The scandals continue apace, and it doesn’t seem as if they’re going away soon. A new one was added on in the past couple of days. More on that later. But first, let’s update what we know. Well, keep in mind the only reason we know anything is because whistleblowers and some reporters who still cling to the old idea of ferreting out the facts have overcome the fear of White House retaliation and come forward to present their evidence. If it were up to the White House and the various executive departments it oversees, we would remain in the dark. They want you to believe they are clueless about any wrongdoing, yet should receive total credit for anything that goes right:

At the almost-daily press briefings and on news shows, members representing the administration have one talking point only:

On Benghazi, we haven’t heard as much in the last few days, but it’s still bubbling under the surface. Rumors are that more whistleblowers are about to tell their tales. That can’t be good for those who may have tried to put a cone of silence over their testimony:

One commentator, Andy McCarthy, reminds us of an overlooked part of the Benghazi timeline: President Obama and Hillary Clinton had a 10:00 p.m. phone call the night of the attack, which was just after receiving news that our ambassador had been killed. The next day the false story about the anti-Islam video became the “explanation” for the attack. Coincidence?

We also know now that the administration has identified at least five individuals in Libya who were responsible for carrying out the attack, but have done nothing to get them. Apparently, they are waiting until there is enough “evidence” to try them in a civilian court. Again, this betrays the administration’s worldview. Obama and his people, especially Eric Holder at the Justice Department, believe foreign terrorists are entitled to all the legal protections of American citizens. Wrong.

The IRS scandal currently dominates most of the news cycle for the scandals. I think that has something to do with how every citizen feels about that particular agency. We all know it can come after each one of us individually. There’s not a whole lot love there. And even though we’re told it’s not a partisan agency, facts seem to indicate otherwise:

We also now know that on March 31, 2010, President Obama met with the anti-Tea Party IRS union chief at the White House. The very next day the “jihad” against Tea Party and other conservative organizations began. Another coincidence?

Tea Parties across the nation held rallies yesterday outside IRS offices, protesting the unfair and illegal treatment they have received at its hands. The main person responsible for that treatment, Lois Lerner, is supposed to appear today before one of the congressional committees investigating the scandal. The word is that she has decided to take the Fifth Amendment, which is a little peculiar for someone who claims she has done nothing wrong. Now, I realize the Fifth Amendment is there to protect against incriminating oneself, but one has to wonder what she has to hide—or who else she might be protecting. What promises have been made to her to secure her silence? In the law, a prosecutor must provide evidence for a conviction, so taking the Fifth is an established practice; we are told not to consider anyone guilty until proven so. However, this is not yet a legal court case where those standards exist. There’s another court, that of public opinion, and we are free to believe what we wish about this tactic being used at this point.

Another reason to be concerned about how the IRS handles its business is that it is slated to oversee the implementation of Obamacare, a law frightening enough in itself, even before the IRS is attached to it:

This whole thing has taken on monstrous proportions. How long will American citizens put up with it?

The tapping of the phones of the Associated Press is now an old story compared to recent revelations. Obama has never liked Fox News. Now we know, for a fact, that this organization also has been the subject of scrutiny. It started with the exposure of the Justice Department secretly reading the e-mails of James Rosen, one of Fox’s reporters. Rosen was merely doing what all reporters do—trying to find out information on a story. In this case, it had to do with the North Korea nuclear program. Something about that ticked off the powers-that-be. The DOJ somewhere found a judge who signed off on the secret reading of Rosen’s e-mails because he was called a “co-conspirator” in a criminal investigation.

This jarring news sent a chill through the entire press. Never in the history of this country, except perhaps after the passage of the Sedition Act of 1798, has a member of the press been accused formally of criminal activity simply for pursuing information. Then it came out that the DOJ had targeted other Fox employees as well; a further revelation is that the department also tapped into Fox phone lines. This is unprecedented.

But don’t worry. We’re told the president is a great supporter of the First Amendment. All we have to fear is fear itself.

This is a tyranny in the making. It needs to be stopped. Let the investigations proceed.

