Sunday, May 19, 2013

Larwyn's Linx: Senator Ted Cruz leads call to abolish IRS in wake of its targeting scandal

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Nation

Sen. Ted Cruz leads call to abolish IRS in wake of targeting scandal: Twitchy
Obama and the ‘Official Truth’: Glick
Jack Lew learned of IRS probe in March: Politico

The Most-Corrupt Administration Ever?: Denninger
IRS accused of hiding existence of Tea Party targeting documents: WFB
Camp: IRS ‘Arrogance’ Came Across at Hearing: WFB

Obama Administration Talking Points Scrubbed "Jihadists": Power Line
Rep. Issa subpoenas Benghazi auditor Thomas Pickering: Hill
What did Hilary and Obama discuss at 10pm on 9/11/2012?: TAB

IRS Chief Apparently Lied During Testimony Yesterday: WZ
Friday Obama dump … “Me demand more taxes”: PW
Gang of Eight: Never Have So Few Told So Many Lies: RWN

Economy

Lew asks Congress for debt increase, says it’s 'not open to debate': Hill
Fifth IRS Agent In Cincinnati Office Tied To Tea Party Scandal: WZ
HHS: We Need Money To Implement Obamacare: RWN

Scandal Central

Highlights of Friday's IRS Hearing: Power Line
Obamacare Donor-Gate Scandal Looming Over White House: Shark Tank
Is the IRS scandal the worst political scandal in American history? I say “yes.”: Bookworm Room

Climate & Energy

EPA inspector general to look into FOIA scandal: DC
Three Cheers For Tesla: Power Line
Republicans see IRS scandal parallel in EPA info requests: Reuters

Media

Benghazi and Other ‘Concocted’ Scandals: RSM
NYT's Peters 'Cleans Up' Jonathan Weisman's Original Report on Friday's IRS Scandal Hearing: NB
Joe Scarborough, Piers Morgan: Obama Scandals Prove Gun Advocates Aren't Crazy: Breitbart

WaPo Mocks IRS With Tea Party Tax-exempt Form Demands: Produce a 'Non-Blurry Photo of a Yeti': NB
Judge Jeanine Pirro RIPS the Obama administration in another fantastic monologue: Scoop
Totalitarian Subversion- Can we Awaken from the Nightmare?: Loyal to Liberty

World

Did Huma Abedin ‘quietly’ step down as Deputy Chief of Staff in same month Bachmann letter sent to IG?: Shoebat
Obama Administration to Sign U.N. Arms Trade Treaty "In the Very Near Future": NRA-ILA
Biden Now Blamed in SEAL Team 6 Deaths: WND

Terrorists given new identities allowed to board commercial flights, watchdog finds: WaPo
Report: Syria prepared to fire missiles at Tel Aviv: ynet
Obama War Powers Under 2001 Law ‘Astoundingly Disturbing,’ Senators Say: NoisyRm

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

Military 3-D Printers: Wired
Meet the career con man who pulled off a federal sting that forced Google to pay $500 million.: Wired
Google App Engine finally supports PHP, the language that runs 75% of the web: VenBeat

Cornucopia

WHAT THE GOP CAN LEARN FROM THE WWE (YES, THAT WWE): Brodigan
Addition in the Age of Obama (subtraction, not so much): MOTUS
The Republican Party’s History On Race: RWN

Image: Addition in the Age of Obama (subtraction, not so much)
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Call John Boehner Now: We Demand a Select Committee

QOTD: "The absolute worst scandal that’s emerged lately, and the worst administration scandal in American history is the IRS scandal. Why? Because you, the People, became the targets of a comprehensive federal government effort to stifle dissent, one made using the government’s overwhelming and disproportionate policing and taxing powers.

All of the other scandals, going back to Andrew Johnson’s post-Civil War scandals, Warren G. Harding’s 1920s Teapot Dome scandal, Nixon’s Watergate, Reagan’s Iran-Contra, and Clinton’s Oval Office sexcapades have actually been narrowly focused acts of cronyism, garden-variety political chicanery, or personal failings. It’s been insider stuff.

The IRS scandal, by contrast, is a direct attack on the American people." --Bookworm Room

Saturday, May 18, 2013

THE TRAP: What did Hillary and Obama discuss at 10pm on the night of the Benghazi attacks?

Thanks to the least transparent administration in history, Americans still don't know what the President did during the night of the terror attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other heroes.

What did he order? What did he do? Did he take any steps to save the diplomats who were systematically slaughtered over the course of a 6-hour terrorist attack?

One little-mentioned aspect of the evening is a 10pm phone call to Hillary Clinton from Barack Obama.

...Benghazi is not a scandal because of Ambassador Susan Rice, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, and “talking points.” The scandal is about Rice and Nuland’s principals, and about what the talking points were intended to accomplish. Benghazi is about derelictions of duty by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton before and during the massacre of our ambassador and three other American officials, as well as Obama and Clinton’s fraud on the public afterward.

...Fraud flows from the top down, not the mid-level up. Mid-level officials in the White House and the State Department do not call the shots — they carry out orders. They also were not running for reelection in 2012 or positioning themselves for a campaign in 2016. The people doing that were, respectively, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.

Obama and Clinton had been the architects of American foreign policy. As Election Day 2012 loomed, each of them had a powerful motive to promote the impressions (a) that al-Qaeda had been decimated; (b) that the administration’s deft handling of the Arab Spring — by empowering Islamists — had been a boon for democracy, regional stability, and American national security; and (c) that our real security problem was “Islamophobia” and the “violent extremism” it allegedly causes — which was why Obama and Clinton had worked for years with Islamists, both overseas and at home, to promote international resolutions that would make it illegal to incite hostility to Islam, the First Amendment be damned.

All of that being the case, I am puzzled why so little attention has been paid to the Obama-Clinton phone call at 10 p.m. on the night of September 11.

