[Fox] Charles Krauthammer told viewers Tuesday on "Special Report with Bret Baier" that the House Republican plan to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is a "waste of energy" since there is no way it will pass in the Senate.
"This is not going to end well," said Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor. "Republicans have demonstrated, if they've demonstrated anything, Republicans in the Congress have shown that they have no ability to conduct successful investigations under this administration. Everything they've touched has failed or backfired."
These impeachment proceedings began after the decision last week by the Department of Justice not to press charges against Lois Lerner or anyone else at the IRS for the targeting of conservative groups.
When that decision was made, the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Jason Chaffetz, tweeted, "A clear message must be sent that using government agencies to stifle citizens' freedom of speech will not be tolerated. "
Krauthammer said that if the intent of this attempt to impeach Koskinen is to restore confidence in the IRS, the only way Republicans can do that is by winning the White House in 2016.
A Republican in the White House, according to Krauthammer, could eventually appoint a new IRS commissioner, which would have "an uncompromised DOJ" to prosecute Lois Lerner."
#1
No. Doing nothing is unacceptable. Make the Dems and Obama go on record defending this POS and his corrupt bureaucracy. When the GOP takes control of the WH - clean this sty out
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/28/2015 7:25 Comments ||
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#2
Anyone who works towards impeaching him will be the subject of random annual IRS audits.
#3
Koskinen and Lerner are poster boys and girls for what is wrong with government and it's absolute total arrogance. One need look no further for proof of arrogance, corruption, and partisan gestapo tactics.
#5
The Hammer is a psychiatrist by trade. Identifying the insane is generally a rote process and fairly straight forward. Finding a cure is considerably more time consuming and difficut. I enjoy his intellect and generally accurate observations.
#8
I used to almost always agree with the Hammer on issues. Lately he's been railing against upsetting the status quo and appearing partisan. The other side must love his change
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/28/2015 8:54 Comments ||
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#10
The House has enough votes to proceed with impeachment. However, in the Senate the Republicans would need to come up with 2/3rds, or 66 votes to convict. As I recall they have 56 votes, and not the hope of an ice cube in Hell of getting any Democrats to join them.
Finally, if the impeachment did not lead to conviction, how could a subsequent criminal trial possibly go forward?
#12
I think it's been suggested here before: defund the IRS. Republicans could refuse to fund anything until they get something from Baraq. But they won't do that either so, yes, DC has become Kabuki Town.
Their path forward is simple. Run Congress under its regular rules. Pass individual appropriation bills that reduce (gradually) the size of governemnt. Let the bammer veto them. Force the donks to then run on their record. Get more pubs in Congress.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
10/28/2015 13:26 Comments ||
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#14
I won't even get the chance to hassle the IRS hacks during my annual tax seminar in a few weeks - the IRS has bailed for the second year in a row.
Which is okay - I still have the Mass. DOR to kick around...
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
10/28/2015 14:31 Comments ||
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#19
He should be put on trial, not just impeached, but I'll take impeachment in the short term.
The IRS should be disbanded (to massive applause from everybody) and the tax returns can be sent to the states who will then forward the Federal funds to the Treasury (after collecting some kind of processing fee).
Once that is done the Federal tax code can be repaired.
#20
During the cold war I had the utmost respect for Krauthammer. Now, not so much. The Impeachment should be phrased in such a way so that anyone that votes against is clearly voting for audits against political opponents. Phrase it correctly, let the nation know how it was phrased and what is at stake, and make sure that it is an open vote on the record.
[PJmedia] "We can now fully understand what many minority communities have been saying for a number of years..." Holder redux. When will we ever be free of these grifters ?
The NY Times weighs in on concealed carry.
The more that sensational gun violence afflicts the nation, the more that the myth of the vigilant citizen packing a legally permitted concealed weapon, fully prepared to stop the next mass shooter in his tracks, is promoted.