My goal today is to attempt a summary of the three controversies swirling around the presidency right now. I can’t promise to include everything that ought to be included, but I do hope to make sense of it all. If you’ve been too busy to follow all the details, perhaps this can help pull it together. In the spirit of Watergate, I’ve decided to put a “gate” on each one. As far as I’m concerned, they more than deserve that “honor”; each one is far worse than the original.

Benghazigate

• The killing of four Americans, including our ambassador, on 9/11/12 is the only one of these controversies that cost lives. That, in itself, makes it the worst of the three. There are three stages of this controversy:
• Prior to the attack: Security measures were far below standards in a country on the verge of chaos and infiltrated with radical Muslim groups. Repeated requests for added security were either ignored or rejected by the State Dept. Some reports also indicate that we may have been using Libya as a center for a gun-running operation to Syrian rebels, many of whom are also radical Islamists.
• During the attack: On-the-ground communications gave us a blow-by-blow description of what was happening in real time. Those whose lives were in danger asked for help. Two former Navy Seals rushed to the scene and again sought help from the military. There was help available, and as a team was assembled and ready to go their aid, they got a “stand down” order that, according to Gregory Hicks, the top diplomat in Libya still alive, greatly angered the colonel in charge of the troops. Due to that order, no aid came and the Seals were killed after a stalwart defense. Who gave the “stand down” order? No one is claiming responsibility.
• After the attack: Now we know that the decisionmakers, from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama, had information right from the start that implicated radical Islamists. They chose to edit all mention of terrorism out of the infamous talking points that UN ambassador Susan Rice used to go on Sunday news programs. They uniformly blamed some obscure anti-Islam video on the Internet for causing this attack. None of the documentation that has been revealed thus far provides any rationale for blaming that video, yet even President Obama, two weeks later, was using it as the cause in a speech to the UN. Despite assurances that those responsible would be dealt with, no one in Libya has ever been charged; yet the man who produced the video was rounded up and jailed, and he remains there to this day.
• It’s hard not to believe the accusations that this has been a coverup from day one. Added to the despicable nature of this coverup is that it occurred during the campaign as a way of ensuring another Obama term.
• More whistleblowers may be forthcoming. Not one person who was in Benghazi who survived this attack has ever said a word about what occurred. Are they under a gag order from this administration? Are they being intimidated in some way?

IRS-Gate

• Last Friday, in anticipation of the release of an inspector general’s report, the IRS official in charge of the Exempt Organization Division, Lois Lerner, issued an apology for how the agency had targeted conservative groups for at least two years, holding them to near-impossible standards before allowing them to be considered tax exempt.

• Ever since that admission, there have been daily reports of how these organizations were subjected to harassment. Any group seeking tax exemption that included “Tea Party,” “patriot,” limited government,” or any similar wording in their names became a target. This was a scorched-earth attempt to defund these organizations and to limit their effectiveness as the 2012 presidential election neared.
• It also has come to light that donors to Republicans, particularly donors to Mitt Romney, were singled out for audits. This went beyond donors to other tax-exempt organizations that exhibited support for Romney. The most egregious example was the auditing of the Billy Graham Association after Rev. Graham vocally supported a defense-of-marriage law in North Carolina and then had favorable things to say about candidate Romney.

• President Obama claims he knew nothing about this until he read the news accounts. Right. As if the president of the United States relies on the media for his information. Then he asked for the resignation of the acting commissioner of the IRS, who, it turns out, was planning on retiring in a couple of months anyway. He further says the IRS is an independent agency over which he has no direct control. Really? It is under the Treasury Department, which is run by Obama’s secretary of the treasury. He has direct oversight. Any claim to the contrary is invalid.
• In a particularly strange and tone-deaf move, Sarah Hall Ingram, who served as commissioner of the office overseeing tax-exempt organizations, has now been tabbed to lead the IRS enforcement of Obamacare. What could possibly go wrong?
• Then, yesterday, Obama announced his appointment of Daniel Werfel to take over the IRS. Who is Werfel? A current White House budget official. In other words, let’s hire the fox to guard the hen house.

