IRS officials knew about political targeting long before they revealed it
To my mind this establishes a couple of interesting points. First, it demonstrates that some officials in the IRS knew the targeting was going on much earlier than they admitted to it, and knew it was wrong, and yet allowed it to continue. Whether relatively low-level employees would initiate and continue such a program in the absence of management directives to do so seems unlikely. Second, it suggests to me that any non-tea-party names added to the BOLO lists after the activity was discovered were added as part of the cover-up, to disguise the political nature of the initial BOLO lists. Third, it destroys any attempt by the media or the political actors to minimize the situation. As Miller put it, this was an "oh shit" moment for any honest IRS management who found out about it.
It also doesn't exonerate any of the management involved. Some people may be able to point to these documents to demonstrate their surprise and dismay when they learned of what was going on, but the collective response appears to have been a coverup rather than a frank admission of problems and application of punishment. And despite the massive destruction of evidence involved in hiding Lerner's email trail from the public, we still have a number of juicy tidbits that suggest she was the organizing force behind the targeting all along, and actively sought to keep it secret. There are more quotes in the document linking the targeting efforts to Holly Paz.
And as a bonus, it appears that IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman likely misled Congress; he has been informed about the development letters sent to tea party groups before that point.
It turns out he was an 18 year old Iranian immigrant who has been living in Munich for longer than two years. That's not proof of motive, but it's very suggestive.
I'd have some serious questions about the data on this program and how it was collected and analyzed. The conclusion seems very much too good to be true, especially given how similar programs in California trying to address gang membership have proven to be corrupt. Even taking the claim at face value, it begs the question of alternative solutions focusing on those same people: rather than pay them and enroll them in special programs, have they committed crimes for which they can and should be arrested, charged, convicted, and imprisoned? Wouldn't that also significantly reduce the risk of them shooting someone?
This is a really good point. We know -- know -- that Hillary made a determined effort to scrub her emails before turning them over, and that that was the whole point of having her separate email server. Yet the media is pouring over the emails she felt were OK to release. Yes, they are informative about the Benghazi scandal, and demonstrate that Hillary is willing to lie to the public with a straight face to give her party and herself political cover. This shouldn't surprise anyone. But we should also be asking the question "What did Hillary delete, and why did she delete it?"
The FBI may know, if they were able to recover emails from the servers they seized. But they don't seem inclined to do anything about it.
FBI agents think a deal was struck at the tarmac summit
Remember, half the bodyguards there -- the ones surrounding Lynch -- are FBI agents. The other half are Clinton's SS, of course. There may well have been FBI agents in a position to hear what was discussed. Of course, the Obama administration has an answer for that:
This is over and above their normal obligations to keep investigations confidential, and it's clearly intended to intimidate anyone offended by the blatant corruption.
Of course, you had better be able to prove that you bought prior to that date if you want to try to use that defense. And there's no help for people who bought their firearms out of state (where they were perfectly legal) and then decided to move to Massachusetts. And then there's the whole issue of the AG changing how the existing law is enforced without actually, you know, changing the existing law.
Suffice it to say there are lots of problems here and this action will likely be challenged in court. That said, if Clinton wins in 2016, the ultimate conclusion of the appeals process is certain.
The Democrats seem to think that gun control is a winning issue again, and god help us if they're right.
Inflation is what happens when you have more and more money chasing (roughly) the same amount of goods. As more money enters circulation, it buys less and less. How does that additional money keep getting created? Generally, when the government decides to pay their bills by printing money instead of collecting money.
The astute may have noticed that our government has been doing the same thing for a while now.
Sowell spells it out. A lot of people these days don't seem to understand what socialism and fascism really are, because our educational system has been busily redefining history to suit the prejudices and politics of the professors.
It's impressive, really. Obama really does qualify as the three major enemies of America all at once: he is a communist by ideology, a fascist by political necessity, and a Muslim by childhood upbringing.
"Most also say the email controversy won't affect their vote"? That sounds disturbing until you actually look at how it breaks down.
It seems obvious the Democrat party have generally drunk the Hillary koolaid. They are voting for Hillary even if she is found in bed with a live girl AND a dead boy. But the same category also applies to Republicans, who are reluctant about Trump as their nominee but would vote third party rather than vote for Hillary. So figure the "most" category includes both major parties whose opinions won't change and you get to "most" pretty easily.
What's really puzzling me is the 10 percent who say the email controversy leaves them more likely to support Hillary. What the fuck are they thinking?
The military is claiming to have seized power from Erdogan. It's not clear which side will come out on top, and it's not clear which side the US should favor, if any. Erdogan took power as a supposed moderate Turkish nationalist but has been moving more and more towards Islam. In Egypt a military coup turned the Muslim Brotherhood out of power, something that seems like a positive step. One thing we can be sure of: this will shake things up in the region.
There are some small positive signs:
If the coup is an attempt to restore the "democratic and secular rule of law" that sounds like a move away from Islamism, but words are cheap. Only time will tell who comes out on top, and whether those words were sincere.
UPDATE: The coup has failed, with strong arguments being made that it was a false-flag operation to give Erdogan a chance to seize even more power.
This is what the media habitually calls a "peaceful protest" to distinguish it from events where someone kills 5 police officers and wounds 7 other people. I understand the latter events are usually referred to as "workplace violence" now.
This sure looks like a terrorist attack to me, but there aren't enough details yet to say anything for sure. No indications of firearms or explosives, just a large truck and a crowd.
My sympathies, again, to the people of France who have suffered another horrific attack.
UPDATE: Lots of reports now that the truck had firearms and grenades.
UPDATE: Attacker identified. You can probably guess his first name. As for how he got the firearms (!) and grenades (!!) in France (which has strict gun control like most of Europe, and was still in a state of emergency since the last terrorist attack there) despite a record as a "career criminal", well, the Saudis funded a mosque in Nice that opened just two weeks ago. Maybe there's a connection there.