This foolhardy notion of quick-draw resistance, however, is dramatically contradicted by a research project showing that, since 2007, at least 763 people have been killed in 579 shootings that did not involve self-defense. Tellingly, the vast majority of these concealed-carry, licensed shooters killed themselves or others rather than taking down a perpetrator. Mistakes will happen in a free society, but the effort is worth the risks.
The death toll includes 29 mass killings of three or more people by concealed carry shooters who took 139 lives; 17 police officers shot to death, and — in the ultimate contradiction of concealed carry as a personal safety factor — 223 suicides. Compared with the 579 non-self-defense, concealed-carry shootings, there were only 21 cases in which self-defense was determined to be a factor.
The tally by the Violence Policy Center, a gun safety group, is necessarily incomplete because the gun lobby has been so successful in persuading gullible state and national legislators that concealed carry is essential to public safety, thus blocking the extensive data collection that should be mandatory for an obvious and severe public health problem. For that reason, the center has been forced to rely largely on news accounts and limited data in 38 states and the District of Columbia. A moment of silence for the statistics that can't be twisted. Shame you can't use pliant government officials who wish to be the only ones who can be armed.
More complete research, unimpeded by the gun lobby, would undoubtedly uncover a higher death toll. But this truly vital information is kept largely from the public. A Gallup poll this month found 56 percent of Americans said the nation would be safer if more people carried concealed weapons.
Clearly, concealed carry does not transform ordinary citizens into superheroes. Rather, it compounds the risks to innocent lives, particularly as state legislatures, bowing to the gun lobby, invite more citizens to venture out naïvely with firearms in more and more public places, including restaurants, churches and schools. I do not think the legislative intent is to transform anyone into superheroes, but rather to provide an additional safety factor with regard to violence crime.
College campuses are the latest goal for the gun lobby — a perverse marketing campaign after the gun massacre that took 10 lives this month at a community college in Oregon.
Recent concealed-carry excesses include legal shooters charged by the police with recklessly pegging a few wild shots at shoplifters and other nonviolent suspects they see fleeing on public streets. This is dangerous vigilantism that endangers communities, the police warn, not the mythic self-defense being peddled as concealed carry.
#3
The death toll includes 29 mass killings of three or more people by concealed carry shooters who took 139 lives; 17 police officers shot to death,
I am unaware of mass shootings carried out by CC Permit holders.
#5
More importantly, legal concealed carry causes the bad guys to have to consider armed resistance a possibility ... which should simply reduce the number of times a violent act is even taken.
Hard to measure that in statistics though: "Jim was *thinking* about robbing the gas station, but then decided against it because the guy behind the counter may have been armed."
#7
And how many times does a perp brandish a knife or even a gun, and when the CC holder draws, simply run away? Many such incidents don't get reported to the police.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/28/2015 11:02 Comments ||
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#8
This is the NYT, hard facts are hard to swallow and hard to bend, so let's use some other made-up stuff that we can pass off as factual. There, that didn't hurt, did it?
#10
Counting suicides is stupid. Those 223 would have killed themselves in some other way if they didn't have a gun. Ask Australia, you'll hear anti-gun folks say Gun related suicide numbers went down but they don't mention all suicides which more or less stayed level.
#11
Darn near 6 out of 10 Americans believe carrying a gun makes our nation safer. But if weren't for that sneaky "gun lobby" carrying a gun would be illegal.
#12
Yeah, concealed carry is a quick-draw fantasy, but only if you watched "Taxi Driver" too many times. In reality, it is more like carrying tools in your trunk in case of car trouble.
Still, 763 people is a lot. Make quite a pile on the front lawn, eh? But wait, that's since 2007 so it's only about 100 per year roughly. A much smaller pile.
But since there are 50 states (or 57 depending...) that's only a pile of two. Not that big a deal. Especially compared to the 377 people who died of gunshot so far this year in Chicago. (2,139 shot & wounded if you were wondering) I'm willing to wager the percentage of shooters with a concealed carry permit is vanishingly small.
The first step to securing our rights is to truly understand who is at fault when a crime occurs.