AP-Gate

• The Justice Department secretly got access to two months’ worth of telephone conversations between reporters for the AP and whomever they might have contacted for their stories. Ostensibly, this was done for national security reasons—that the AP endangered national security by releasing a story about a successful effort to thwart a terrorist attack in Yemen.

• Now we know that there was no longer a threat by the time the AP released its story. It had worked with the administration to sit on it for five days prior to release. Reports now indicate that the offense, if that be the right word, was in releasing it before the administration had the opportunity to boast about its successful operation. There was no national security threat at all at the time AP made the decision.
• This is a clear First Amendment issue (as is the IRS controversy), and the media, which has always sided with Obama, is showing signs of alienation from him for the first time in five years.
• Both Obama and Attorney General Holder say they have no knowledge of what occurred. Obama says, rather implausibly, that the White House doesn’t know what its own Justice Department is doing; Holder says he earlier recused himself from the operation, although he doesn’t recall just when he did so and has nothing in writing to prove it.

In every case, Obama has tried to have it both ways: he knew nothing, yet don’t worry, he’s fully in charge and everything’s going to be fine.

Let’s just say I’m not all that assured. When George Bush was president, you may have disagreed with some of his decisions, but at least you knew what he had decided and that he took responsibility for his actions. The Obama presidency has been a study in opposites:

These controversies have only begun. They have not played out, and won’t very soon in spite of the administration’s desire to put them to rest. Don’t be surprised, either, if a few more get added on to these three. The arrogance of this president and his minions practically guarantees it.

Yesterday’s post dealt with the ongoing Gosnell trial—the one many Americans have never heard of, thanks to the ideologically biased news media—and President Obama’s speech before Planned Parenthood, in which he pledged his unyielding support of abortion—without ever using the word, of course. Sometimes, the best political cartoons about an event appear after I’ve written about it. I think this one is particularly clear and direct:

I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe Obama is far more concerned about pro-life people than he is about terrorists, especially of the Muslim variety. Just look at his record throughout his life.

As for the Gosnell trial, which is awaiting a jury verdict, another cartoon captured the spirit of the pro-abortion Left and its media lackeys quite accurately:

Speaking of Mirandizing, the Boston Marathon terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was giving information to the FBI and all was going well, until the Obama Justice Department [rather an oxymoron, don't you think?] interrupted the interrogation to officially explain to the terrorist that he had the right to remain silent. He is now silent. All reports indicate the FBI was taken off-guard with this intervention. They were not told ahead of time this would be happening.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, had the opportunity this past week to review the materials that have been purged from the FBI’s training program. She came away concerned that the bureau is now going too far to appease Muslim-American groups. Due to a confidentiality agreement, she can’t share specifics, but she did say, “This is truly censorship by our government, the government purging itself of documents.”

The FBI began reviewing its counterterrorism materials after complaints from Muslim groups who were upset by comments linking strong Muslim beliefs with terrorism. So the bureau created a five-member advisory panel, which included three Muslim experts, to decide what to throw out. The result? Nearly 900 pages were removed from the training documents. We’re more concerned now with hurting someone’s feelings than getting at the truth.

In the wake of the Boston bombings, Attorney General Holder has decided to warn the country against retaliation against Muslims. Right. As if that has been a big problem. Americans are just so prejudiced and heartless, aren’t they?

Our problem has more to do with foolishness and lack of vigilance than it does with some mythical rise of anti-Muslim violence. We’re erecting our own gallows.