...There is good reason to believe that while Americans were still fighting for their lives in Benghazi, while no military efforts were being made to rescue them, and while those desperately trying to rescue them were being told to stand down, the president was busy shaping the “blame the video” narrative to which his administration clung in the aftermath.

We have heard almost nothing about what Obama was doing that night. Back in February, though, CNS News did manage to pry one grudging disclosure out of White House mendacity mogul Jay Carney: “At about 10 p.m., the president called Secretary Clinton to get an update on the situation.”

Obviously, it is not a detail Carney was anxious to share. Indeed, it contradicted an earlier White House account that claimed the president had not spoken with Clinton or other top administration officials that night.

...Carney’s hand was forced by then-secretary Clinton. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, she recounted first learning at about 4 p.m. on September 11 that the State Department facility in Benghazi was under attack. That was very shortly after the siege started. Over the hours that followed, Clinton stated, “we were in continuous meetings and conversations, both within the department, with our team in Tripoli, with the interagency and internationally.” It was in the course of this “constant ongoing discussion and sets of meetings” that Clinton then recalled: “I spoke with President Obama later in the evening to, you know, bring him up to date, to hear his perspective.”

The 10pm phone call is a trap waiting to be sprung. It could be the lynchpin that holds together the last vestiges of the most inept and corrupt administration in modern American history.

Congress must demand Clinton testify under oath and send an interrogatory to the President.

The critical questions for both parties:

    a) What were the topics of the 10pm discussion?
    b) Were either a "protest" or an Internet video raised as a cause of the Benghazi attack?
    c) Who raised using a "protest" based upon an "Internet video" as a cover story for that attack?
    d) Who gave the order to use the video/protest pretense?
    e) Who gave the "stand down" order to prevent the rescue of Americans under attack?

Putting both Clinton and Obama under oath will raise an interesting dilemma for both. Which ever party answers first could be contradicted on any of these matters. If Clinton answers under oath to protect herself, Obama could easily throw her under the bus. Conversely, if Obama replies to an interrogatory first, Clinton could contradict any of his answers.

Benghazi is ultimately a conflict between the Clinton Democrats and the Chicago Machine. A wedge can be driven between these two destructive forces with some well thought-out subpoenas. Exploiting that wedge could light the fuse on the time-bomb and detonate the Obama administration once and for all.


Related: DAMNING: The Complete Benghazi Timeline Spreadsheet - Updated With the Latest Testimony and Leaks

BOOKWORM ROOM: This is the worst scandal in U.S. history

A tremendous op-ed by Bookworm Room with a troubling argument that is difficult to refute: the Obama administration's abuse of the IRS is the worst of its kind in U.S. history:

There’s been a lot of debate swirling amongst the pundits lately. Is the Watergate cover-up worse than the Benghazi cover-up or vice versa? Is the only scandal that matters the Justice Department’s decision to tap Associated Press phones, because that’s the only one that the media will care about? What did Obama know and when did he know it?

Ignore all that. The absolute worst scandal that’s emerged lately, and the worst administration scandal in American history is the IRS scandal. Why? Because you, the People, became the targets of a comprehensive federal government effort to stifle dissent, one made using the government’s overwhelming and disproportionate policing and taxing powers.

All of the other scandals, going back to Andrew Johnson’s post-Civil War scandals, Warren G. Harding’s 1920s Teapot Dome scandal, Nixon’s Watergate, Reagan’s Iran-Contra, and Clinton’s Oval Office sexcapades have actually been narrowly focused acts of cronyism, garden-variety political chicanery, or personal failings. It’s been insider stuff.

The IRS scandal, by contrast, is a direct attack on the American people...

...Those who offer these excuses are either morally flawed themselves or delusional idiots. Pastor Martin Niemoller, who once supported the Nazi party, finally and famously figured things out after World War II:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Once a government gets the bit between its teeth and starts targeting special interest groups, that is the end of freedom, not just for those first groups targeted, but for everyone...

...On May 5, at Ohio State University..., Obama gave a speech that was viewed then as yet another in the endless list of examples showing Obama painting his political opponents as loony paranoids:

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

Reading those same words now, it’s clear that, like the rattlesnake’s warning, Obama was previewing the reality of a Leftist government’s total control over the people who have naively consigned themselves to its care.

The Obama administration's malevolent influence appears to have poisoned every aspect of the administrative state. The EPA, the HHS, the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, and the Treasury Department are among the worst offenders. But the IRS has been used as a political weapon since its inception.

The IRS must be disbanded and replaced with The Fair Tax.

And, yes, read the whole thing.


Larwyn's Linx: The IRS Deliberately Chose Not to Fess Up to Scandal Before the 2012 Election?

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

IRS Deliberately Chose Not to Fess Up to Scandal Before Election?: WS
The Benghazi Inbox: Tatler
IRS Asked Tea Party Groups For Access to Their Websites: GWP

Boom: Obama Administration Knew of IRS Targeting in June of 2012: Benson
Stand up and cheer these House Republicans: LI
IRS said to target Latino-run conservative group: Fox News Latino

Judicial Watch Investigates HHS Sec. Sebelius’s Latest Scandal: JW
Passing the Buck: "Leadership" in Obama's Administration: TPNN
Were conservative car dealers targeted for GM closures?: Breitbart

IRS Told Dr. James Dobson He Had Been “Critical Of President”: Nice Deb
The Scandal Factory: JPA
Congressional hearing turns into IRS smackdown: Daily Mail

Romney donor: from Obama's Enemies List to IRS Audit Target: Scoop
While IRS Abused Tea Party, Muslim Groups Given Special Treatment?: Tatler
Durbin Asked IRS to Probe Conservative 501(c)(4) Groups in 2010: PJM