Brad Fitzpatrick
October 27, 2015
Several of the current frontrunners for the 2016 Democratic presidential candidacy have emphasized their support for legislation that would allow individuals impacted by a gun crime to seek financial compensation from firearms manufacturers in civil court. In short, in the event of a shooting gun companies could be held liable. Many gun control proponents are, as you might imagine, in favor of this legislation.
Anti-gun legislation is nothing new, but perhaps this particular topic sheds light on a much broader and more dangerous attitude regarding firearms and crime in America—many voters seem to have a great deal of trouble identifying who is really at blame when a gun is mishandled.
Let me provide a simpler example. Several months ago, I was researching the best holsters to wear while exercising and, during the course of that research, I came upon a running forum that addressed the topic. A young woman—new to running but familiar with firearms—asked which holsters were best to wear while exercising. It seemed a logical question to me; runners are frequently the target of assaults, and many holsters simply wouldn’t stand up to the abuse. Instead of addressing the woman’s question, the responders took this as an opportunity to attack her. The first response to her question read, “Maybe if you think you need a gun you should find another place to run.”
There was general agreement with the “find another place to run” response on the forum, but that comment infuriated me. Although it may seem benign, this is the type of attitude that abdicates criminals for their actions and levels a measure of guilt on victims. There are several fundamental problems with the “maybe you should find another place to run” attitude, and here are a few:
Violence Only Occurs in “Bad” Places: The notion that you know where crime will occur is absurd. Sure, there are statistics that show that certain areas have higher rates of crime than other areas, but that doesn’t mean you are completely safe in your suburban neighborhood where folks are watering their lawn or shooting baskets in the driveway with their kids. Crime is everywhere, in every community, good and bad, poor and rich.
Avoidance Is An Effective Means Of Crime Prevention: No one in their right mind (save first responders, who risk their lives for others on a daily basis) would seek out violent confrontations. But don’t mistakenly believe that avoiding crime will protect you from crime. One of the most frightening things about violent encounters is that they happen at any time, anywhere—at your kid’s soccer game, while you’re on vacation, when you’re walking from your driveway to your front door. If your sole protection against crime is avoiding crime you will fail.
Carrying a Gun means You’re Looking for Trouble: I don’t carry a gun looking for a conflict. I carry a gun because I don’t want to be a victim of violence, and if every other option is closed off to me then my last resort will be a firearm. Whether I’m at the store, on the road, or, yes, jogging on a trail through a park, I carry a gun because I may have no other option but to use it.
The Victim of Violence Shares in the Blame: Let’s be very clear about this one—when a crime occurs it isn’t the fault of the gun company, the community, the current economical condition, or the victim. It is the fault of the criminal alone. The victim of a crime isn’t at fault because she ran in the wrong area, because she got lost in the wrong neighborhood, or because she stopped at a rest area on the highway alone at three in the morning. Instead of warning victims against running where there is a remote chance that a criminal will attack them, let’s issue this warning instead—if you are a criminal and you choose to harm another person be prepared for them to exercise their Second Amendment rights, which may mean that you get shot. Magazine restrictions, civil litigation against firearms companies, and warnings against running in certain areas of town are all methods by which the uninformed point the finger of blame at law-abiding citizens. The battle for gun rights starts with a clear understanding of who is at fault when violence occurs, and that is criminals.
#2
What is the conduit from the gun companies to the criminals? I mean besides fast and furious?
Law abiding gun owners are being slimed by the criminals.
Whatever ATF is doing it isn't working. If the gun companies / channel (last person to legitimately own it) had to pay a fine for three times the profit on each gun confiscated in a crime maybe they would be picker who they sold them too and how they locked them up.
Theft? Put a biometric lock so that they are useless. The last legitimate seller can change it to the new guy. Is the new guy sketchy? Don't sell it.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
10/28/2015 16:25 Comments ||
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He's a former drama teacher, a strident feminist, and has already gone viral as the “sexiest Prime Minister in the world.” It's almost as if he was made for a BuzzFeed article.