One of the many blessings of Facebook for me is the contact I continue to have with former students. Probably 2/3 of my Facebook friends fit into that category. One of them contacted me yesterday with a request, and I would like to honor it because I consider it worthy of publicizing. As it happens, this young woman is married to another of my former students who is now serving in the military. They have a ten-month-old son. Her husband is currently deployed overseas, a thirteen-month stint. Normally, soldiers on such a deployment get a two-week R&R in the midst of the deployment. The Obama administration has changed this. I’ll let her tell the story:

As you probably know, my husband . . . is deployed for 13 months right now. Obviously a hard year, especially with our baby son. In years past, soldiers were allowed to come home for two weeks’ R&R mid-deployment to see family. This was especially important to soldiers with young children. But this year the mid-deployment R&R program was cut. This was a real hardship on [us] and I think trying to balance the budget on the backs of military families is a travesty. So in true . . . activist fashion, I started a petition to bring back R&R for the military families that are already hurting from 11 years of war [so much PTSD, divorces . . . ]. Now I am trying to get publicity for the petition. I have two talk radio shows that are planning on covering this military R&R issue, one online newspaper is taking it up, and I’m trying to ask all my friends with connections both for suggestions on how to publicize this issue and if they would be willing to spread the information.

She has set up a site where you can add your name to the petition. When you do so—as I have done—it will trigger an e-mail to the White House, to both of your state’s senators, and to your congressman. The site is http://www.petition2congress.com/8229/bring-back-military-rr/

Sadly, we have an administration that, while mouthing platitudes about those who protect the country via military service, does little in the way of helping them. The fiscal cliff that approaches may end up slashing military funding drastically. This is particularly disturbing since having a military force is one of the few things we fund anymore that is constitutional.

The military always seems to get the short stick. Ever since Obama took office, it’s interesting how hard it has become, for instance, for those in the service overseas to vote. Those absentee ballots don’t always arrive on time.

The Obama-Holder Justice Department cries “fraud” when states simply want voters to show a valid photo ID, but all I hear is silence when it comes to soldiers voting. Of course, they know which way that vote will probably go.

It’s time for us to stand up for our military families. I encourage you to help with this petition drive.

As I write this, we are less than three hours away from the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. Most of you reading this will already know what was decided. I’ll examine what transpires today and offer some thoughts on it tomorrow. This is probably one of the most anticipated and historic Supreme Court decisions in my lifetime, aside from all the bad decisions on abortion. If Obamacare is allowed to stand, it will go down as the worst decision since Roe v. Wade. A decision to uphold this unconstitutional nightmare will follow in the infamous footsteps of the Dred Scott decision before the Civil War that declared no black person was a citizen and the Plessy v. Ferguson segregation ruling of 1896.

Well, that lets you know where I stand.

The other big event of the day will be the House vote on the contempt of Congress charges against Eric Holder. There’s not nearly the suspense for that one. Even some Democrats are going to vote for those charges, especially those who represent Republican-leaning districts in the upcoming election. So much is at stake in this as well: immigration policy, border security enforcement, states’ rights, possible misuse of executive privilege. If these charges pass, will the courts then do their job and force the attorney general to do his? I wish I had more confidence in the public’s grasp of the importance of the issues in this case. Well, at least some of the cartoonists have a good handle on it:

For me, seeing cartoons like this on a daily basis provides hope that rational thought and common sense may yet prevail. November will tell if my hope is illusory or if we still have a future as a nation.

The Supreme Court yesterday, in a much-anticipated ruling, upheld the central feature of the Arizona illegal immigration law that has been the center of controversy for the last few years. Yes, the Court did strike down other features of the law, but they were minor in comparison to the provision that allows police to check the immigration status of citizens who happen to be stopped under suspicion of breaking a law. Although the Obama administration, spearheaded by Eric Holder of the Department of Justice [it still has the name, but not the substance of the name] has branded the law racist, the phoniness of that charge was laid bare in this decision. Why? The Court ruled unanimously in favor of that so-called controversial provision—both liberals and conservatives on the Court declared it valid, which, in a sane world, would put to rest the idea that racism was behind the law.

In my view, the entire law should have been upheld, and Justice Scalia wrote a stinging dissent making that very point. He stated that the law didn’t create anything new, but simply mirrored federal laws that were not being carried out by the federal government, thereby forcing the state of Arizona to try to make up the difference. States have a right to defend themselves. The three most conservative justices all agreed on this.

