Here is the Ironclad Case for Impeaching IRS Head John Koskinen

By Logan Albright

Key members of the House Freedom Caucus are demanding that IRS Commissioner John Koskinen be removed from office. In an op-ed written for the Wall Street Journal, Reps. Jim Jordan and Ron DeSantis told President Obama that if the Commissioner is not removed, they will begin the proceedings to impeach him.

Modern Americans view impeachment with a sort of awe and reverence. To most, it seems like an inconceivably drastic thing to do. But it was not always this way, nor was it the intention of the founders. Impeachment has always been a practical tool for getting rid of bad actors in government and, given the amount of government corruption we see today, a tool that should be used with much greater frequency.

If there is any doubt that Koskinen is a worthy target for impeachment, let’s run down a few of his misdeeds since he assumed the office in 2013.

First, the IRS targeting scandal. In 2013, it emerged that the IRS had been targeting conservative non-profit groups, delaying their applications, demanding ridiculous amounts of paperwork including highly invasive personal questions, and general obstructing conservative grassroots activities. The American Enterprise Institute estimated that this depressed Republican voter turnout in the 2012 elections, and could have even made the difference between Barack Obama winning or losing.

Of course, this was all before Koskinen became commissioner, so what does it have to do with him? Koskinen assumed office in December 2013, during the ongoing investigation into the scandal. Any serious public servant would have done everything possible to clean up the agency and get to the bottom of the wrongdoing. Koskinen instead chose to obstruct. Koskinen responded to subpoenas for emails regarding the scandal with the unbelievable claim that all the emails from the specified time period had suddenly gone missing.

ISSA: Lerner’s Lawyer ‘Outright Lied’ to Congress

By Melissa Quinn

During separate appearances on CNN’s “State of the Union with Candy Crowley,” House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and William Taylor, former IRS official Lois Lerner’s lawyer, offered contrasting thoughts on her role in a computer crash that destroyed two years worth of emails.

The IRS notified Congress earlier this month that Lerner, former head of the Internal Revenue Service’s tax exempt division, and several other agency employees lost emails between January 2009 and April 2011 — the time period during tea party groups were subject to additional scrutiny by the IRS — due to a computer crash. In addition, hard drives housing those emails were destroyed after computer specialists rendered them irretrievable.

Issa accused Lerner’s attorney, Taylor, of having “said things and been not correct, or disingenuous, or outright lied a number of times” during a discussion about the lack of printed copies of Lerner’s lost e-mails with CNN host Candy Crowley. Lerner, Issa said, likely “broke some laws” by providing the Department of Justice with information on tea party and conservatives groups.

Taylor, however, defended his client and accused Republicans of playing “election-year politics.”

“It’s convenient to have a demon that they can create and point to,” Taylor said of the GOP’s treatment of Lerner.

Read more at Daily Signal

Judicial Watch Obtains Secret White House Document Revealing Obamacare Rollout Disaster

Once again a private watchdog organization has outperformed the feckless, bumbling House committee chairmen. With all due respect.

I'm looking at you, Darrell Issa. To wit, "Judicial Watch Obtains 106-Page HHS Document Revealing Scope of Obamacare Rollout Disaster."

Judicial Watch today released a 106-page document obtained on May 1 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), revealing that on its first full day of operation, October 1, 2013, Obamacare’s Healthcare.gov received only one enrollment. The document, obtained in response to a November 25, 2013, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against HHS, also reveals that on the second day of Healthcare.gov operation, 48% of registrations failed...

...The full extent of the failure, however, is reflected in the details provided by the Judicial Watch FOIA document revelations. They include:

• On October 1, there were 43,208 accounts created and 1 enrollment. (Page 49)

• As of October 31, 2013, there were 1,319,425 accounts created nationwide – but only 30,512 actual enrollments in Obamacare. (Page 19)

• On October 1, 2013, at the end of the first day (4:30), the Senior Advisor at Center forConsumer Information and Insurance Oversight, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Brigid M. Russell, sent out an email to her staff with a subject line celebrating “2 enrollments!” The body copy of the email read: “We have our second official FFM enrollment! The first two Form 834s sent out are to: 1) CareSource in Ohio, 2) BCBS of North Carolina. (Page 90)