With youthful looks, an effeminate voice, and a fondness for purple beads, Trudeau embodies a newly progressive Canada. He attended college amid the first wave of identity politics and political correctness in Canadian society, and he takes office amid the second. His rhetoric would not be out of place among the advocates of safe spaces and trigger warnings on campus. But he isn't running a student union – he's running the country.
Trudeau's image often seems to be a calculated attempt to channel the feel-good vibe of the worst elements of millennial hipsterdom. He spent his campaign attending pride parades, taking selfies with topless hippies (yes, that actually happened), and making youth-friendly pledges like his promise to legalise marijuana.
One might say that Trudeau is just trying to show his tolerance. But as a libertarian, I'm not so sure. If he truly believed in freedom, he wouldn't have pledged his party's support for Bill C-51, which enables the warrantless surveillance of Canadian citizens. Nor would he endorse the smiling authoritarianism of modern feminists.
The problem with wearing the clothes of my generation's maddest social justice warriors is that to do it properly, you can't just repeat their feel-good messages. Their authoritarian streak, concealed beneath welcoming messages of tolerance and diversity, will eventually rub off on you too.
Take his interview with the Toronto Star, where he stated that he was “proud to be a feminist” and promised to tackle “video game misogyny” as well as “misogyny in certain types of music.” Like many before him, Trudeau gullibly swallowed progressives' spiel about tolerance, and ended up calling for the censorship of pop culture. Widespread ridicule was the inevitable result.
Even more embarrassingly, Trudeau felt the need to comment on GamerGate, the push for more ethics and less progressive-led censorship in the world of video games. It's certainly an important controversy, but I'm not sure a world leader should involve themselves in hashtag wars. Even more so if they don't understand them – and Trudeau, who ended up accusing thousands of innocent gamers of being misogynists, clearly doesn't.
Now that the Prime Minister from Tumblr has been elected, we have to wonder how long it'll be before he decides he decides it's hip to bring back 1950s-style censorship of entertainment. Or maybe he'll establish “safe spaces” on Parliament Hill first? Or say we need to be more considerate about the feelings of Islamic extremists? Oh wait, that already happened.
Trudeau can't keep pandering to authoritarian progressives without eventually following through with policy. I suspect that if Trudeau takes Canada into a new era of censorship and control-freakery, it'll happen by accident, following the deceptively welcoming messages of social justice warriors. Trudeau will stumble into tyranny with a big grin on his face, an indecipherable soundbite about inclusion and diversity, and a thousand retweets on his smartphone.
#3
aS PER russia today, Russia is seemingly glad that Canada is working to protect her independence from the US by newly elected PM Justin pulling the Canucks out of Syria.
Compare that to US Politicos whom are working stridently to proudly surrender US sovereignty + independence to OWG-NWO + NAU.
#2
The Bureau hasn't even gone after State Department enablers that obviously circumvented the regulations and laws. Non-DoS or gov't employee Sid Bloomenthal who had classified media in his possession has not even been indicted. A serious effort would have surely seen at least one of these facilitators indicted by this time.
Arrest and charge somebody, then I'll be a believer.
#6
Talk about an organization that has almost no transparancy! Like Lyubyanka officials, they are trained to respond to every question, "we can't talk about that, it's under investigation." I have a hunch that most of their work, like the ill-famed FBI lab, is just hit and miss. But who can tell?
#7
Suppose one were to model the feds not so much as a giant and sluggish bureaucracy with a king atop it, as a collection of agencies (like the noble families) allying and breaking alliances with each other while jockeying for power. (I understand that several unexpected agencies have acquired their own para-military forces.) Does this describe events better?
Posted by: James ||
10/28/2015 12:05 Comments ||
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h/t Instapundit
...We are in the midst of a national movement for deincarceration and decriminalization. That movement rests on the following narrative: America's criminal justice system, it is said, has become irrationally draconian, ushering in an era of so-called "mass incarceration." The driving force behind "mass incarceration," the story goes, is a misconceived war on drugs.