Climate & Energy

EPA addresses bias complaints: Politico
Senate Panel Approves EPA Nominee: WSJ
Even with huge subsidies, Fiat is losing about $10,000 on each of the tiny electric cars that it sells: Lott

Media

IRS Defenders Are Still Relying on Debunked Claims: Comentary
Rep. Mike Kelly Rips Into Man Wearing Dead Poodle on His Head: Ace
US Rep Kevin Brady ( TX-R) asks, “Is this still America”?: Scared Monkeys

Amid scandals and sequester the band plays on at the White House: CowboyByte
President Asterisk: Why the Obama IRS scandal may be worse than “a cancer on the presidency.”: Instapundit
Steyn Warns of ‘Serious Secession Movements’ if Drift Toward Socialism Not Reversed: Joe Miller

World

Huma’s Moonlighting? No Problem … Just Don’t Mention Her Crescent-lighting: McCarthy
State Dept Employees 'Held Accountable' For Benghazi Failures Still Receiving Paychecks: Breitbart
'Expect Israeli strikes on Russian arms shipment to Syria-Hezbollah': Hayom

Why the Peaceful Majority is Irrelevant: Rob Cunningham
Boise Man Arrested on Terrorism and WMD Charges: IPT
1 SEAL dead, others injured in training accident: Navy Times

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

Why 3D Printing Is Overhyped (I Should Know, I Do It For a Living): Gizmodo
Pentagon officially grants security clearance to Apple's iPhone and iPad: Apple Insider
Antarctic Neutrino Observatory Detects Unexplained High-Energy Particles: SciAm

Cornucopia

California's Real War on Women: RWN
Burglars lock homeowner in gun closet with predictably hilarious results: Hot Air
The Buck Stops (Cartoon): RWN

Image: The Buck Stops (Cartoon)
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Call John Boehner Now: We Demand a Select Committee

QOTD: "From the beginning of the Obama Administration, the Tea Party movement in America has been treated with great animus and hostility. From Vice President Biden to former President Bill Clinton, to numerous members of Congress, to entertainment celebrities and so-called journalists, we have been demonized, cursed and treated with completely undeserved slurs and vulgarity. To expect us to believe that an Administration which acts in this fashion would also not seek to politicize the IRS such that Tea Party groups could not enjoy tax exempt status, is simply naïve. It is with great relief and a sense of vindication that this corruption has come to light." --Royal Alexander

Friday, May 17, 2013

Looking Back In Time

They pointed the Hubble space telescope into a part of the sky that seemed utterly empty. A patch to avoid planets, stars, and galaxies. This area was close to the Big Dipper, a very familiar constellation. And the patch of sky was no bigger than a grain of sand...


This was a somewhat risky move by the scientists. After all, observation time on this telescope is in very high demand, and some questioned whether it should be wasted trying to look at nothing. There was a real risk that the images returned would be as black as the space at which it was being pointed. Nevertheless, they pointed the telescope and slowly hovered the course of ten full days.


Photons that had been traveling for over 13 billion years finally ended their journey on the detector of humanity's most powerful telescope. Their feeble signals collected almost one by one. When the telescope was finally closed, and the images were processed, the light from over three thousand galaxies had covered the detectors, producing one of the most profound and humbling images in all of human history. Every single spot, smear and dot...


...was an entire galaxy. And each one containing hundreds of billions of stars. Later in 2004 they did it again. This time pointing the telescope towards an area near the constellation Orion. They opened the shutter for over 11 days and 400 complete orbits around the Earth. Using detectors with increased sensitivity, and filters that allowed more light through than ever before, over 10 thousand galaxies appeared and what became known as the Ultra Deep Field. An image that represented the farthest we've ever seen into the universe.


The photons from these galaxies left when the universe was only five hundred million years old, and 13 billion years later they end their long journey as a small blip on a telescope CCD. These galaxies, while standing absolutely still, are racing away from us, in some cases, faster than the speed of light.


The space time between us and everything else grows larger by the minute, pushing the galaxies in this image to a distance of over 47 billion light years. And because of universal expansion, the farther something is away from us, the more its light is shifted toward the red and the faster it appears to be moving. Edwin Hubble himself discovered this by measuring the red shift of many galaxies. And it's a measure of not only speed but distance as well.


Recently, Hubble scientists put the icing on a cake; using the measured red shifts of all the galaxies inside the image, they made a 3-D model of Ultra Deep Field. This is how it looks when we apply the distances of the galaxies in the most important image ever taken. There are over one hundred billion galaxies in the universe. Simply saying that number doesn't really mean much to it because it doesn't provide any context. Our brains have no way to accurately put that in any meaningful perspective.


When we look at this image however, and think about the context of how it was made, and really understand what it means, we instantly gain the perspective and cannot help but be forever changed by it. We pointed the most powerful telescope ever built by human beings at absolutely nothing for no other reason than because we were curious and discovered that we occupy a very tiny place in the heavens.


Hat tips: DeepAstronomy.com and Papa B*.

* Who, astoundingly, didn't email us about guns, women or liquor. We surmise his email account may have been compromised by progressives. Or the Chinese. But I repeat myself.

STUDY: Men like me more likely to have right wing political views*

The science is settled.

Men who are strong are more likely to take a right-wing stance, while weaker men support the welfare state, researchers claim.

Their study discovered a link between a man’s upper-body strength and their political views. Scientists from Aarhus University in Denmark collected data on bicep size, socio-economic status and support for economic redistribution from hundreds in America, Argentina and Denmark.

The figures revealed that men with higher upper-body strength were less likely to support left-wing policies on the redistribution of wealth. Men with less upper body strength are more likely to support the welfare state... But men with low upper-body strength were more likely to put their own self-interest aside and support a welfare state.

Researchers also released a series of photos from their study:



*Eh, headline concept "borrowed" from Dan Foster and Ace.