So what did the Obama administration do immediately upon hearing of the Court’s decision? The Department of Homeland Security [another agency that is quickly becoming an oxymoron] suspended its cooperative agreement with Arizona for border security. In effect, it has said the state is now on its own in protecting its borders and dealing with illegal immigration. Further, it has published a phone number for Arizona citizens to call to report on police attempting to do their duty. Obama and his people have decided that Arizona is the criminal and must be punished. The federal government will do even less of its job in the future. It will refuse to execute the law of the land.

This is almost breathtaking, if you really stop to consider what’s happening at the highest levels of our government. In a series of actions and/or inactions, the president has trampled the entire concept of separation of powers and has taken it upon himself to be the government, purposely ignoring the constitutional limitations of his office and relegating the legislative and judicial branches to irrelevance. Here are examples of what he has done lately:

• He has adamantly refused to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, duly passed by Congress, and has declared his approval of same-sex marriage.
• He has unilaterally suspended the rules on how to handle illegal immigrants aged 16-30 and substituted his own agenda, again without any congressional act to authorize it.
• He has misused the right of executive privilege to shield himself and his attorney general from potentially embarrassing information in documents needed by a congressional committee investigating Fast and Furious.
• Fast and Furious itself was an out-of-control operation by the Justice Department that led to hundreds of deaths with guns deliberately passed to organized crime in Mexico.
• Now, with the denial of help for Arizona in policing illegal immigration, the president once again has violated his own oath of office, which says that he pledges to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution and the laws passed under its authority.

And it’s all politics. Hispanics, on the whole, seem to be in favor of his “new” rules for illegal immigrants, despite the damage this does to the rule of law. He has solidified their votes for November. His “evolving” view on same-sex marriage mollified a segment of society that has money to burn in the upcoming election. He now has greater access to those funds.

With this man, everything is political. But why should anyone be surprised? He was weaned on corrupt Chicago politics. He never was a genuine hope and change kind of guy; it was all political theater that worked amazingly well in the wake of a disillusioned electorate that, without thinking rationally, just wanted to take out its angst on Republicans. Few listened to the voices that were warning of the true nature of the candidate. I only hope eyes have now been opened and ears are more willing to hear.

America doesn’t crown monarchs, and when a president tries to act like one, the voters can let him know they won’t abide such arrogance. At least the voters who aren’t on the public dole won’t abide it. Are there still enough of those to make a difference?

I was thinking I’d skip writing about Fast and Furious, Eric Holder, contempt of Congress votes, and executive privilege today, but there’s at least one point I didn’t cover last week. And I may need to amend a comment I made about this being policy-oriented and not political in nature. Since the invocation of executive privilege seems to be inappropriate in this type of situation, it’s quite possible there’s a rather embarrassing revelation that could come from inspecting the documents. We’re told they’re not hiding anything, but the argument, in this case, is not very persuasive. It kind of reminds me of someone else in a similar situation:

Speculation has been circulating that the real reason for the operation was to push for stricter gun-control laws. In other words, blame the people who sold the guns rather than the government agents who allowed those guns to get in the hands of drug dealers, etc. What facts might lend themselves to this interpretation? Well, first of all, there was no attempt to trace where these guns were going. If you’re planning a sting operation, shouldn’t you be on top of the path of these weapons? Second, there was no coordination with the Mexican government. Apparently, they didn’t even know this was going on. When you take all of this together, it doesn’t look good for Holder or his boss.

On other matters, this administration has boasted of its secrets when it shouldn’t have said anything. Now we see just the opposite. Again, it makes one wonder why:

The Democrats are circling the wagons in the same way they did with Bill Clinton when he faced impeachment. But there are some cracks in the solid wall. A number of high-profile Democrats, including the governor and a senator from West Virginia, have decided not to attend the Democrat convention. They don’t want to be identified with a president who is not popular in their state. The rest of the Democrat party will try to say this is all a Republican political maneuver, but they are ignoring one salient fact:

As I said last week, and will repeat again, this is much worse than Watergate. If the media had any semblance of integrity, this could lead to the resignation of the attorney general and could possibly bring down a presidency. The big difference: they hated Nixon; they love Obama.