...The most poisonous claim in the dominant narrative is that our criminal justice system is a product and a source of racial inequity. The drug war in particular is said to be infected by racial bias. "Mass incarceration" is allegedly destroying black communities by taking fathers away from their families and imposing crippling criminal records on released convicts. Finally, prison is condemned as a huge waste of resources.
Nothing in this dominant narrative is true. Prison remains a lifetime achievement award for persistence in criminal offending. Drug enforcement is not the driving factor in the prison system, violent crime is.
Events of the last weeks have made it clear that four things are now probably going to happen. It's possible to use this information to more accurately predict who the next president of the United States will be.
1. Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for the 2016 presidential election.
2. President Obama has been pushed into a re-engagement in the Middle East and Af/Pak to counter Putin;
3. There will be growing tension with China in the South China Sea; and
4. Obamacare will become a political embarrassment and potential issue in the 2016 elections.
1) a nuke will be let off by an islamofascist somewhere. Hopefully among their own kind and not near us
2) north korea will implode and cease to exist. South Korea will become the interim government for both koreas.
3) CHina keeps building that island in the south china sea. the US does not do anything except sabre rattle (it cannot afford to)
4) the UN keeps renting 5-star hotels for conferences on climate change and forcing the developed world into ridiculous agreements to hobble their economy
5) Putin does something really outrageous like invade Ukraine and take it all back. NATO growls but doesnt do anything
#2
Carson will win the pub nomination and select Rubio as his running mate. The wife of the first black president will be defeated in the Presidential race of 2016 by her second black presidential opponent. Trey Gowdy will be nominated as U.S. Attorney General. Lois Lerner and John Koskinen will be mauled by rabies infected black bears whilst camping in the Great Smokey Mountains.
#3
The fundamental problem for Ben is that he's not 'evil and ruthless' enough to bring the bureaucracy to heel. He'll just be a bit of a figurehead while the Beltway cabal keep moving along concentrating more power and money.
#4
He might not be evil and ruthless, but he does have the skills to crack open some skulls, root around in the brain, and cut out anything that has gone wrong. A new approach to politics, and long overdue.
#5
All things considered, America’s foreign policy foes would prefer a [P]resident Hillary to any likely Republican president because her ascendancy would represent the third and possibly the fourth terms of “[P]resident Obama.”... They’ll get eight more years to continue what they’ve done in the last eight. Given this prospect, they should rationally let up and avoid precipitating a foreign policy debacle that could sink a Clinton campaign.
I suspect financial support to the Arkansas Mafia would also be in the offing, given past performance.
#6
Federal unions have to be reined in. The principle that if you work hard you get promoted and if you retire in place you get booted has to be reintroduced into the federal workplace. The deficit has to be brought under control and the economy needs to grow. Well paid manufacturing jobs need to be brought back to the USA.
Hard-ball Trump vs. love-ball Dr. Carson? Time will tell.
What is love-ball? "I feel your pain. I understand your point of view. But the answer is no."
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
10/28/2015 13:50 Comments ||
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#7
1. Hillary wins her nomination but she's lackluster (like Dole, and Kerry and a few other It's my time candidates). Trump and Carson lose their lead and Cruz gets a large enough chunk of their folks to get the nomination. He picks Carson in an attempt to gain some fraction of the Black vote and work towards racial healing.
2. US meddles with China in the South China sea just enough to annoy them and get chased away when the POTUS has no desire to fight
3. Ultra right parties start winning elections throughout Europe and the powers that be start talking about not allowing them in even if they have to change the Parliamet (as is happening in Portugual I think with a leftist party)
4. US has boots on the ground in Iraq but again the POTUS has no stomach for a real fight so the combat troops are used primarily to provide targeting for air strikes. This pushes ISIS back a bit, avoids any hospitals being blown up, and allows the troops to be withdrawn before the elections start to heat up
5. Cruz wins the election with a fairly large margin. Hopefully enough to ensure control of both houses and get some things done.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Fox] Charles Krauthammer told viewers Tuesday on "Special Report with Bret Baier" that the House Republican plan to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is a "waste of energy" since there is no way it will pass in the Senate.