NEW AND IMPROVED FOR 2013: American Agitprop Playing Cards

From The People's Cube:

If you didn't buy our famous Obama "Hope" poster parody playing cards because you wanted to wait for the deck to be updated and improved, your wait has been rewarded!

Redesigned by popular demand, this deck contains new characters, revised captions, improved images, and - keeping pace with the government expansion - now contains 56 cards instead of the usual 52.

The back design has also changed: "To each according to his hyphen" has been replaced with a more proper name for this project: "American Agitprop in the Age of Obama: Heroes and Villains."


This is a perfect Father's Day gift.
Hurry - Sunday, June 16 is getting close!



THE IRS-OFA SCANDAL WIDENS: Lies, Cover-Ups and a Full-Fledged Assault on Free Speech and... Prayer

Like an iceberg beginning to surface, the lawless activities of the IRS-OFA are becoming more and more obvious every day. Conservatives, Jews, Hispanics, Catholics, and Pro-Life groups in general appear to have been harassed, intimidated and humiliated.

As a reward for this criminal behavior, the former head of the IRS' tax-exempt division now leads the agency's ObamaCare enforcement arm.

MSNBC, of all places, revealed this morning that the IRS covered up its unlawful activities prior to the election:

The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."

And contrary to the president's standard assertion ("I only found out about this yesterday on the news"), Obama's Chief of Staff was aware of the IRS investigation last year:

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said today that he was aware in the fall of 2012 of the Treasury inspector general probe of the IRS targeting of conservative groups, but he claims he did not know the details of the investigation... Even if ... he was not aware of details, It’s not clear why Lew, as White House chief of staff, did not seek more information about such a potentially explosive matter as the IRS singling out the president’s opponents for special scrutiny.

Additional reports say that the IRS asked Tea Party groups for access to their websites:

The Obama IRS demanded that several Tea Party groups provide back-end access to their websites... And, from reliable sources: This happened to several Tea Party groups! The source has this in writing. It states they wanted access to everything the members had access to, which would be chats, email, contact information, etc...

There would be only one reason to request back-end access to a Tea Party group's website: to intimidate it from expressing it First Amendment rights to free speech.

And it gets better: the IRS is said to have asked pro-life group about 'the content of their prayers':

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing today, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., grilled outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller about the IRS targeting a pro-life group in Iowa.

“Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers,’" Schock declared.

This is fascism, flat out. I am not exaggerating. This is fascism.


We need a special prosecutor. And we need one yesterday.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Larwyn's Linx: Why Did The DOJ Get AP’s Phone Records?

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Why Did The DOJ Get AP’s Phone Records?: Right Sphere
Nine Lies of Lois Lerner: Williamson
Head of IRS Tax-Exempt Determinations Office an Obama Donor: NRO

The Mainstream Media Obama Psychodrama: Lifson
Official at Heart of IRS Scandal Now Heads ObamaCare Enforcement: Ace
Federal Court Slams Obama's Use of Recess Appointment Power: Reason

Behind IRS, the Union; Behind it, Democratic Politics: Ace
IRS hack who ran unit targeting Tea Party now heads ObamaCare: Fox
Meet Your New Doctor, The IRS: FW

Benghazi Emails Directly Contradict White House Claims: Hayes
Holder And Issa Spar During Judicial Hearing: Nice Deb
Obama releases some Benghazi e-mails; GOP demands all of them: WABC

Economy

Mark Levin: "It's Time To Kill The IRS": RCP
IRS Scandal: Government Must Be Kept Away From Our Data: Tatler
The Liberal Union Behind the IRS: AmSpec

Transparensorcery – “House immigration group reaches a deal”: LI
Borellis Confront Comcast CEO at Shareholder Meeting: NB
House votes to repeal ObamaCare in 229-125 vote: Fox

Scandal Central

IRS scandal raises specter of politically motivated IPAB healthcare denials: Kuznicki
IRS-Gate: The Potential Criminal Implications: Foundry
Number Of Times YouTube Video Is Mentioned In White House Benghazi Emails: Zero…: WFB

Media

The AP and the NRA: Lowry
Keith Olbermann and David Shuster call for Holder to Go: Riehl
Pelosi Blames Bush For IRS Scandal: FoxNation

Sarah Palin SLAMS Obama in latest Facebook post: Scandalous Hat Trick: Scoop
A Reason To Believe: Sarah A. Hoyt
Official White House Account Now Trolling Opponents: Ace

Eric “Fredo” Holder Is Smart And Wants Respect: Ace
Valerie Jarrett Orders High-Ranking Officer to Fetch Her More Wine: RWN
REPORT: PHYSICALLY WEAK MALES TEND TO BE LIBERALS AND MSNBC HOSTS: AWD

Transexual bathrooms coming to California schools?: Times
President Obama makes U.S. Marine break military rules by holding an umbrella while in uniform: Daily Mail

World

Obama dodges questions at rain-soaked Rose Garden presser with the Turkish Prime Minister: Atlas
Why Do Socialist Paradises Have So Much Trouble With Toilet Paper?: Ledeen
Here's A Greek Member Of Parliament Yelling 'Heil Hitler' In The Middle Of A Debate: Insider

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

Digital Decoy Apps Keep Communication On The Down-Low: Are Your Kids Already Using Them?: CBS New York
Study: Men With Weak Upper Bodies Tend To Be Liberal, Men With Strong Torsos Conservative: WZ
Linux: The Gold Standard of Code: LinuxInsider

Cornucopia

The Umbrella Platoon of the U.S. Marines comes to Obama's rescue: Cube
StOnewall Day 7 in the O-Bunker: We still know nuthin’: MOTUS
Most Transparent Administration in History Releases Completely Redacted Document About Snooping: Reason

Image: Daily Mail
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Call John Boehner Now: We Demand a Select Committee

QOTD: "Under a Democratic administration, the IRS was under pressure from Democratic elected officials to investigate political enemies of the Democratic party. The agency did so. Its commissioner lied to Congress about its doing so. When the inspector general’s report was about to make these abuses public, the agency staged a classic Washington Friday news rollout at a sleepy American Bar Association tax-law conference, hoping to minimize the bad publicity. Lerner lied to the public about the nature, scope, and extent of the IRS intimidation campaign.