• Official figures contained in the HHS report provide conflicting figures as to the number of enrollments. FFM [Federally Facilitated Marketplace] statistics show 23,259 cumulative to-date applications submitted as of 10/2/13 and 286 completed plan selections. Earlier numbers show 356 enrollments created as of 7pm on 10/2/13 that were completed with Form 834s sent. (Pages 91-92)

HALL OF SHAME: GOP House Chairmen Actively Fought Select Committee for Fear of Getting Shown Up

Eli Lake at The Daily Beast is one of the true superstars of modern investigative reporting. Legacy media, namely the likes of 60 Minutes, long ago abandoned their charter of speaking truth to power and instead feature gauzy interviews with FLOTUS in the White House vegetable garden.

Lake has broken a series of fascinating stories on the scandals engulfing the Obama administration, most recently deconstructing the Benghazi cover-up that implicates both Obama and ostensible 2016 Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

But yesterday's scoop also reveals something about the feckless House Republican leadership. Namely that various House committee chairmen fought tooth-and-nail against a Select Investigative Committee for reasons, well, you be the judge.

There is deep unease within the Republican leadership that the select committee, which has yet to announce a schedule of hearings, could backfire, and badly. Investigate and find nothing new, and the committee looks like a bunch of tin-hatted obsessives. Investigate and uncover previously-hidden secrets, and it makes all of the other Republican led panels that dug into Benghazi seem like Keystone Kops.

Based upon the performance of Judicial Watch, which routinely out-investigated the Keystone Kops House, the latter fear is well-founded.

Three Republican sources tell The Daily Beast that the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Armed Services, and Government Reform committees—Reps. Rogers, Buck McKeon, and Darrell Issa, respectively—all opposed the formation of a select committee on Benghazi. All three men have led their own investigations into the matter.

Well, not to toot my own horn or anything, but I certainly called that one last year. Here's what I published then:

ANOTHER JUDICAL WATCH BOMBSHELL: Emails Reveal IRS Targeting Directed by Washington

Remember these "blasts from the past"?

• Washington Post, 5/10/13: Lois Lerner blames front-line employees in Cincinnati for IRS targeting

• Fox News, 6/7/13: Cincinnati IRS official: Lerner claim that targeting done by two rogue agents is "absurd"

• Washington Post, 11/20/13: IRS e-mails show Cincinnati official fuming over Lois Lerner comments

Once again, an independent watchdog group has uncovered evidence of criminal activity on the part of the Obama administration. Not John Boehner's bumbling, overlapping committees that are supposed to provide Executive Branch oversight. An independent group.

Judicial Watch today released a new batch of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents revealing that its handling of Tea Party applications was directed out of the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC. The documents also show extensive pressure on the IRS by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to shut down conservative-leaning tax-exempt organizations. The IRS’ emails by Lois Lerner detail her misleading explanations to investigators about the targeting of Tea Party organizations.

...One key email string from July 2012 confirms that IRS Tea Party scrutiny was directed from Washington, DC....

...Another email string from February – March 2010 includes a message from a California EO Determinations manager discussing a Tea Party application “currently being held in the Screening group.” The manager urges, “Please let ‘Washington’ know about this potentially embarrassing political case involving a ‘Tea Party’ organization. Recent media attention to this type of organization indicates to me that this is a ‘high profile’ case..."

...[In addition,] correspondence to internal IRS investigators from [Lois] Lerner, dated April 2, 2013, ... tries to explain the “Be on the Lookout” (BOLO) criteria used to select organizations for screening and scrutiny...

...The IRS documents also include a presentation entitled “Heightened Awareness Issues” with a red and orange “Alert” symbol identifying the “emerging issues” that trigger scrutiny for organizations seeking tax-exempt status. Page six of the presentation focuses on the Tea Party organizations [at right]...

Now consider the kind of groups that Lerner specifically called out for scrutiny:

1. "Tea Party"
2. "Patriots"
3. "9/12 Project"
4. "Issues including government spending, government debt and taxes"
5. "Educating the public through advocacy/legislative activities to make America a better place to live"
6. "Critical of the how the country is being run"

Do me a big favor and read numbers 4, 5 and 6 again.

