individual agency employees.

The House Oversight Committe [sic] is requesting that Paz and four other employees be made available for transcribed interviews starting next week.

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‘Ousted’ IRS Commissioner Was Leaving Anyway

From the UK’s Daily Mail:

Obama fires acting IRS commissioner as pressure grows surrounding political targeting of conservative groups that sought tax-exempt status

By David Martosko | 15 May 2013

In a hastily called press conference in the East Room of the White House, Obama told reporters that he had asked Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew to find out who was responsible for a program that targeted tea party groups and other conservative organizations for a special level of intrusive questioning after they applied for tax-exempt charitable statuses…

Why should the Treasury Department be in charge of investigating how it broke the law? Why not appoint a special counsel?

Lest we forget, a special counsel was appointed to investigate the Valerie Plame (non) scandal, even though everyone knew beforehand who had leaked her (non-classified) information.

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Pakistan’s New Radical PM Will Have Total Power

From Reuters:

Pakistan’s Sharif free to rule without unwieldy coalition

By Nick Macfie | May 16, 2013 

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan Prime Minister-elect Nawaz Sharif won enough seats in Saturday’s parliamentary election that he won’t need to form a coalition with other major parties to push through badly needed reforms, final figures showed on Thursday.

Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) won 124 of a total 272 seats, with its nearest rival, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), winning 31, in the country’s first democratic handing over of power since independence in 1947.

To achieve the required majority of 137, he need only secure support from a handful of like-minded independents…

The new government will have its hands full with problems ranging from chronic power shortages, a near-failed economy, a Taliban insurgency and building relations with the United States and arch rival India.

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IRS Has Audited Sheldon Adelson, Graham, Others

From the Daily Caller:

Frank VanderSloot: ‘I’m not the only’ major Mitt Romney donor audited

By Jamie Weinstein | May 14, 2013

Billionaire businessman Frank VanderSloot, a major Mitt Romney super PAC donor who was subjected to three federal agency audits after being slimed by the Obama campaign, says he isn’t the only one of his peers who was audited after donating to Romney.

VanderSloot, who was also national co-chair of the Romney campaign’s finance committee, was described in an April 2012 Obama campaign Web posting as one of eight “wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records.”

Shortly after the post appeared, VanderSloot was subjected to two Internal Revenue Service audits — one focusing on his personal financies [sic], the other related to his business interests — and a Labor Department audit of one of his businesses.

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IRS Assigned 1 Worker To Review Tea Party Forms

From the Daily Caller:

IRS managers assigned one person to review all Tea Party tax requests

By Neil Munro | May 15, 2013

IRS managers delayed approval of Tea Party requests for routine tax exemptions by assigning all of them to a single employee in Cincinnati for special review, according to footnote 14 of the blockbuster Inspector General report.

The single employee was the only person working on the reviews for at least 18 months.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to know the political affiliation of this one individual, and why he was selected? Though, given the leanings of the IRS workforce (see below), it’s pretty safe to say he is a Democrat.

From early 2010, “the [review] team consisted of one specialist, but it was expanded to several specialists in December 2011,” says the report, entitled “Inappropriate Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax-Exempt Applications for Review.”

Which helps explain the (previously mentioned) report from USA Today, that said it was 27 months after March 2010 before another conservative 501c4 was approved.

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IRS Rushed Obama Brother 501c, Tea Party Waited

First we have this from USA Today:

IRS approved liberal groups while Tea Party in limbo

By Gregory Korte | May 14, 2013

WASHINGTON — In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked.

That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn’t be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months.

In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows.

Again, it’s probably just a coincidence.

By the way, "27 months" after March 2010, would be June 2012. Which guaranteed that these conservative groups would not have been able to participate in the mid-term elections.

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Top Dems Pressured IRS To Investigate 501c4s

From the Daily Caller:

Baucus, now investigating IRS, urged IRS to target conservative groups in 2010

By Patrick Howley | May 13, 2013

Democratic Montana Senator Max Baucus is leading an investigation into why the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny despite the fact that Baucus once wrote a letter urging the IRS to do exactly that.

Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, will head the committee’s investigation into the IRS… However, Baucus once wrote a letter requesting that the IRS engage in that very conduct.

Which is why the Senate Democrats feel he is the ideal person to head their investigation.

Baucus wrote a letter to then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman dated September 28, 2010 urging the IRS to investigative nonprofit conservative groups during the Tea Party-dominated 2010 midterm elections.

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Obama, Dems Wanted IRS To Probe Tea Party

From the Washington Examiner:

Obama calls IRS actions ‘intolerable and inexcusable’

By Brian Hughes | May 14, 2013

President Obama late Tuesday called the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS “intolerable and inexcusable,” saying those who unfairly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of Republican-leaning organizations would be held “accountable.” …

You have to wonder what prompted Obama to bestir himself to issue such a statement so late in the evening. Apparently, they weren’t happy with Obama’s first so-called condemnations, or Jay Carney’s idiotic remarks.

Here is Obama’s full statement:

“I have now had the opportunity to review the Treasury Department watchdog’s report on its investigation of IRS personnel who improperly targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. And the report’s findings are intolerable and inexcusable.

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