That she has a job today is a scandal in itself. She’ll be receiving an award — for public service! — from the Western New England University School of Law on May 18. An orange jumpsuit would suit her better than academic robes." --Kevin D. Williamson

Bonus QOTD: "The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

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. " --ABC News

Thursday, May 16, 2013

OH, SUPER: WaPo Reports Unlawful DOJ Monitoring of AP Was Likely About Revenge, Not National Security

And the hits just keep on coming.

For five days, reporters at the Associated Press had been sitting on a big scoop about a foiled al-Qaeda plot at the request of CIA officials. Then, in a hastily scheduled Monday morning meeting, the journalists were asked by agency officials to hold off on publishing the story for just one more day.

The CIA officials, who had initially cited national security concerns in an attempt to delay publication, no longer had those worries... Instead, the Obama administration was planning to announce the successful counterterrorism operation that Tuesday.

AP balked and proceeded to publish that Monday afternoon. Its May 2012 report is now at the center of a controversial and broad seizure of phone records of AP reporters’ home, office and cellphone lines. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the unauthorized disclosure about an intelligence operation to stop al-Qaeda from detonating explosives aboard a U.S. airliner was among the most serious leaks he could remember, and justified secretly obtaining records from a handful of reporters and editors over a span of two months.

Now, some members of Congress and media advocates are questioning why the administration viewed the leak that led to the May 7 AP story as so grave.

The president’s top counterterrorism adviser at the time, John O. Brennan, had appeared on “Good Morning America” the following day to trumpet the successful operation. He said that because of the work of U.S. intelligence, the plot did not pose an active threat to the American public.

...AP’s story about the foiled plot was at odds with the calming message the White House had been conveying on the eve of the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden... “As we told Reuters a year ago, at no point did AP offer or propose a deal in relation to this story,” said spokeswoman Erin Madigan White. “We did not publish anything until we were assured by high-ranking officials with direct knowledge of the situation, in more than one part of the government, that the national security risk was over and no one was in danger. The only deal was to hold the story until any security risk was resolved.”

Curiously, the DOJ didn't investigate the Obama administration when it intentionally revealed a long list of national security secrets that hampered a series of ongoing operations.


Hat tip: The Right Scoop.

NO ORDINARY SCANDAL: Join us May 21st at your local IRS office

Peggy Noonan at the Wall Street Journal calls it "No Ordinary Scandal". And she is right.

The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they're seeing. The Justice Department assault on the Associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration's credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don't look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the president enjoyed is gone.

Something big has shifted. The standing of the administration has changed.

...In order to suppress conservative groups—at first those with words like "Tea Party" and "Patriot" in their names, then including those that opposed ObamaCare or advanced the second amendment—the IRS demanded donor rolls, membership lists, data on all contributions, names of volunteers, the contents of all speeches made by members, Facebook FB -1.77% posts, minutes of all meetings, and copies of all materials handed out at gatherings. Among its questions: What are you thinking about? Did you ever think of running for office? Do you ever contact political figures? What are you reading?

...The second part of the scandal is the auditing of political activists who have opposed the administration. The Journal's Kim Strassel reported an Idaho businessman named Frank VanderSloot, who'd donated more than a million dollars to groups supporting Mitt Romney. He found himself last June, for the first time in 30 years, the target of IRS auditors. His wife and his business were also soon audited. Hal Scherz, a Georgia physician, also came to the government's attention. He told ABC News: "It is odd that nothing changed on my tax return and I was never audited until I publicly criticized ObamaCare." Franklin Graham, son of Billy, told Politico he believes his father was targeted. A conservative Catholic academic who has written for these pages faced questions about her meager freelance writing income. Many of these stories will come out, but not as many as there are. People are not only afraid of being audited, they're afraid of saying they were audited.

...All of these IRS actions took place in the years leading up to the 2012 election. They constitute the use of governmental power to intrude on the privacy and shackle the political freedom of American citizens. The purpose, obviously, was to overwhelm and intimidate—to kill the opposition, question by question and audit by audit.

...The White House is reported to be shellshocked at public reaction to the scandal... [But t]his is not about the usual partisan slugfest. This is about the integrity of our system of government and our ability to trust, which is to say our ability to function.

This administration must be brought to heel before things get any worse. And they will get worse unless the White House is taught a painful and public lesson in political action. Community organizing, as it were. Join us.

On behalf of Tea Party, Patriot groups, 9/12, liberty activists, and the American people, we are calling for anyone and everyone to protest the IRS’ complete abuse of power on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 at noon local time.


Right now we are determining the best locations to host these rallies, so please let us know if you are available to go and where you are located. We will use the information to identify the closest IRS offices so that we get the most patriots to each location.

Please circulate this notice far and wide.


The IRS Scandal and Obamacare, Part II: Your "Shared Responsibility Payment for Not Maintaining Minimum Essential Coverage"

Jeff Taylor, commenting at "THE IRS SCANDAL AND OBAMACARE: Yes, Your Private Health Information Will Be Used Against You", offers the following:

"Shared Responsibility Payment for Not Maintaining Minimum Essential Coverage" [PDF] is the enabler. And enforcing that gives the IRS a free hand to do anything it wants regarding your medical benefits.

I've shared this document with trusted pros in the insurance and financial sectors and they are absolutely shocked at what it portends.

For one, absolutely no reliable safe-harbor -- as everything is based on "community" ratings and averages, you may not know until it is too late that you have failed to buy "too little" coverage.

