Sunday, June 30, 2013



The Mood of 1980

Next year could be a frightening one, in the fashion of 1979–80.

The developing circumstances of our withdrawal from Afghanistan conjure up Vietnam 1975, with all the refugees, reprisals, humiliation, and emboldened enemies on the horizon, though this time there is no coastline for a flotilla of boat people to launch from. The Obama administration is debating no-fly zones over Syria; more likely, it will have the same discussion over Afghanistan soon, once the Taliban drops the diplomatic veneer and comes back into town.

Because of the failure to negotiate a single residual base in Iraq, Iran has appropriated a vast air corridor to the Middle East. John Kerry speaks sonorously to Russia and China, but apparently assumes that diplomacy follows gentlemanly New England yacht protocols, the right of way given to the more sober, judicious, and pontificating.

When Obamacare comes on line full bore, I think the American people could be quite depressed over the strange things they encounter. The economy offers only marginal encouragement, given that unemployment is still high and growth low; printing money at a record pace is not sustainable. Only gas and oil production is encouraging — and that is despite, not because of, administration efforts.

The Snowden extradition affair in and of itself could be small potatoes, but it takes on enormous iconic importance when the Chinese and Russians feel no compunction about publicly snubbing the administration — with North Korea, Iran, and many in the Middle East watching and drawing the conclusion that there are no consequences to getting on the bad side of the United States. Or perhaps they no longer see a bad side at all and consider us complacent neutral observers. Red lines, deadlines, ultimatums, “make no mistake about it,” “let me be perfectly clear,” the Nobel Peace Prize — all that is the stuff of yesteryear, its currency depleted by the years of speaking quite loudly while carrying a tiny stick.

All of the above take place while the Benghazi, IRS, AP/Fox, and NSA scandals are thought to be best handled by simple neglect, media lethargy, and amnesia on the part of the people.

We are back to the future, with the same old, same old sort of Carteresque engineered malaise.

Monday, June 24, 2013

The EPA Plants a Story - Agenda Science



EPA Agenda Science = IRS Targeting... winning by any means!

The EPA Plants a Story 
And in the process poisons the public debate about fracking.
By Jillian Kay Melchior, National Review

Far be it from the Environmental Protection Agency to admit it was wrong — but late last week, it subtly withdrew from a once-flashy investigation regarding whether hydraulic fracturing contaminated groundwater in the tiny town of Pavillion, Wyo. Never has backpedaling been such an effective form of transportation.

In December 2011, the EPA released a draft report of a study it conducted in Wyoming, eliciting a furor of media attention. The New York Times reported that “chemicals used to hydraulically fracture rocks in drilling for natural gas in a remote valley in central Wyoming are the likely cause of contaminated local water supplies, federal regulators said.” The Financial Times ran a story headlined “EPA blames fracking for Wyoming pollution.” National Public Radio announced that “for the first time, federal environmental regulators have made a direct link between the controversial drilling practice known as hydraulic fracturing and groundwater contamination.” And the Salt Lake Tribune ran an editorial subtitled “EPA report shows water poisoned.”

In reality, the study conclusively proved no such thing. The research was fundamentally flawed, with the conclusion being derived less from science than from politics.

For starters, the EPA’s study was released in preliminary form, and it was never peer-reviewed. In fact, the EPA went out of its way to ensure that Wyoming’s governor and state agencies didn’t have a chance to look it over before it became publicly available. And when the study was released, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management both expressed significant concerns about the EPA’s conclusions.

Had professional scientists had a chance to review the EPA’s preliminary study before it hit the headlines, they doubtless would have complained that only four samples were examined — not nearly enough to be scientifically definitive.

Also, the EPA had failed to find contamination in the existing water sources in Pavillion, so it drilled its own wells — but went far deeper into the earth, into natural hydrocarbon-bearing foundations. As Encana, the developer, wrote at the time, “Natural gas developers didn’t put the natural gas at the bottom of the EPA’s deep monitoring wells, nature did.” So when the test results showed hydrocarbons, that said nothing about fracking and much about the EPA’s scientific sloppiness.
Furthermore, the methods and materials used to drill the EPA’s sample wells may well have introduced chemical contaminates.

And different labs reached contradictory conclusions about the small samples the EPA collected. One lab even reported that the “blank” sample used solely for comparison purposes was tainted.
But the details of how recklessly the EPA conducted its study were omitted in many of the sensational reports that followed the draft report’s release.

And the few journalistic accounts that acknowledged the study’s problems were dismayed about the implications of its very public debut. Wyoming’s Casper Tribune wrote in an editorial: “You think Pavillion water is a mess? Try setting the record straight if the EPA’s report is eventually changed or discredited after scientific review. . . . The EPA may have poisoned the public debate by releasing its [preliminary] report.”

