The Patriot Post Brief 5-13-2013

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The Patriot Post Brief 5-13-2013
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Tea Party Target

May 13, 2013

The Foundation

"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression." --James Madison

Essential Liberty

"A top IRS executive admitted Friday that, beginning in 2010, the agency had specifically targeted for possible audits conservative groups with the words 'tea party' or 'patriot' in their names. Then over the weekend, we learned that that the IRS also targeted groups that 'criticize how the country is being run.' In March 2012, then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told Congress that the IRS was not targeting conservatives in any way, a claim contradicted by the Associated Press, which reported that senior IRS officials were notified about the targeting of conservative groups back in 2011. ... Obama's two biggest second term agenda items are: 1) the implementation of Obamacare, which will largely be done by the IRS and the Department of Health and Human Services; and 2) passage of immigration reform, which will require convincing conservatives that the federal government will implement border security after the 11 million illegal immigrants currently in the country are granted amnesty. Both items were a tough sell before last Friday. Now they are even tougher." --Washington Examiner's Conn Carroll1

Political Futures

"On Friday, an Obama administration with an already appalling track record of scandals added an equally egregious revelation to the list. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) apologized for what they characterized as an 'inappropriate' targeting of tax-exempt conservative organizations, whose names included 'Tea Party' or 'Patriot,' during the 2012 election campaign. ... In other words, the Obama administration has another burgeoning scandal on its hands. Yet if one couples the administration's penchant for political calculation with a media determined to protect Obama and company at all costs, another scandal may be exactly what is needed right now. At the precise moment when the Benghazi atrocity is reaching critical mass, the public is forced to pay attention to yet another seeming abuse of power. As one scandal piles on top of another, including the green energy scandal, and the Fast and Furious gun running scandal, the White House intel leaks, the Benghazi coverup and now an abusive IRS -- all of which have engendered stonewalling from the White House, as well as ongoing investigations -- a pattern emerges. At this point, however, one can only hope the public has not reached 'information overload' and is not tuning events out on account of so much malfeasance occurring in such rapid succession. One can rest assured, the Obama administration is counting on this public uninterestedness. Obviously, such cynical calculations would have to be based on an almost unprecedented level of contempt for the public by the administration and its media water-carriers. There is little doubt that both the administration and the left-wing media establishment are more than up to the task." --columnist Arnold Ahlert2

Insight

"Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways; hence, there are an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, bonuses, subsidies, incentives, the progressive income tax, free education, the right to employment, the right to profit, the right to wages, the right to relief, the right to the tools of production, interest free credit, etc., etc. And it the aggregate of all these plans, in respect to what they have in common, legal plunder, that goes under the name of socialism." --French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

Government

"Hillary Clinton had denied ever seeing Ambassador Stevens's warnings about deteriorating security in Libya on the grounds that '1.43 million cables come to my office' -- and she can't be expected to see all of them, or any. ... Are murdered ambassadors like those 1.43 million cables she doesn't read? Just too many of them to keep track of? No. Only six had been killed in the history of the republic -- seven, if you include Arnold Raphel, who perished in General Zia's somewhat mysterious plane crash in Pakistan in 1988. ... Hicks is now America's head man in the country, and the cabinet secretary to whom he reports says, 'Leave a message after the tone and I'll get back to you before the end of the week.' Just to underline the difference here: Libya's head of government calls [whistleblower Gregory] Hicks, but nobody who matters in his own government can be bothered to. ... A real government would be scrambling furiously to see what it could do to rescue its people. ... Chris Stevens was the poster boy for Obama's view of the Arab Spring; he agreed with the president on everything that mattered. The only difference is that he wasn't in Vegas but out there on the front line, where Obama's delusions meet reality. Stevens believed in those illusions enough to die for them. One cannot say the same about the hollow men and women in Washington who sent him out there unprotected, declined to lift a finger when he came under attack, and in the final indignity subordinated his sacrifice to their political needs by lying over his corpse." --National Review's Mark Steyn3

Opinion in Brief

"Why couldn't the administration tolerate the idea that Benghazi was a planned terrorist event? Because they didn't want this attack dominating the headline with an election coming. It would open the administration to criticism of its intervention in Libya. ... In the weeks and months after the attack White House spokesmen said they were investigating the story, an internal review was under way. When the story blew open again, last week, they said it was too far in the past: 'Benghazi happened a long time ago.' Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, really said that. Think of that. They can't give answers when the story's fresh because it just happened, they're looking into it. Eight months later they don't have anything to say because it all happened so long ago. Think of how low your opinion of the American people has to be to think you can get away, forever, with that. ... It's a prime example of the stupidity of all-politics-all-the-time. You make some bad moves for political reasons. And then you suffer politically because you made bad moves." --columnist Peggy Noonan4

Re: The Left

"In the wake of Benghazi, the country endured an intense debate over how much free speech we could afford because of the savage intolerance of rioters half a world away. Obama and Clinton fueled this debate by incessantly blaming the video -- as if the First Amendment was the problem. Clinton and Obama both swore oaths to support and defend the Constitution. But after failing to support and defend Americans left to die, they blamed the Constitution for their failure. That's what difference it makes." --columnist Jonah Goldberg5