But don't take my word for it -- read every last word of this official IRS documents and then come back and tell me what you think.

If you don't have time to peruse all 72 pages and then research the ties to thousands of other pages of cross-referenced regulations, here are some sample passages:

• "...Alternatively, the proposed regulations provide that a taxpayer may elect to use the premium for the lowest cost bronze plan that would apply to a set of individuals that have the same characteristics as the taxpayer’s nonexempt family (such as one adult plus children) as if one plan covered all members of the taxpayer’s shared responsibility family."

• "...In general, a premium tax credit is allowable under section 36B for any coverage month (within the meaning of §1.36B-3(c)) that occurs in a taxable year in which a taxpayer is an applicable taxpayer (within the meaning of §1.36B-2(b)). A month is not a coverage month for an individual, and thus no premium tax credit is allowable for the individual’s coverage, if the individual is eligible for minimum essential coverage other than coverage offered in the individual market for that month..."

• "...(ii) For the period January through June 2016, under paragraphs (b)(2)(ii) and (b)(2)(iii) of this section, the applicable dollar amount is $1,737.50 (($695 x 2 adults) + ($695/2) x 1 child)). Under paragraph (b)(2) of this section, the flat dollar amount is $1,737.50 (the lesser of $1,737.50 or $2,085 ($695 x 3))."

These are 72 incomprehensible pages that grant the IRS unfettered power over your financial and physical well-being.

The IRS has a long and ignominious history of targeting political opponents. Its latest actions make it clear that it has been serving as a political retribution wing of the permanent Obama campaign or "Organizing For America".

In the midst of this madness, Obamacare is set to magnify the power of the IRS by a factor of 10 or more.

Based upon the record, empowering the IRS to control health care will turn out to be a disastrous mistake, no matter who is in power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and the IRS will have absolute power over your health care.

The IRS will punish its political foes by withholding treatment and it will reward its political friends by offering it expedited services.

That much is clear from the latest scandal.

And earlier today, President Obama topped off this debacle by refusing to appoint a Special Prosecutor.

Eighteen strikes and you're out. As Mark Levin suggests, the IRS must be disbanded and replaced with The Fair Tax. It's time to unleash the economy and constrain the federal government's weed-like urge to grow. The Fair Tax accomplishes both ends.


Cartoon: Dave Granlund, Cagle.com.

CAPTION CONTEST: The Official Portrait of Richard Windsor, I mean Lisa Jackson, Which Only Cost You $40,000

Courtesy of Sean Hackbarth, who writes:

The EPA spent 40,000 of our tax dollars on this oil painting...


Begin...

Matt offers: "Thanks to Climosil, I feel fresher than ever."


"Reject these voices that warn of... me"

Dan from New York:

Via The People's Cube:

Obama Tells Graduates to Reject Voices Warning of Government Tyranny

By Katie Pavlich

Last week, President Obama gave a commencement address to The Ohio State University. In his remarks, he urged graduates to reject voices warning about government tyranny.

"Unfortunately you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all of our problems. Some of these same voices do their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted."

As a reminder of current Obama administration scandals:

-The IRS systematically abusing conservative groups

-The DOJ monitoring dozens or hundreds of reporters

-Kathleen Sebelius extorting money from companies she regulates

-Lies and cover-ups concerning the terror attack in Benghazi

That's right kids, you can totally trust Big Brother. Now move out into the world and ignore that "tyranny" thing.

Yes, kids: move out into the world and ignore that "tyranny" thing, from your parents' basement.



Related: President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts.

Larwyn's Linx: Cincinnati IRS workers say that they were just doing what their bosses ordered

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Cincinnati IRS workers: we were just doing what the bosses ordered: Scoop
IRS Chief Blames Two “Rogue” Agents In Cincinnati Office: WZ
10 of 12 IRS offices implicated in scandal are in Washington: Exam

Whoa: Administration Got Congressional Phone Records?: Greenroom
Soros Gave $6M to Groups Pressuring IRS to Target GOP: CNS
Remember when Soros goons threatened GOP donors?: Malkin

White House, IRS showed sudden interest in us in December: Watchdog
The Big Question: Is the White House Linked to IRS Abuses?: Dossier
What we know Obama doesn't know grows daily: Malcolm

The critical need for a Select Committee on Benghazi: Kuznicki
Obama's Scandals Stem from His Lawless Presidency: IBD
The IRS Wants to Know If You’re a “Patriot”: Foundry

Economy

Federal Government Feeding From the Trough on Student Loans: NakedDC
Scenes from the Ongoing Economic Collapse: ZH
Eurocrats fear Britain will provoke referendum domino effect: Commentator

‘Private Citizen’ Sebelius Solicits Obamacare ‘Donations’: WS
Lois Lerner’s name on IRS letter to conservative group: Scoop
IRS Commissioner Knew About Targeting … A Year Ago: Tatler

Scandal Central

Chilling: IRS reportedly demanded list of high school and college students from conservative group: Twitchy
Report: IRS accessed health records of 10 million Americans without authorization: BluegrassPundit
Emily Miller uncovers D.C. AG “dirty tricks” in withholding David Gregory docs: LI

Did the White House Try to Get a Conservative Columnist Canned?: Tatler
Louie Gohmert Interrogates Eric Holder over Boston: Cahnman
Holder Caught Lying -- Again: Atlas

Media

Here’s That ‘Dynamic Scoring’ You Asked For, Senator: Coulter
AP Phone Records Furor Breaks 335 Days of Silence on Obama Leak Scandal: MRC
10 Fantastic Memes On The Press’s Sudden Awakening To The Obama White House Scandals: AllAm

Is the National Narrative On Obama Collapsing?: Ace
MEDIA MATTERS: If the DOJ is investigating you, you probably deserve it, you hacks.: Instapundit
"Media Matters Action Network," Media Matters' Activist 501(c)4 "Educational or Social Charity," S***s the Bed: Ace