That assessment is proving prophetic. EPA reps said this week that although the agency “stands behind its work and data,” the study won’t be finalized, and the Obama administration won’t rest on the report’s conclusions. That’s a nice talking point, but if the Pavillion study could actually stand up to scrutiny, you can bet the EPA would be using it to act — and to act boldly.

But in the end, it didn’t matter much whether fracking had actually contaminated Wyoming’s water; having the public think it did sufficed for the EPA. So go the cynical politics of an agency with an agenda.

— Jillian Kay Melchior is a Thomas L. Rhodes Fellow for the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Lies Subvert Democracy



Victor Davis Hanson, National Review
Truth is the lifeblood of democracy. Without honesty, the foundations of consensual government crumble.

If the Internal Revenue Service acts unlawfully, our system of citizens’ computing their own taxes implodes.

Yet Lois Lerner, one of the IRS’s top officials, would not answer simple questions about her agency’s conduct during congressional testimony, instead pleading the Fifth Amendment. Any taxpayer who tried that with an IRS auditor would end up fined, if not in jail.

Almost everything that IRS officials have reported about the agency’s unlawful targeting of conservative groups has proven false. IRS malfeasance was not limited only to the Cincinnati office, as alleged, but followed directives sent from higher-ups in Washington. Lois Lerner confessed to the scandal only through a rigged public query by a planted questioner, designed to preempt an upcoming critical inspector general’s report. There is legitimate dispute over both the number and the purpose of former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman’s visits to the White House and nearby executive office buildings, but he did his credibility no good by snidely remarking to Congress that at least one of those visits was to take his kids to the White House Easter Egg Roll.

Attorney General Eric Holder — who had already been held in contempt by the House of Representatives for declining to turn over internal Justice Department documents in the earlier Fast and Furious scandal — swore to Congress that he had no knowledge of any effort to go after individual reporters. But according to an official Justice Department statement, Holder had in fact signed off on the search warrant to monitor the communications of Fox News reporter James Rosen. In other words, the attorney general of the United States under oath misled — or lied to — Congress.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was recently asked by Senator Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) whether the National Security Agency collected the phone and e-mail records of millions of ordinary Americans. Clapper said that it did not. That, too, was an untruth. Clapper’s supporters argued that Wyden should not have asked in public a sensitive question that threatened the needed secrecy of the program. But Clapper did not demur or request a closed session. He instead found it easier to deceive, later dubbing his response the “least untruthful” answer possible.

Washington reporters and spin doctors argue whether newly appointed national-security adviser Susan Rice knowingly lied when she wove a yarn about a single video maker’s being responsible for spontaneous violence that led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. Yet no one disputes that her televised accounts — as well as those of both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton — were untrue, and demonstrably so at the time. Yet Rice was promoted, not censured, following her performance.

Last November, White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked point-blank whether the administration had altered CIA-produced intelligence memos to fit its narrative of a spontaneous riot in Benghazi. Carney answered unequivocally that the administration had made only one stylistic change. That, too, was not accurate. In fact, there were at least twelve different drafts that reflected substantial ongoing changes by the administration of the original CIA talking points.

Former EPA director Lisa Jackson created a fake e-mail identity — “Richard Windsor” — to conduct official business off the record. But Jackson did not stop with that ruse. She turned Richard Windsor into an entire mythical persona, who supposedly took online tests and was given awards by the EPA — a veritable Jackson doppelgänger who was certified as “a scholar of ethical behavior” by no less than the agency that the unethical Jackson oversaw.

Deception is now institutionalized in the Obama administration. It infects almost every corner of the executive branch, eroding the trust necessary for the IRS, the Department of Justice, our security agencies, and the president’s official spokesman — sabotaging the public trust required for democracy itself.

What went wrong with the Obama administration?

For one thing, there is no longer a traditional adversarial media in Washington. Spouses and siblings of executives at the major television networks are embedded within the administration. Unlike with Watergate, the media now hold back, believing that any hard-hitting reporting of ongoing scandals would only weaken Obama, whose vision of America the vast majority of reporters share. But that understood exemption only encourages greater lack of candor.
There is also utopian arrogance in Washington that justifies any means necessary to achieve exalted ends of supposed fairness and egalitarianism. If one has to tell a lie to stop the Tea Party or Fox News, then it is not seen by this administration as a lie.

Barack Obama swept up an entire nation in 2008 with his hope-and-change promises of a new honesty and transparency. That dream is now in shambles, destroyed by the most untruthful cast since Richard Nixon, H. R. Haldeman, Ron Ziegler, and John Dean left Washington in disgrace almost 40 years ago — after likewise subverting the very government they had pledged to serve.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His new book, The Savior Generals, is just out from Bloomsbury Press. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com. © 2013 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Free stuff...