This administration is completely out of control. Worse, we have a Republican leadership group that is as useless as the G in Lasagna.

Consider that the prior bombshell, the White House talking points email on Benghazi, Judicial Watch was able to uncover more information on the IRS than was provided to any of Boehner's Congressional committees.

John Boehner needs to name a Select Committee on the IRS Scandal.

The fact that Judical Watch was once again to secure documents that Boehner's handpicked committees were not speaks volumes about the Speaker's failed leadership.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Toothless John Boehner and Inspector Clouseau Issa outraged over Benghazi emails: plan strongly worded memo

The Keystone GOPs -- and of course I refer to Speaker John Boehner and House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa -- have been proven utterly incompetent and quite possibly complicit with the Obama administration's myriad scandals.

Their refusal to name a Select Investigative Committee -- for either Benghazi or the weaponization of the IRS -- is an outrage and now an embarrassment. A private organization, Judicial Watch, secured the "Smoking Gun" emails that tied the White House directly to the cover-up foisted upon the victims' families and the American public.

Boehner and Issa look like either buffoons or accomplices. Which is not to rule out the possibility that they are both.

Suitably humiliated, Boehner is squealing like a stuck pig, claiming he's outraged -- outraged, I say -- that the Obama administration lied, stonewalled and illegally withheld evidence from his toothless circle twerk.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday called on Secretary of State John Kerry to testify as to why a newly revealed email prepping Susan Rice for a series of television interviews was not handed over to Congress last year... Boehner said the White House or someone in the administration must explain why the email was not included when Congress subpoenaed documents and emails last year about the deadly terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 that killed four Americans.

"If the White House won’t explain it, Secretary Kerry should come to the Capitol to explain why he defied an official congressional subpoena," Boehner said in a statement. "And the White House needs to understand that this investigation will not end until the entire truth is revealed and justice and accountability are served.”

Boehner said the withholding of the email constitutes the "most flagrant example yet of the administration's contempt for the American people’s right to know the truth about what happened when four Americans died in a fiery terrorist attack."

I'm surprised he didn't say, "It's a sad day" like his equally dimwitted counterpart in the Senate.

Darrell "Inspector Clouseau" (which is the nickname he prefers, I hear) Issa appears equally outraged!

[Issa] complained that the Benghazi documents recently released by the White House to Judicial Watch in response to their FOIA request, should have been turned over to Congress a year and a half ago.

...“The documents from Judicial Watch’s FOIA which was pursuant to our request more than over a year and a half ago, show a direct White House role outside of talking points prepared by the intelligence community... In pushing the false narrative that a YouTube video was responsible for the deaths of four brave Americans, it is disturbing and perhaps criminal that these documents — that documents like these — were hidden by the Obama administration from Congress and the public alike, particularly after Secretary Kerry pledged cooperation and the president himself told the American people in November of 2012 that, quote, ‘every bit of information we have on Benghazi has been provided,’” Issa said.

He noted that “the president himself said in November of 2012, that every bit of information that we have on Benghazi has been provided.”

I just emailed some of the Republican National Committee's public relations muckety-mucks, asking them what the official position is on a Select Committee on Benghazi. I fully expect an answer by 2037.

John "Amnesty" Boehner needs to go. He's not a leader; but he is a weakling, a coward, and a buffoon. And those are among his more positive traits. With all due respect.

As an aside, did you know that the last two credible challengers to John Boehner in Ohio's District 8 suddenly happened to lose their jobs?

But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

But in case not, please support his conservative challenger, J.D. Winteregg.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Why are Boehner and Issa helping cover up Obama's scandals?

Once again the IRS appears to be complicit in a targeted leak of a private citizen's tax return to effect a nakedly partisan attack. This time the IRS reportedly leaked the tax return of an executive at Mozilla who had expressed support for traditional marriage.

As for the gun-running operation that killed hundreds, Eric Holder and Barack Obama continue to unlawfully claim "executive privilege" over a massive trove of documents that likely implicate both in "Operation Fast and Furious". Throughout American history, "Executive Privilege" was reserved only for a small, explicitly named set of communications unrelated to a specific criminal investigation. Until Obama, that is.