"Fired" Acting IRS Commissioner Was Set To Resign... in June: Ace
ABC News: Someone In White House Authorized IRS?: WZ
CBS’ Attkisson: ‘There Hasn’t Been an Appetite for the Stories I’ve Offered on Benghazi’: MediaBistro

World

Seven Muslims Caught Trespassing After Midnight at Boston's Quabbin Reservoir: Atlas
Dick Cheney Hammers Obama On Benghazi: Subpoena Hillary Clinton “If Necessary”: RWN
Why Obama Didn’t Send in the Troops: Morris

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

Amazon Introduces Amazon Coins -- Virtual Currency for Buying Apps and Games: ABC
The New Yorker launches Strongbox, an anonymous inbox developed by Aaron Swartz: Verge
Innovation Challenge: Your Market is Never Stable: InnovExc

Cornucopia

Hi, I’m From the IRS, and I Don’t Know Anything Either.: MOTUS
An Interview With Barack Obama About The IRS Scandal, AP Phone Records And Benghazi: Economic Collapse
Homemade Glock: Every Day No Days Off

Image: REPORT: Four Cincinnati IRS workers claim they were just doing what their bosses ordered
Sponsored by: Help Us Stop A Hunting Ban In California Before It Spreads Through The Nation

QOTD: "The entire construct of this government is because of their fear of tyranny. The entire United States Constitution is based upon a fear of government tyranny. The US Constitution limiting the role of government in the life of the individual. And there's Obama at the Ohio State University commencement talking about the joys of big government, now so big he can't control it, mocking right-wingers for paranoid suspicions about tyranny.

You know, folks, all these Obama scandals, keep them in mind the next time that you hear Barack and Michelle Obama lecturing audiences about how important it is for people to get involved in grassroots politics. Don't they do that a lot? They do. Michelle's constantly out urging people to get involved. Grassroots level. That's where it happens. That's what makes it happen. That's where people have to do the hard work, getting involved at the precinct level, getting involved at your local community, getting involved. Grassroots politics. And that's all these Tea Party groups are trying to do. That's all they wanted to do was make their voices heard.

The Tea Party groups are trying to get involved in the process. The Obama administration did everything in their power to shut 'em out. The Obama administration is using the massive power, the intimidating power, the real power of the Internal Revenue Service to shut people out of the grassroots area of politics, to intimidate people on the right into not even getting involved. The Obama administration did everything it could using the powers, not just of the IRS, but also the EPA, to literally intimidate conservatives from getting involved in politics at the grassroots level." --Rush Limbaugh

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: IRS equips agents with 12-gauge Remington shotguns

Police Magazine has a report that should be quite comforting to all of us seeing as how the IRS is above reproach and all.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will arm its agents with Remington 870 pump-action shotguns, according to a solicitation request by the agency.

The federal tax collector posted an acquisition notice earlier this month on FedBizOpps.gov. The IRS will close its acquisition request on Wednesday.


The IRS will purchase 60 Remington Model 870 Police, 12-gauge pump-action shotguns for its Conservative Criminal Investigation Division. The Remington parkerized shotguns will include a 14-inch barrel, modified choke, Wilson Combat ghost-ring rear sight and XS4 contour-bead front sight, Knoxx reduced-recoil adjustable stock, and Speedfeed ribbed black forend, according to the notice.

The shotguns are designated as the only shotguns authorized for IRS duty, based on compatibility with existing IRS shotguns, certification by an armorer, combat training and protocol, maintenance and parts.

Wait for it... wait for it...

"What could possibly go wrong?"


Hat tips: BadBlue Gun News and AmmoLand (image).

GREAT NEWS: IRS Accused by Health Care System of Stealing the Secret Medical Records of 10 Million Americans

Well, these are the guys I want controlling health care:

The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.

According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.

"This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents," the complaint reads. "No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records," it continued.

According to the case, the IRS agents had a search warrant for financial data pertaining to a former employee of the John Doe company, however, "it did not authorize any seizure of any healthcare or medical record of any persons, least of all third parties completely unrelated to the matter," the complaint read.

But I'm certain it was just a couple of rogue employees in Cincinnati.

And that Eric Holder will leave no stone unturned in tracking down the perpetrators.


Hat tips: BadBlue Tech News and Economic Collapse Blog (illustration).

MUST WATCH: Rubio Slams Obama White House -- "These are the Tactics of the Third World"

Oh, my. Watch this. Now. I'll wait.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): "So in the span of four days, [there were] three major revelations about the use of government power to intimidate those who are doing things that the government doesn’t like.


These are the tactics of the third world.

These are the tactics of places that don’t have the freedoms and the independence that we have here in this country. And it is shocking to Americans that this would come to light in the way that it has. I would submit to you, however, that none of this is new. That what we see emerging here is a pattern, a culture, a culture of intimidation, of hardball politics that we saw both on the campaign trail and now through the apparatus of government." (Senate Floor, May 15, 2013)

I'll quote John McClane once again: "Welcome to the party, pal!"


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

IRS-GATE: The Inspector General's Report is a Joke [Kahn]

Guest post by Kahn

So the Inspector General's report into allegations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups is out. And what it tells us can be summarized in a few bullet points, rather than the 40-plus pages it actually used:

• Some low-level IRS employees mysteriously started screening conservative applications for tax-exempt status -- asking unlawful questions and illegally delaying paperwork for years -- and got away with it.

• When management discovered their activities they demanded they stop. And no one was disciplined or fired.

• Those same low-level IRS employees, after a while, went right back at it, defying their management and expanding their screens to encompass even more conservative groups. And, once again, no one was disciplined or fired.

• When the I.G. investigated, they discovered that management was incompetent because the people responsible for doing the work were said to be untrained in how to do their work.