Isn't this the "game" that this version of big government plays, get the "mopes" hooked on free stuff. Then they'll naturally shy away from making tough personal decisions and taking responsibility. They don't care how big or how intrusive government can be as long as the conveyer belt is running... besides, you can always "game" big government because of how big, inefficient and staffed by "mopes" it becomes and is.

Sunday, June 09, 2013

Anyone notice that this is the second SoCal islamic kid to go  on a rampage this year. The first in Orange County killed a kid (among others) raised in Morongo Valley on his way to work... and now we have the Santa Monica killer... channeling the Boston Bros... Why aren't we hearing anything? There is no need to over-react, but lets talk about it!

I don't agree with much of what Eric Holder says... but this one thing, we are cowards.
Consolidation...


What is the end-game?
It's not American exceptionalism... but it is about world order!

Friday, June 07, 2013

We're not done...



We're just seeing the beginning of all of this... there'll be more whistleblowers coming forward.
BIG GOVERNMENT
is the problem and a nightmare when coupled with abuse and vengeance ....

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Trust in the IRS, RIP



Trust in the IRS, RIP
Contributed by Mike Walker, Col. USMC (retired)
All,

Few abuses of governmental power can match those of today’s IRS. The chillingly illegal targeting of Americans exercising their right to free speech and assembly certainly harkens to earlier examples of terrible abuse by our Government.

J. Edgar Hoover’s secret FBI spying on political opponents immediately comes to mind, as do the attempts to silence Daniel Ellsberg during the Pentagon Papers affair. The heartless disregard for the rights and welfare of largely powerless American by the IRS also reminds us of the CIA mindset when it used American GIs as Guinea pigs during their LSD experiments a half century ago.

But the IRS abuses are worse for at least two reasons. The first is that the scope of the targeting was far beyond anything seen before: it was truly a systemic nation-wide assault. Let there be no mistake, it was a police action designed to suppress dissent as the IRS punitively defined it.

The second shocking characteristic of these crimes is the victims. I cannot recall another case where the Government clandestinely attacked Main Street America. These victims were not power players like Hoover’s enemies, or a small number of brave outspoken individuals like Ellsberg and his followers, this was going after your neighbor, your coworker, a friend or family member who posed no undue threat to anyone or anything. They were targeted because those with power wanted to silence their political voice. The actions by the IRS were despicable.

That this disease in the IRS starts at the very top of the organization is abundantly clear by simply reviewing a few short facts:

 Shakespeare wrote that, “The truth will out.” When the IRS knew a bad report was going to be made public, it decided to deceive the American people by not forthrightly issuing a statement. Instead, in a fitting example of its sick organizational culture, it decided to manipulate the facts.

It wrote both a question and answer on the issue intentionally designed to make the IRS “look good” and then found a fawning member of the Washington media to play out the Q&A charade in public. The IRS then created the “rogue agent” myth to avert any blame. How sick is that?

Next, simply look to the “Three (non-) Talking Heads” of the IRS.

First you had former-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman who, when asked about his hundred plus trips to the White House over three years, gave a flippant answer that he recalled going to an Easter egg hunt. The message seemed clear: Shulman had nothing but contempt for the Congress and they were going to have to hunt for the truth without his help.

Next, you had Shulman’s replacement, Steven Miller, who told Congress on 3 May 2012 that, “There’s absolutely no targeting” even though senior IRS managers were aware of the targeting as early as June 2011 and, when caught, Miller had the gall to aver on 17 May 2013 that, “I answered all questions truthfully.” 

Again, this displayed the incompetence and arrogance of an IRS leadership that feels that when it intentionally deceived the Congress and the American people it was being truthful. That is pathetic.

Finally you have Lois Learner who stated that she did nothing wrong and then invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid possibly incriminating herself in some wrongdoing. Good grief!

No wonder a low-level IRS officer in Cincinnati recently stated that the superiors are trying to blame them and throw the little IRS guys “under the bus.”

The IRS in its current form is a cancer eating away at American body politic.
Tweaking and shuffling the internal “card decks” inside the IRS cannot cure this illness. In times of emergency, it sometimes necessary to figuratively “tear down the walls with an axe” and that time is now.

While Congress needs to clean up the tax law, the only comprehensive solution is to eradicate the IRS culture of unaccountable elitism in the senior leadership and the callous and apparently criminal targeting of American citizens by its employees.

The IRS – like the FBI, CIA and Pentagon in the past – needs to be thoroughly shaken up and cleaned up and the first step in cutting out the cancer is to immediately and completely dismantle the IRS non-profit department and assign its work elsewhere until a new healthy organization can be formed.

Mike