As for Benghazi? Well, for starters, we still don't know what Barack Obama did for eight hours during a running terror attack that resulted in the deaths of four American diplomats. We still don't know who coordinated the campaign of lies to the victims' families and the American people about the nature of the attack.

So what does Johnny Boehner and his hand-picked Oversight Chairman, Darrell Issa, do? Next to nothing. They hold show hearings. They appear on television. But they refuse to name a Select Investigative Committee for any of these outrageous scandals.

Why?

Allen West has a pretty good idea and I have some additional thoughts (*cough* they got somethin' on him *cough*).


Hat tip: BadBlue News

EXPLOSIVE TESTIMONY: Everything Barack Obama Told You About the IRS Scandal is a Lie

Testifying before Congress today, Attorney Cleta Mitchell shredded the Obama administration over IRS-gate, accusing it of committing a variety of high crimes and misdemeanors.

“The IRS scandal is not over. It is continuing to this day. And the Department of Justice investigation is a sham. It is a nonexistent investigation,” a high-powered Washington attorney testified before Congress Thursday morning... Mitchell, who represents many tea-party groups, blasted President Obama’s claim on Sunday that there is no IRS scandal, and his insistence that there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” in the agency’s targeting of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

“The IRS scandal is not just a bone-headed bunch of bureaucrats in some remote office, contrary to what the president of the United States told the American people ... the IRS targeting of conservative groups was politically motivated because the direction came from “political elites in Washington — not in Cincinnati, but Washington.”

The attorney said she knew as far back as October of 2011 that the targeting was being guided by Washington, because when she contacted the Cincinnati IRS agent assigned to one of her clients and offered to try to help smooth the application process, she said she was told, “Oh, there’s a task force in Washington; we can’t do anything until we hear back from Washington.”

Mitchell said the IRS, under Obama, took what had been for decades a process of reviewing applications for exempt status that 4(01) or 501(c)(4) organization that could be expected to take three to four weeks and “converted that process into one that took three to four years, and in some cases is still not over.”

Former federal prosecutor Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., also took dead aim at Obama’s claim that there was no corruption in the IRS targeting conservative groups, especially in the tax-exempt division formerly head by Lois Lerner. He also referred to the fact that investigators have not interviewed clients represented by either Mitchell or Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice, who also testified.

“How can the president say there’s not a smidgen of criminality when Lois Lerner invoked the 5th Amendment, 41 witnesses haven’t been interviewed – including the two that are here right now? How can he possibly draw that conclusion?!” Gowdy demanded.

This came on the heels of Wednesday's testimony in which House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp shredded the President's "not a smidgen of corruption" lie:

Mr. Camp unveiled a June 14, 2012 email from Treasury career attorney Ruth Madrigal to key IRS officials in the tax-exempt department, including former director Lois Lerner.

The email cites a blog post about the political activity of tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups and reads: "Don't know who in your organizations [sic] is keeping tabs on c4s, but since we mentioned potentially addressing them (off-plan) in 2013, I've got my radar up and this seemed interesting."

Interesting for sure. The IRS typically puts out a public schedule of coming regulations, and Mr. Camp noted that in this case "off-plan" appears to mean "hidden from the public."

So, Speaker Boehner and Chairman Issa, where are the subpoenas and interrogatories?

Where is the Select Investigative Committee?

Where the hell are you people doing up there? I mean, besides planning on giving the American people the royal boofoo with your Amnesty crap?


Hat tip: BadBlue News

BUSTED: EPA Officials Caught Red-Handed Conspiring with Radical Enviro-Marxists on Your Dime

Great job by Lachlan Markay, writing at the Washington Free Beacon, who has caught the Obama EPA with their hands in the taxpayers' cookie jar.

Internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emails show extensive collaboration between top agency officials and leading environmentalist groups, including overt efforts to coordinate messaging and pressure the fossil fuel industry.

I forget who said it, but I'll believe global warming climate change is a global emergency when they start treating it like a global emergency. That is, using videoconferencing rather than private jets; ordering their groceries online instead of driving to Piggly Wiggly; and selling a few of their 10,000-square foot mansions (I'm looking at you, Al Gore, and it's hard to miss you with your enormous waistline carbon footprint).