But there was no political vendetta from on high! It was just some low-level employees in an obscure division of the IRS!

Of course, that doesn't explain credible reports that:

The IRS targeted newsman Larry Conners ever since he asked some tough questions of President Obama.

The IRS leaked private tax information to one of Obama's re-election campaign co-chairmen.

The IRS targeted Jewish groups for "special treatment".

The IRS targeted Franklin Graham and other Christian ministries and "attempted to intimidate us", according to Graham.

The IRS went after a prominent Catholic professor just after she spoke out against Obama.

The IRS approved Obama's Organizing For Action group in no time flat.

The IRS "improperly accessed and stole" the medical records of 10 million Americans, including California state judges and other law enforcement personnel.

But there was no political agenda!

It was just a series of low-level employees acting on their own!

David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett had absolutely nothing to do with any of this!

And if you believe that, you might be the cowardly pipsqueak John Boehner, who is still blocking a Select Committee despite witnessing a series of scandals that make Watergate look like the bungled, half-assed burglary it really was.

The IRS now appears to be the enforcement arm of Organizing For America and, as such, is perfectly positioned to destroy the conservative movement once it controls health care too.

Be prepared for the IRS to withhold health care from its political opponents, to delay treatment, and to leak private health care records. It's coming, I can assure you.


Cartoon: Branco at Legal Insurrection.

Larwyn's Linx: What the White House Doesn’t Know Will Shock You

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

What the White House Doesn’t Know Will Shock You: Sentinel
Obama too busy with cover-ups and wiretapping to fix economy: Ace
Just Tell Us the Truth, Mr. President: Cruz

I Demand Impeachment For Breakfast: Denninger
ABC’s Karl Rebuts White House 'Doctored' Email Claims: Tatler
Hey Obamabots, Tapper’s “Leak” Is Meaningless: Leather Penguin

Was Romney a victim of politicized Benghazi intelligence?: TAB
Eric Holder defends AP phone records seizure: Exam
The IRS is accessing your health records. You trust them?: AEI

Did Obama Use IRS Audits to Sway the Election?: Sooper
Mitch McConnell: We May Need A Special Prosecutor for IRS Scandal: RWN
Report: IRS Targeted Franklin Graham: WZ

Economy

CBO: Obamacare costs double to $1.8 trillion in first decade: Exam
Obama’s NLRB appointee mobbed up?: NakedDC
IRS Asked For Reading List Of TEA Party Group: Jawa

Scandal Central

Committee Investigating HHS For Illegally Soliciting Funds: WFB
IRS Tea Party Scandal Shows Government Should Be Kept Away From Our Data: Heartland
Reporter who asked Obama about “first family jetting around” on vacations says IRS HAMMERING him since: Scoop

‘Don’t embarrass the administration or we’re coming after you’: Riehl
The Barack H Obama Foundation Received Tax Exempt Status in 30 Days in 2011: CFP
FLASHBACK: Romney Donor Vilified By Obama Campaign, Promptly Hit With IRS Audit: WZ

Climate & Energy

And Then There Were Five Obama Scandals…?: Tatler
EPA waives fee requests for friendly groups, denies conservative groups: Exam
Obama EPA scandal fee requests conservative groups, waived for leftists: FAM

Media

What??: Ace
'The Government Has Gone Too Far': Johnny Dollar
Politico is Exhibit A: Why Journalists Suck Today: Riehl

The Mask Is Ripped Off of 'Hope and Change': Geraghty
Chuck Todd: This is “Absolutely Chilling”: Dossier
FLASHBACK: DOJ Leaks OKeefe Emails: DocStoc (2010)

Jay Carney bashes Fox News while making excuses for Obama: Scoop
Obama Hailed ‘World Press Freedom Day’ As His DOJ Was Seizing AP Phone Records: CNS
BOOM! Carney gets backed into a corner on assertions that WH had no involvement in IRS scandal: Scoop

Eight Months Too Late, The Media See The Real Obama: IBD
President Scandal Attends Multiple Fundraisers, Blames Limbaugh: JWF
Stewart Tears Apart Obama: Mediaite

World

Release All the Benghazi Emails: Hayes
Keeping Our Heads in the Sand After Boston: IPT
Sharia Law: Australian Woman Spends 8 Months In Prison For Being Gang Raped: RWN

Guess Who’s Leading the UN Disarmament Conference: Mead
Military emails show NO U.S. sailors witnessed Osama bin Laden's secret burial at sea: Daily Mail
The new Obama narrative: Politico

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

'Einstein's Planet' Becomes First Exoplanet Discovered Using New Method: Slashdot
Report: Google aims to take on Spotify, seals a deal with Sony and Universal: Ars Technica
US Navy's X-47B is the first unmanned plane launched from an aircraft carrier : Engadget

Cornucopia

To My Followers: Vanderleun
The Good Ol’ Progressive Contempt for the Founding: Foundry
When Jay Carney Was Concerned With Presidential Overreach: Jay Carney (2006)

Image: Weasel Zippers
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Call John Boehner Now: We Demand a Select Committee

QOTD: "He simply cannot get me off his mind. I live rent free in his head. And he is using me as his convenient excuse for not being able to get anything done. He really thinks the Republicans would work with him if it weren’t for me. So he’s telling these Hollywood people — and you gotta understand, they’re sitting there and they’re very sympathetic, and they love Obama, and they want Obama to succeed. I’m the guy who said, “I hope he fails.” So Obama’s sitting there and he’s telling these Hollywood people, “You know, this Limbaugh guy, this Limbaugh guy… If it weren’t for this Limbaugh guy, Good Lord, look what I could get done!” …

Now, let’s be honest, folks. Who am I? I’m a guy on the radio. I am your beloved host, El Rushbo. I’m a guy on the radio. The fact remains that the truth of the matter is, by his own admission, I am the opposition to Barack Obama." --Rush Limbaugh