Emails show EPA used official events to help environmentalist groups gather signatures for petitions on agency rulemaking, incorporated advance copies of letters drafted by those groups into official statements, and worked with environmentalists to publicly pressure executives of at least one energy company.

As Mark Levin says, "Green is the new Red."

As in CCCP Red.

Critics of the agency and its nonprofit allies were surprised by the cooperation.... “The level of coordination in these documents is shocking,” EELI said in a statement.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), a member of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, said the emails suggest that the EPA is straying from its mission by working hand-in-hand with hardline green groups.

“It’s unfortunate that EPA has spent more of its resources promoting and coordinating a political agenda with environmentalists instead of doing its job,” Pompeo said in an emailed statement... "we expect public officials to serve the public interest, not the interests of radical environmentalist groups.”

The emails released by EELI reveal a host of scandalous activities by the EPA:

• Coordinating with radical Marxist groups to hold hearings on coal plants in states that aren't economically dependent on coal to exclude those citizens' voices.

• Using (even more) personal email addresses to avoid public email archiving requirements.

• Conspiring with radical groups to "devastate the [coal] industry" even though clean coal production is critical to electric power generation in the U.S.

• Secretly coordinating with Marxist environmentalists to levy "endangerment orders" against natural gas companies.

Once again, we have proof that the Obama administration is violating federal laws, evading Constitutional checks and balances, and conspiring to destroy America's energy independence.

But, with all that said, according to Mitch McConnell, "It's a sad day."

And maybe Darrell Issa can open up yet another House Oversight investigation on this topic, seeing as how he only has 828 other investigations underway. Certainly at this point a Select Investigative Committee isn't warranted.


Hat tip: BadBlue News

SO SCAWY: Issa Issues Stern Warning #642 to Administration for Obstructing Congressional Investigators

Oh, I'm certain the Obama administration is absolutely terrified of House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa. At last count, Issa is trying to orchestrate 162 separate investigations. So what's one more?

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa sent a stern warning to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Wednesday night: Obstructing a congressional investigation is a criminal offense.

At issue are the “attempts by the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit contractors working on HealthCare.gov from cooperating with congressional investigators,” and Issa informed Sebelius in a letter that this obstruction is criminal.

“The Department’s hostility toward questions from Congress and the media about the implementation of Obamacare is well known,” Issa wrote... Issa called out an HHS instruction to a HealthCare.gov contractor, Creative Computing Solutions, Inc., to not comply with the Oversight Committee’s request for documents...

“The Department’s most recent effort to stonewall, however, has morphed from mere obstinacy into criminal obstruction of a congressional investigation,” he said.

And, despite all of the obstructions, the gun-running to Mexican drug cartels, the Americans left to die in Benghazi, the politicization of the IRS, the wiretapping of reporters, and numerous other impeachable offenses, House leadership refuses to form a Select Investigative Committee.
 

I get the distinct impression that John Boehner and Darrell Issa have no interest in getting to the bottom of these high crimes and misdemeanors.

I leave the reasons as an exercise for the reader.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

BUCKLE YOUR SEAT BELTS: It's Time for the Anus-Clenching Adventures of Inspector Issa

The Obama administration is, without question, the most openly corrupt and lawless in American history.

And, despite the gun-running, the Americans left to die in Benghazi, the politicization of the IRS, the wiretaps of reporters, and numerous other impeachable offenses, the feckless establishment Republican "leaders" in D.C. -- well -- judge for yourself in this installment of Biff Spackle's classic comic strip Inspector Issa.

Yes, I'm getting the distinct impression that John Boehner and Darrell Issa don't have the slightest inclination to truly investigate these outrageous scandals.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

WILE E. COYOTE: Super-Sleuth Darrell Issa Opens Yet Another Huge Probe While Other Scandals Lie Unresolved

Now that we have evidence that the Obama administration lied about unemployment numbers to help turn the 2012 election, the House Oversight Committee has announced yet another investigation.

An anonymous whistleblower in a New York Post column by John Crudele is alleging that unemployment jobs data in the current population survey conducted by the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics was manipulated in 2012 to help Barack Obama get re-elected... According to the source, specifically the Oct. 5, 2012 jobs report was faked — just in time for the election. Worse, the practice reportedly continues to date.

...Nathan Mehrens, president of Americans for Limited Government, said the allegations were "extremely serious," noting "financial markets and economic policymakers all over the world depend on the integrity of jobs data to make informed decisions."
Mehrens warned, "This is a case where distorted data will result in distorted policies that harm the well-being of the global economy." Particularly, the Federal Reserve has said it is waiting until unemployment drops below 6.5% before it begins raising interest rates.

...To that end, Mehrens called for Rep. John Kline, chairman of the House Health, Education & Workforce Committee, and Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, to investigate any potential wrongdoing.

Unfortunately, Issa has plenty of experience in opening -- not closing -- investigations. To date, the following major Obama administration scandals lie largely dormant, yet in a normal era each would result in cries for impeachment.

• Issa, Treasury Wrangle Over Subpoena to IRS for Tea Party Documents: "“As of today, almost five months since the committee’s initial request, the department has produced almost no internal communications about the substance of the investigation and has only produced material in response to a few of the committee’s multiple document requests,” Issa said."

• Issa calls denial of dismissal in Fast and Furious lawsuit ‘repudiation’ of DOJ: "This ruling is a repudiation of the Obama Justice Department and Congressional Democrats who argued the courts should have no role in the dispute over President Obama's improper assertion of executive privilege to protect an attempted Justice Department cover-up of Operation Fast and Furious,” Issa claimed."

• 12 Oversight Committe Democrats Flee Benghazi Hearing Before Family Members Testify: "When the second panel began, however, Issa tweeted a picture showing a Democratic desertion. Only Representatives Jackie Speier (Calif.) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (Md.) stayed for the second panel to hear testimony from Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith, an information management officer, and Charles Woods, father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods."

• Issa, House Oversight Panel Probe Healthcare.gov: "Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is exploring a long list of issues: insufficient testing, possible security flaws, design shortcomings — even allegations of political meddling."

• DOJ’s Phone Sweep of AP Reporters Draws Dual House Inquiries: "“From a constitutional standpoint, the First Amendment, it’s very clear that Judiciary will have the lead on this,” said Issa, who is also a member of Judiciary. He added that he has “a fairly full plate” with investigations into the Benghazi attacks and alleged Internal Revenue Service misconduct, among other things... However, in a follow-up statement later in the day, Issa signaled he might be more closely involved than he had previously suggested."

This is insanity.

The Obama administration is the Roadrunner and Issa is Wile E. Coyote.

The proper way for Congress to investigate these impeachable offenses is to name Select Investigative Committees. These dedicated committees would not be burdened by multiple investigations or extraneous activities.

Whether it is hubris or fear of exposure of their own secrets, the House Republican leadership is operating irresponsibly and without regard for the best interests of the American people.

We must demand that Republicans name select committees, before it's too late to make a difference. Call the House Oversight Committee at (202) 225-5074 and make your voice heard.

Rep. Elijah Cummings Wants the IRS Scandal to Go Away: It's "Solved", Even Though We Don't Know Who Instigated It

The IRS scandal must be very, very bad for the Obama administration. For those of you who stepped away for the last several weeks, it was handily summarized for us by Jim Hoft:

The IRS targeted hundreds of conservative groups since 2010. 500 conservative and Christian groups were illegally targeted by the Obama IRS starting in 2010. For twenty-seven months the Obama IRS refused to approve any Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status. At the same time the Obama IRS approved dozens of progressive applications within weeks.

The ranking member of the House Oversight Committee -- Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) -- must know something that we don't. And he wants us to remain in the dark regarding what really happened between the White House and he IRS. Mind you, this is the same administration that targeted not only conservative, Christian and Jewish groups using the IRS, but also attacked the Associated Press and Fox News through its highly politicized Justice Department.

“Based upon everything I’ve seen, the case is solved,” Cummings told CNN’s Candy Crowley. “If it were me, I would wrap this case up and move on, to be frank with you. The IG made some recommendations, those recommendations are being adopted by the IRS, we’ve got a new commissioner in, acting commissioner in, Danny Werfel is doing a great job, I think we’re in great shape.”


Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa slammed Cummings for his claims, calling them “extreme and reckless” and arguing they are “a signal that his true motivation is stopping needed Congressional oversight.” Issa added that “fortunately” Cummings cannot stop the ongoing the investigation.

The Oversight Committee, which, along with the House Ways and Means Committee, is investigating the IRS’s systematic targeting of tea-party groups, is currently interviewing several agency officials involved in the scandal. Though they have linked the initial orders to identify tea-party applications to officials in Washington, D.C., they have yet to identify the official who asked for those applications, or to determine whether the White House was involved in the targeting of conservative groups.

Elijah Cummings, who heretofore struck me as a thoughtful and deliberative man, should be ashamed of himself.

@darrellissa Knowing the WH was forewarned of #IRS abuse is reason to open a Select Committee for the subversion of Americans' Civil Rights.

— Sen. Frank Niceley (@SenFrankNiceley) June 9, 2013

Politicizing the instrumentalities of the federal government has reached a record and intolerable level under this administration. And Cummings appears more invested in advancing his party's interest than pursuing his constitutionally mandated role of oversight.


Related: BUSTED: The Complete IRS Scandal Timeline in Spreadsheet Format.

The Tea Party Conservatives Came to Washington to Chew Bubblegum and Kick Ass. And They're All Out of Bubble Gum.

I really like the sound of our guys on the Sunday talk shows.

Let's start with Rep. Allen West (R-FL) on Fox News Sunday.

Q: Then, in November, you said -- and here's the quote -- "that this liberal, progressive, socialist agenda... this left-wing, vile, vicious, despicable machine that’s out there is soundly brought to its knees..." Tyrannical? Socialist? Despicable? Is it really as bad as that?

A: "I think it is... when you look at the nationalization of so much of our production: the automobile industry, the health care industry, the fact that we had an amendment in the health care law that allowed the federal government to take over education, when you look at the fact that we are creating more victims and making more people dependent upon the government... when you look at the incredible debt and deficits that has occurred over the last two fiscal years, we're going in the wrong direction...

...This liberal-progressive agenda is the antithesis of who we are as a Constitutional republic."

I really, really, really like Allen West.

As for some of the other highlights, Darrell Issa probably kerploded a few progressives' heads today by calling the Obama administration corrupt.

Issa ... clarified that when he previously said during a radio interview that Obama "has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times," he was referring to the Obama administration and not the president himself.

"In saying that this is one of the most corrupt administrations, which is what I meant to say there," Issa said, "when you hand out $1 trillion in TARP just before this president came in, most of it unspent, $1 trillion nearly in stimulus that this president asked for, plus this huge expansion in healthcare and government, it has a corrupting effect..."

...He also took aim at the national health care overhaul, which he said is "expanding Medicaid mandates that have been at least tentatively ruled unconstitutional," and at the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which he called "$800-billion worth of walking-around money."

Oh, and Michelle Bachmann laid a rhetorical beatdown on the loathsome White House adviser Austan Goolsbee who had earlier warned Republicans against 'playing chicken' with the national debt ceiling as it could raise questions about America's ability to repay its debts. Uh, schmuck: S&P and other rating agencies have already raised questions, thanks to your insane spending policies.

In an entertaining but ultimately not very informative roundtable, guest host Harry Smith brought Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-Fla.) and Rep.-elect Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) together for a chat that frequently degenerated into the guests talking over each other. Bachmann said the Republicans would introduce a "clean" bill to repeal the new health-care law. Kelly said he hopes that incoming GOP freshmen, many of whom are backed by the tea party, can force the government to live within its means like people in the "real world..."

Both Bachmann and Kelly said they opposed raising the debt ceiling.

Anthony Weiner went on to shriek like a little girl -- or maybe that's his real voice, I wouldn't know -- that failing to raise the debt ceiling would "shut the government down."

Say, Anthony, let's try it for a month and see if anyone notices. We've got a Department of Education that doesn't educate anyone; a Department of Energy that tries to restrict our access to energy; a Department of Labor that helps promote unemployment; etc.

So let's give it a shot for a month or two. I think we'll all be amazed how little we miss the enormous federal bureaucracies that seem to exist only to torment us.


Hat tip: Rowdy Roddy Piper in 'They Live'.